Today we celebrate the Great Feast of Pentecost at which the
Holy Spirit descends upon the Apostles as they are gathered together in
obedience to the command of the risen Lord. The same divine breath which
first gave us life from the dust of the earth now comes as a mighty, rushing
wind. The divine glory beheld by Moses in the burning bush now rests upon
each one personally as flames of fire. The divided speech of the
tower of Babel is now overcome by the miracle of speaking in different
languages as a sign that all peoples are invited to share in the life of the
Lord. This great Feast manifests the fulfillment of God’s gracious
promises for the entire world and every human person in the Body of Christ, the
Church. Today we celebrate the restoration of our true unity in God through the
presence of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter sent by the risen and ascended
Savior Who is seated at the right hand of the Father in heavenly glory.
The sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit empowers the Church to
become a living icon of the common life of humanity in which all the divisions
of our fallen world may be healed. He
enables us to become persons in communion who are united organically as members
of the one Body of Christ, no longer isolated individuals obsessively choosing
sides over against one another. The
Persons of the Holy Trinity share a common life of love, unity, and holiness;
by the power of the Holy Spirit manifested at Pentecost, we participate by
grace in Their eternal communion. Our
journey to theosis is a matter of becoming
so united with God that we become radiant with the divine energies in every
dimension of our being, like an iron left in the fire of holy glory.
As those who bear the divine image and likeness, we become both
more truly human and more like God as we find healing from the passions that
divide and separate us and instead embrace our common life together as
distinctive persons. That is why St. Paul wrote, “the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) That
is why St. Silouan the Athonite taught, “One can only love one’s enemies
through the grace of the Holy Spirit.” And “He who does not love his enemies,
does not have God’s grace.”[1]
The
Lord said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in
Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water.’” He uses the image of living water to describe
what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even as He did with St. Photini,
the Samaritan woman at the well. Our risen
and ascended Lord did not send theological ideas, moral instructions, or
spiritual practices to His followers. After
His Ascension, the Savior sent the Holy Spirit to quench the deep thirst, the
primal longing, of all the broken, confused, and alienated people of the world for
sharing personally in the eternal life of God. Nothing else can truly satisfy us
as those who bear the divine image and likeness. So much of our pain and misery stems from obsessively
seeking fulfillment in created things that can never provide it. Doing so only enslaves us further to our
passions and separates us from one another. It leads to bitter disappointment
time and time again.
Wind, fire, and water are powerful realities that escape our
control. At Pentecost they convey the profound mystery of what it means to be
drawn into the divine life in ways that transcend the best rational definitions: As living members of the Body of Christ, we
may truly know and experience God from the depths of our hearts and in our
common life as did the Apostles.
We
will celebrate this great Feast with integrity by mindfully becoming as receptive
as possible to the sanctifying
presence of the Holy Spirit. Doing so
requires embracing the struggle to live faithfully each day through the
spiritual strength that we gain from participating in the sacramental and
ascetical life of the Church. The Holy
Spirit came upon Christ’s followers as they were gathered together in obedience
to the Lord’s command, and we must never fool ourselves into thinking that the
spiritual life is an individualistic endeavor that caters to our passions and preferences. Pentecost calls us to find healing from the
pride that divided the tongues of humanity in the first place and to gain the
humility to find our true personhood as members together of the Body of Christ,
where the distinctive beauty of our souls will shine brightly as we partake of
the same living water as did the Apostles.
Pentecost calls us to
become so receptive to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that we
overflow with His living water, becoming channels of blessing that enable our
neighbors and world to flourish with the peace, joy, and holiness of God’s
Kingdom. As the Savior said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to
Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water.’” We will know
such blessedness by being filled to overflowing with eternal life in the Body
of Christ, the Church. We will grow in
receptivity to the Holy Spirit by kneeling in prayer and living in humility as
we forgive our enemies, share our resources with the needy, and mindfully take
up the daily struggle to purify our hearts of all that would keep us enslaved
to self-centered desire as isolated individuals. Those truly enlivened by the Holy Spirit will
refuse to define themselves or anyone else according to the categories of our
world of corruption, for He continues to heal such divisions. Pentecost is the reverse of the divisions of
the Tower of Babel for this great Feast shows that language, culture, and
nationality are spiritually irrelevant for those who share by grace in the life
of God.
At Pentecost, we are
empowered to experience our true unity in Christ as “a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into
His marvelous light…” (1 Pet. 2:9) That is what it means to be illumined by the One Who said, “I am the light of the world; he
who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Our
calling is nothing less than to overflow with the
gracious divine energies poured out abundantly for the salvation of the world at
Pentecost and to live accordingly each day of our lives.
[1] See Jean-Claude
Larchet, “On the Love of Enemies According to Saint Silouan,” https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2020/10/on-love-of-enemies-according-to-saint.html
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