Another Comforter
Whitsunday, Commonly Called Pentecost
'Come down, O love divine; O Comforter draw near.'
Today, with the church throughout all the ages, we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, that historic occasion when the third person of the Divine Trinity was poured forth from Heaven: When Love divine came down to earth. The Divine Economy' is a theological term employed in the great Christian tradition since at least the time of Origen, referring to the means by which the Trinitarian God of Holy Scripture reveals himself to the world for the expressed purpose of redemption. This term encompasses the entirety of God's great salvific enterprise of reversing Eden's curse and returning a people to himself.
This Divine economy of salvation (what God determines to do on behalf of a fallen world) isn't stagnant but dispensed with tremendous motions of compassion, mercy, and grace. To quote CS Lewis, "They say Aslan is on the move!" As baptized Christians, you and I, my brothers and sisters, are the beneficiaries of the economy of salvation: this is the good news of the Gospel. As Christians, we experience the glorious movement of salvation as we worship and order our lives according to the reality of sacramental time. The motions of salvation are intrinsically woven into the liturgical year, ascending and descending in Love.
At Christmas, Love comes down and becomes incarnate in the Son of God, who lives among men full of grace and truth, God in the flesh, Jesus the Icon of the Father. Then, Love moves upward as Jesus, the God-Man, is hung on Calvary's cross. Love descends to the depths of Hades, the place of the dead. Death, however, cannot contain him, and on the third day, Love bursts forth, arising from a rich man's tomb, never to taste death again.
The loving salvation of God comes down, then up again. And yet, Love had not attained the heights for which it was destined to return, for, after 40 days on earth, the resurrected Christ ascended into heaven, declaring a final victory over death: Christ is Victor, for the motions of God, who is Love, cannot and will not be thwarted or frustrated by any enemy, seen or unseen. On the day of Pentecost, