Pentecost 2014

Pentecost 2014 John 7:37-39

“Out of a believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.”

Our Heavenly Father designed you to be a fountain of blessing.

On this Pentecost Sunday we remember that God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit to give birth to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to facilitate the blessing of God the Son in our lives.

The church is the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. While there are institutional aspects to the church in this present age, the church is in its essence organic. The institutional aspects of the church exist solely to facilitate the meaning and purpose of the church.

The meaning of the church is to be the instrumentality of our heavenly Father’s plan of salvation. The purpose of the church is to become the Body of Christ through service to others and the Bride of Christ through worship.

The Holy Spirit did not create a structure with a set of programs. He gave birth to a living, evolving and transforming organism. Jesus gave certain principles to guide the first generation of believers. And, Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to continue to guide direct and transform us.

As an organic entity the church grows and adapts. The foundation of the Church is the solid rock foundation of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit infuses the church with blessing through the Bible, the sacraments and the lives of the members of the church.

The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is universal and unconditional. The apostles were not worthy of such a gift. It is painfully clear that our Heavenly Father did not create them to be a religious elite. They were broken, sinful and at times stubbornly wilful. They were also the ones who said “yes” to the plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ.

In the beginning, God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit into the world to help us grow in the knowledge and love of God the Son. It was the pre incarnate Son of God who walked with Adam and Eve in Eden.

After our first parents chose to separate from God, the Father withdrew the Son from this planet. He designated the Holy Spirit to work with a single family to prepare for the Son’s return.

Under the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit selectively infused grace into the souls of a few individual individuals to proclaim the Good News of the Son’s return. At Pentecost, the Son (Jesus Christ) directed the Holy Spirit to indwell all who placed their faith and trust in him.

Pentecost is the universal unconditional gift of the Holy Spirit to all people everywhere as Jesus, the Son, is the universal unconditional love of God for all people everywhere.

The Father never imposes this gift. But, the gift is universally available to everyone.

There are no God appointed religious elites in the Church or in the world.  Everyone who receives the gift of baptism becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit. Collectively, we are the Body of Christ, the extension of the incarnation in our time and to our culture. The Holy Spirit always encourages us and equips us to do one specific task in our lives. That one specific task is to become a font of blessing to everyone we know and everyone we meet.

There are three aspects to this task: repentance, conversion and transformation.  Over the course of our lives the Holy Spirit convicts us of areas in our lives that are in distortion. As we begin to perceive these distortions from the perspective of God Himself, the Holy Spirit assists us to acknowledge the distortions through repentance, to change the distortion through the process of conversion and to embrace the path of personal transformation.

Repentance, conversion and transformation are all aspects of the process of sanctification. None of us are ever perfect. All of us are called to grow in grace. In this process of growth, the Holy Spirit is our mentor, teacher, helper and guide. He also co-ordinates a unique ministry team to assist us.

The ministry team involves saints from the Church Triumphant who may inspire us, souls from the Church Expectant who intercede for us, and other members of the Church Militant here on Earth who help us. The ministry team also includes our guardian angel and other angels who assist them from time to time.

The great and wonderful goal of sanctification is to purify our souls so that we may be the font of a river of blessings.

Are you a river of blessing?

Are you a stream or a trickle or a slow intermittent drip?

The choice is always ours. The Way of Blessing is the Way of active dynamic and expansive joy.

God did not design us for fear, frustration or sadness. God designed us to be active participants in the interior life of Triune love- a love that is both infinite and eternal.

That blessing is a gift. As with the Body of Christ itself it is organic. Like the mustard seed it starts small. As with any life form it must grow slowly and incrementally. You can’t skip a step in sanctification. That is why the Holy Spirit does not authorize us to exclude any one for any reason when we think they do not measure up to our expectations or demands.

That is why Jesus himself once commented that a sinner who recognizes his brokenness is closer to the kingdom of heaven than the self- righteous religious elites who judge and condemn.

We are all in process. The principles are universal. The principles are revealed in scripture.  The application is unique. It is unique because it is personal. The Holy Spirit uses the universal Biblical principles to design a very specific path of repentance, conversion and transformation for each of us.

That path always relies on scripture, the sacraments, the intercession of the saints and the sacred tradition of the church. The goal is to form us into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ through worship, helping others, and personal transformation in the way we think, feel and make choices.

What is your next step forward? The tools are there for you to use under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The goal is nothing less than the amazing statement Jesus makes:

“Out of a believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.”