My love on this feast day, not an ordinary feast
day, but what none of them are. You heard these
words from the Lord in the Gospel from John,
which we had from our deacon. If anyone thirsts,
let him come to me and drink. That's why we're
here. He that believes on me out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water. The thirsty,
the thirsty come to drink to Christ. We have
to make sure that we're not drinking soda pop
spiritually and temporarily not thirsty. St.
Basil the Great, who died in the year 379, he
wrote this about the Holy Spirit. Through the
Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise,
our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our
return to the adoption as children, our liberty
to call Christ Lord, our being called ourselves
children of light, our sharing in eternal glory,
and in a word, our being brought into a state
of every blessing, both in this world and the
world to come. If someone asks you what it means
to be saved, I'll write this down in the next
bulletin. So you can have this for yourself.
Because that's what it means. That encompasses
everything. And it's the Holy Spirit that has
done that for us on Pentecost. Pentecost. The
festival, of course, of the giving of the Holy
Spirit. Not the law. That was in the old covenant.
But the Holy Spirit to each one of us. A great
miracle. A great mystery. Perhaps the greatest
of all the church feasts. But that's what I think.
when we celebrate any of them, that they're all
the greatest. Because they're all one. They're
all about Christ and about what he has done for
us. About that, what St. Basil said, what he
has done for us. Let's just briefly remember
and rejoice. Our Lord was conceived by the Holy
Spirit and the Virgin Mary on the Annunciation.
We celebrate that March 25th. And she says, let
it be. to me according to thy word. And the word
took flesh, and the Holy Mary became the new
temple, the new ark, the Theotokos, showing us
what it means to be human. But that wasn't enough
for our salvation, that event. God had more.
At Christmas, after we'd prepared for 40 days,
we celebrate that God is with us. born as a human,
as a child, born in a humble and a meek way,
giving us hope, a vision, an understanding for
our rebirth from this broken life, this sorrowful
life, to the kingdom of God, to life immortal,
God on earth. Literally incredible. And yet...
That was not yet enough for our salvation. God
had more for us. At Theophany, Jesus was baptized
into Jordan, again showing his great humility,
but also identifying himself with us sinners
and going into the water to sanctify it and everything
and to pull us up, to show us that we too can
be children of the Father when we hear that verse.
This is my beloved son. This is my beloved daughter
in whom I am well pleased that we become anointed.
But that feast day was not enough. God had more
planned for us. It seems strange to say that's
not enough for our salvation, but it wasn't.
Just over 50 days ago, well, exactly 50 days
ago, we celebrated Pascha. But a little before
that, a few days before that, we commemorated
the Lord's Passion. You saw the cross in the
middle of the church. You saw the icon, the shroud.
We remembered his glory, which the Lord says
is the cross. That's his glory. That's where
our sins were killed. That's where they were
abolished. That's where they were buried. And
his death and his invasion into the realm of
death, into the grave, filling even that up.
And you're going to hear that in the kneeling
prayers in a little bit. God still needed to
do more for us. You'd think that would be enough,
but it wasn't. And he ascended into heaven and
sat at the right hand of the Father. And our
human nature is enthroned there. And we have
confidence when we pray that Christ... is ruling
all things. But that's not enough. God needed
to do more. All those things fill us with wonder.
They are all mysteries. But it's the gift of
the Spirit that changes everything from a past
event to become real for us. to unite us to the
Father through the Son in the grace of the Holy
Spirit so that we can actually authentically
participate and be spiritually enlivened and
connected to the Annunciation, to the birth,
to the baptism, to the cross in which we die
and rise with Christ in our own baptism, and
to the ascension in which we are united to the
Lord. The Feast of Pentecost is not some celebration
of an event which took place centuries ago. It
is the celebration of what must happen and does
happen to us in the church today and now, on
this very day. Because we've all died and risen
with the Messiah King. We've received his Holy
Spirit. We were reminded of that last Sunday
when these people here were baptized. We had
such joy at that. We're at temples of the Spirit
now, like the Theotokos, but in a new and different
way. God's Spirit dwells in us. Can we not? How
would we possibly miss coming together to worship
and to praise God, knowing that, whenever there's
a Sunday liturgy? We are called together and
assembled by the Holy Spirit. We've received
the seal of the gift of the Spirit. Pentecost
has happened to us. And having been given this
gift, in which all those feast days now become
real for us, we can finally live the life of
the resurrection. We can actually say, Jesus
is Lord. Because without the Spirit, we can't
say, oh, we can say it in a hypocritical way,
but to say it and stake our lives on it with
no plan B, we have to have the Holy Spirit. We
are to bear fruit. We can't bear any fruit without
that Spirit. There's no liturgy. There's no priesthood.
There's no baptism. There's no ordination. There's
no love of our neighbor, much less love of our
enemy. We cannot do it without the Holy Spirit.
There's no true comfort for us in our sorrow
and in our fear. There's no healing for us in
our brokenness without the Spirit. There's no
peace. And if it's truly the Spirit, then there's
truth. There's truth, too. And the fruit of all
that... In each one of us, individually and collectively
as a parish. It's what St. Paul enumerates in
Galatians. Notice, he says, the fruit. Singular.
Like a basket of fruit. There may be different
kinds in there, but it's singular. Because we
should have them all. Love. Joy. Peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
and self -control. These are fruit of the Holy
Spirit. You might be a loving person, but you
have no truth. Then that love is compromised.
You might be a loving person, but you have no
self -control. You're impatient. then it's not
love from God. It's just something natural to
you which won't get you to heaven. Fruit, as
St. Paul calls this, needs tending. The plant
needs tending if it's going to bear fruit. That's
what we do when we leave here. We have our prayers.
We can't be Orthodox Christians without praying
in the morning and the evening. We can't. We're
just sort of skating through. We're not going
to bear fruit without consistent nurturing of
the plant, the heart, the soul. I'll end with
this quote from St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mount.
Lest you think I'm a serious reader of patristics.
No, I got this quote from Father Basil Rhodes.
The grace of the Holy Spirit, which is given
mystically to every Christian when he is baptized,
acts and manifested in proportion to our obedience
to the commandments of God. God's commandments,
not our own, God's commandments. That is, if
a Christian obeys the commandments of the Lord
more, grace acts in that person more. While if
he obeys them less, grace acts within him less,
and there is no fruit. Just as a spark, when
covered in the ashes of the fire, becomes increasingly
manifest as one removes the ashes. And the more
fire would you put, the more the fire burns.
So the grace that has been given to every Christian
through baptism is hidden in the heart. and yet
often covered by passions and sins, and we may
not even know it. However, the more a Christian
acts in obedience with the commandments of Christ,
the more that person is cleansed, and the more
the fire of divine grace flames in the heart,
illumines and deifies the Christian. This is
the greatest of feasts. To our Lord be honor
and glory now and ever to ages of ages.