Pentecost Sunday

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” On the surface, the statement seems quite plain, Our Lord is telling us outright that this is the requirement, this is the way that we can truly express our love for Him, to obey His word. We seem to have a great deal of trouble with this though, and so the real question that we should be asking ourselves is “Why on earth wouldn’t we?”. This is God we are talking about; the source and wisdom of these commandments who is beyond reproach or questioning if we have any sense whatsoever. Ah, but therein is the catch – do we indeed have the “common sense” to heed this.

Let’s face it, “common sense” seems to be anything but common these days. We are so full of ourselves that we try to question pretty much everything because we are under the impression that we have input that is worth hearing and being heeded by pretty much everyone else, and this seems to include God as well. We question existence as a whole, and often seem to want to attribute it to pretty much anything other than God – my personal favorite is the term “quantum fluctuation” that is all the rage these days among physicists for explaining creation, it basically means a mathematical error, and they would rather attribute our fabric of reality to this, than admitting that God might have had something to do with it. If it isn’t bad enough that we can’t even acknowledge God as the Creator, when most of the scientific evidence (particularly statistical) points to God as such, I guess we really shouldn’t be surprised. We can’t seem to even come to a sensible consensus on some of the more mundane questions like our own self positioning in society and individual rights (we spend WAY too much time focusing on us), or those of basic morals like whether or not it’s actually wrong to kill another human being who is in a vulnerable state (you can apply this one to abortion, the death penalty, and euthanasia for the aged). All these things that should be plain to pretty much anyone, all seem to be in question these days because we think that the laws which God defined and have existed for so long prior to our ever coming on the scene now all of a sudden require our scrutiny and input. In short, we are pathetically arrogant and have entirely too much time on our hands when this is where we are focusing seemingly so much of our energies to try to reassess. Our Lord had all this covered long ago, and all we need to do is listen to His commands, not his suggestions, not his concepts, not his rhetoric – His commands. He is God – we are not, it is just that simple if we want an explanation as to why we should take Him at his word.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not suggesting a mindless acceptance, nor a lack of using our God given intellect to ponder some of the tougher questions in life. What I am suggesting is to use ALL the gifts that we were given, and to do so rather judiciously. Our intellect is a wonderful thing, but should be bridled with appropriate humility, and should be exercised in conjunction with the very gift that God bestowed on us, and that we celebrate this day – the gift of the Holy Spirit. This advocate that God gave us to guide us, and to draw us into intimacy with Him so that we may know more closely His word, His commands, and be guided by His plan. This same spirit that came down upon the disciples at Pentecost, is the very spirit that can dwell within each one of us, if we can just get over ourselves, and allow Him in. We can know peace in our world view, in our self-perception, in our interpretation of all the seemingly complicated issues that we can then safely entrust to His wisdom. The Holy Spirit can accomplish all of this and more within us, though it is up to us to freely accept it and allow it to dwell within us and guide us just as it did Jesus Disciples when they received it on that first Pentecost and founded the Church as we know it by going out and fearlessly proclaiming the Gospel message. Their task was daunting, and the cost was great, but they knew Gods peace through the Spirit dwelling in them. We can know that same peace, and if there is a commodity that is, I think, even more rare than the “common sense” I mentioned earlier, it is a truly peaceful spirit that we all seem to crave, and yet so few seem to possess. I pray that we all embrace the Spirit this day, and every day, and welcome our Lord into our very selves through this. Peace be with all of you.