June 23 2024 Pentecost Joel 2:23-3:5, AC 2:1-11, Jn 7:37-52, 8:12

 As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

Jesus cried out on the last day of the festival of Booths, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me ...and drink. Out of believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now Jesus said this about the Spirit which believers were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit. That seems an odd thing to say, so what could it mean, there was no Spirit? We know the Spirit is spoken of quite often in the Hebrew scriptures. To mention just a few times, The Spirit of God hovers over the waters during creation. Genesis 1:2:  And the spirit of the LORD gripped David from that day on"1 Samuel 16:13. The Spirit of God is also mentioned in other places in the Pentateuch, including Genesis 6:3, Exodus 31:3, and Numbers 11:17. In many of these references, the Spirit of God "came upon" an individual and enabled them to speak or act on behalf of YHVH

Perhaps “no spirit” can be understood by thinking about nuclear power.  It has existed for eons but has only recently been aware of to be able to tap into for our use.

So the Holy Spirit has always existed but humankind never experienced the Spirit quite this way until Pentecost. We see now that the Spirit brings us the presence of the Risen Christ –who is always with us. The early church had a sense that Jesus was the hinge of all history: that with his coming, eternity had entered time. Therefore, life and the world would never be the same. In Jesus alone is salvation and the ones who believed would receive the Holy Spirit who was the dominant reality in the life of the early church.

From our second reading from Acts we heard that this mob was hearing the word of God in way that struck straight home to their hearts and that they could understand in whatever language it was spoken. The power of the Spirit had given these simple disciples a message that could reach every heart. The church was born on that day of Pentecost: the church was born universal! In all languages she proclaims the “marvels of God”.

The Good news needs to be translated, that is: the Word needs to be transmitted and explained. Are we translators of the Word of God to our brothers and sisters? The primary translation is faithfulness to the Gospel. The Gospel is the book for Christians. But the life of Christians is the book for unbelievers. Do our own hearts need to be converted to understand more fully the Covenant we made?

Just as the people of the Exodus, fifty days after coming out of Egypt, received the law of Sinai and entered into the Covenant, in the same way the community of Jesus, fifty days after the Lord’s Resurrection - his exodus from the world - received his law, which is the Spirit of Jesus, and entered into the new Covenant.

In our Covenant with God, God understands that we are human. As a result, our acceptance, our understanding, and our implementation of divine precepts will be stamped with the particularities of who we are and in what situation we find ourselves. The precepts of God are in the context of a loving relationship. They are gifts of love, even though we do not always understand them immediately. Mostly divine precepts are given to us to hold onto so that they begin to have a formative effect on our beliefs and values. It is only when they have been successful in bringing a change of heart that they begin to influence our choices and actions.

Is my personal relationship with Jesus a relationship between servant to master or an authentic relationship of love, of the Covenant of love?  May the grace of Pentecost enable the Spirit of love, love for everyone, all races, nationalities, genders and ourselves, be the law of our hearts.