Sermon for Whitsunday, May 31, 2009
“… suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance… ”
Real life, as we know it, is a mirage. You've seen a mirage—driving over the hot dry sands on a highway through the desert, the flat straight asphalt ribbon stretches out before you to the horizon. Then your eyes dazzle at the placid blue lake that suddenly appeared in the distance, but surely the highway goes right through it . An eeriness about that lake makes you stare, watching its wispy edges steam in the heat of the sun. Surely there's water there. You look forward to driving by the lake, for the road must surely turn to navigate around it. But on you go, straight at it, until just as you're getting closer, it fades to nothing. Nothing but dry ground, scrub brush and a highway baking in the sun. What we know as “ real life ” is no more than that lake.
The more practical among us use this mirage as a reference point in respect to spiritual things. “It's all right for that pastor to go on about life in the spirit, about prayer and God and stuff, but he obviously knows nothing about real life. It's fine to tell me to love my neighbor, not to covet, and always to tell the truth, but in real life that doesn't always make sense. You've got to fend for yourself. You've got to make your own way. Do unto others before they do unto you.” My sixteen years in contracting got me plenty of this kind of real life wisdom. If everyone around you is living this mirage, it gets harder and harder to believe anything else.
Scriptures tell us that in the end of this world the sky will roll back like a scroll. The earth will melt away and the stars will fall from the sky. Now, that is hardly “ real life ,” the day to day logic which propels people from bed to breakfast table to car to work to lunch to work to car to bar to home to television to bed again. Follow your own work day patterns and argue that this is real life. Read the headlines and convince me that disc golf in upper park is what real life is about. The size of our sports section is evidence that professional and amateur sports are what real life is. Arrests for murder, a state budget that looks like somebody stole a great deal of money, teachers let go by the hundreds, highways being built, water shortages, gas prices soaring, car companies failing, international money, eyes glaze over, the mist rises and we're back on the highway through a desert. Where did it all go?
Life before Jesus Christ is to us unimaginable. Humankind was just people being born, growing, learning to fight, to farm, to face grim reality, to find a god who would agree to provide and protect, offer animal sacrifices, try to get along, then old age, weakness, death. It's much the same for those living real life today. A vague uneasiness about our sins is veiled by the wispy blue lake of another life in heaven because, well, I'm a good person . But in the world of B.C., no one on earth was going to heaven and no one on earth was born again, nor had the Holy Spirit indwelt them. Everyone you'd meet had that vacancy in their eyes, gazing at the mirage, or telling you the realities of life. And all died. Not any more.
Jesus, Son of Man, Incarnate God the Son born of a woman , entered human history, demarking a first half and a latter half of mankind's long march through its desert. Before Him, all that might be hoped was in that mirage. Ever since His most event-filled life, since His death and resurrection, since His ascension, and since He sent His Holy Spirit to indwell those who believe in Him, a part of humanity has an entirely different experience of what life means. For they have inside them the LIFE GIVER. The mirage gives way to Reality, with a capital R, and the meaning of all things changes.
The Holy Spirit is mysterious . He can't be seen. Only the effects of His presence may be spoken of with certainty, as Jesus told Nicodemus, the wind blows but you can't see it. You only know you feel it, and see the trees bend before it. On Pentecost, as Jesus assured them, the Holy Spirit came powerfully and filled the hall where 120 believers in Jesus prayed with the sound of a rushing mighty wind, invisible except by His effect . Everybody's face was aglow with a strange fire and joy at God's truth filling them with praise. As they hurried out into the streets of Jerusalem, their zeal and the miraculous outpouring of the Spirit caught the attention and ultimately the faith of 3,000 more who turned away from their versions of “real life” to be followers of Christ.
How does the Spirit operate today? What is the evidence for this invisible guest? Do you know that you have the Holy Spirit within you, or are you only hoping that he'll come to you? For 2,000 years, the Spirit of God alive in members of the Church is the mark of Christ on this world, the major feature of humanity's radical change from the days of B.C. Is that Holy Spirit alive in you? How can you tell? By what evidence can you be sure He lives in you?
