May 11, 2008

Happy Birthday! Today we celebrate the birth of the Church. So Happy Birthday! Please turn to the person sitting nearest to you and wish them a Happy Birthday!

Some of you, I see, remembered to wear red today for the Holy Spirit. In our reading today from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians we heard these words: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit”. It is the Holy Spirit that unites us together in Christ.

In our liturgy for baptism each newly baptized person is anointed with oil in the sign of the cross. The priest then says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever. Amen.” Many of us afterwards think rarely about the Holy Spirit in our lives except for wearing red on Pentecost Sunday, which is quite fun to do.

The Holy Spirit is so intangible that the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives often eludes us. Most of us have rather a vague image of this Third Person of the Trinity except as tongues of fire and a sound like a mighty rushing wind.  Jesus’ description of the Holy Spirit doesn’t help us much in having a concrete image either. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells Nicodemus, the Pharisee, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

How does one describe the wind? We can’t see the wind with our eyes and describe it by colors and shape, but we can feel the wind and see what it affects and whether or not it is a warm or cold wind, a gentle or fierce wind. This is how it is with the Holy Spirit. We cannot see the Holy Spirit, but we can see the effects of the Holy Spirit in our lives and others.

St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians the effects of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He writes: “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. ²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” 

St. Paul also instructs us that the Holy Spirit gives specific gifts of ministry to each one of us. In his first letter to the Corinthians he writes the following: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

For the disciples, the immediate effect of the Holy Spirit in their lives was the gift of prophecy and the speaking of tongues. In the Book of Acts, we heard these words read today, “Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’” The first assignment given to the disciples by the Holy Spirit was to share the gospel of Christ with all peoples in their own languages. This is an astonishing event, because most of the disciples were uneducated men who could not possibly have knowledge of multiple languages from all over the world.

In the Gospel of John today we read about another gift of the Holy Spirit that was given to the disciples. It is the gift of forgiveness of sins. Jesus first tells the disciples, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Notice the command to share the gospel is given to them first. Then John writes, “When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them. ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

This gift of absolution of sins has been traditionally handed down as a gift to the clergy, specifically the priests and bishops. It is a gift given to the leadership of the Church as a form of discipline for the members in order to keep the Church as the pure and spotless Bride of Christ. For example, if a member of the Church continues to sin repeatedly, yet at the same time seeks absolution; the priest or bishop may call for a sign of penance to encourage the member to turn away from the sin that so easily besets them. After penance is done, then the priest or bishop usually offers absolution i.e. forgiveness of the sin. However, as the scripture states, absolution of sins is not mandatory, “if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  The leadership in the Church may choose to not give absolution. In that case, the sins are not forgiven. The extreme of this is excommunication from the Body of Christ.

Excommunication is given to those who have grievously offended the Holy Spirit and refuse to repent. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians on this matter: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. On grieving the Holy Spirit, Jesus states in the gospel of Matthew, “³²Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Perhaps we need to take the Holy Spirit more seriously in our lives. Historically, the Church has shied away from emphasizing the Holy Spirit - mostly because as Jesus pointed out, the Holy Spirit like the wind has a will of its own. Yet, the Holy Spirit is the One who seals the baptized in Christ into the One Body of Christ. The Church is empowered for the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Each of us are given gifts of ministry from the Holy Spirit for the work of the Church. Our lives, if we are following the leading of the Holy Spirit, bears the fruit of the Spirit to touch others for Christ. It is the Holy Spirit working through us that draws others to Christ.

The Day of Pentecost marked the birth of the Church. It is the Day on which the Holy Spirit was given to a group of the most unlikely candidates to build the Church. Yet, through this uneducated group of common folk, the Holy Spirit would start a fire that has reached to the ends of the earth. The gospel of the risen Lord continues to kindle new hearts on fire for Christ. We may not be able to see the Holy Spirit, but the impact of this Holy Fire in the hearts of believers continues to change the world forever.

Happy Birthday!