The “fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control.” Gal 5:22 We may all believe we own these qualities, but in the Spirit there is never a departure from this new life. St. Paul repeatedly enjoins his churches not to go back to what he calls the flesh , life as before Christ, what they call “real life.” He says, “those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and appetites.” v. 24 This is hard, and many Churches hop over or around this step, hoping that sacraments or grace or the sinner's prayer will change the old man. Our full experience of God's indwelling presence, on the other hand, may in fact depend on our utter departure from our old lives and the many ways we've accommodated our flesh . The Spirit of God will not live in power where sinful Christian keeps denying Him access. When we want our sins to cohabitate with the Spirit, to compromise and help justify our natural desires and little departures, we make Him unwelcome and His presence will fade.
A mirage can be a lovely thing. It looks cool and refreshing. We can think of God as a mirage: distant, comforting, eventually to surround us, but now still a long way off. God doesn't like being kept so far from us. He will not be kept at bay. He will not be your mirage . God has a way of breaking through such games, with illness, with disclosure of your sins, with what seems a sudden lifting of the cover you kept over your life from prying eyes. People who are arrested for a crime have been small time criminals for years. God tried everything else to dissuade them, but now it requires jail time, public disgrace, headlines on everyone's breakfast table. That path all began by claiming real life and with self-justifications.
What can I do to have the Holy Spirit truly living in me? Make room. Lots of room: this is God, you know. He is a gentleman, and will not force Himself against those things you want to keep in His place. Your emptying process is called “ repentance .” You look right at the life you've built, strip the mirage away and see the desolation. Get a good look at it, give God full charge to dig it up, empty it out, show you how you've deceived yourself and given the enemy much of your life. “Real life” wasn't real after all, and it wasn't life. Get to the bottom of it, and you may finally begin. The Holy Spirit brings life, for He is the life giver.
The Holy Spirit has all the powers and abilities we know are in God. Everything Jesus did He does. Everything the Father has He has. That same Person of the Blessed Trinity has been sent to dwell in your being for the purpose of reclaiming your lost humanity for Christ. His sleeves are rolled up, His eyes are open flames, His breath is life to the deserts of your souls, and He stands ready to come within. Quench not the Spirit . Jesus said that your old life, that born of the flesh, is not enough for you to enter the kingdom. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” John 3:5 This mystery He disclosed further to His apostles when He announced the coming Comforter who would live in them and show them all things, reveal all truth, remind them of what He had said, and give them all that the Father and Son wanted to show them. It wasn't just for them. His offer is for you. Receive the Holy Spirit .
How many times are we offered the Spirit? At baptism we are washed of sins and given the grace of the Spirit's indwelling. Again at confirmation, we pray the Holy Spirit may come upon us with gifts for us to share with one another. A man being ordained is again given the Spirit for the office he now carries. There is only one Spirit. Is there only one entry, or many? There is One Spirit, but there are many graces. In a Bible study we held a couple years ago, we counted 200 special characteristics of the Holy Spirit as written in the Bible. Lists of 7 or 9 gifts are illustrative examples, but His limits are the limits of God Himself, which means there are none. His gifts and graces infinite , and ourselves being finite , we may only fit or accommodate inside of us what will have room. Love has no room in a person with no heart. Wisdom has no room in one who thinks himself already wise. Compassion will not cooperate with cruelty. Make room for Him by being open to correction. You've never known such purity as He has.
Does “real life” appeal to you anymore? We produce “reality” shows: an oxymoron if ever I heard one, to entertain people who think they are living real life , but bored out of their minds think this program will add what is lacking and make them somehow more than they are. It is time for a rushing mighty wind to blow away the mirage. It's going to hurt right at first to see that peaceful blue lake disappear, leaving the sick, grey desert of our true unholy souls. Only a real trust in Jesus —what He said, what He did, what He promised us— can pull you through it . At the end of this process, the Holy Spirit will give you life you never thought possible, hiding from nothing, living bold, miracles at your fingers, God listening to all you tell Him. It takes only a rushing mighty wind, invisible, unseen, to shake this life you've been living like a great tree and show you the power of God. And all you have to do is ask. Will you ask? Are you ready?
Please, Lord Jesus Christ, you promised your followers the Comforter , the Spirit of truth to come and be in us. In every life we have denied Him some entry and held on to our sins instead. This day of Pentecost, we pray you to let your Spirit into every part of our beings, to take charge, cleanse us, enlighten us, and give us true life . Fill us with your rushing mighty Spirit and make us new creatures to bring the glory back to you that you so richly deserve. This we pray upon your promises, Christ our Lord. Amen.
PFH+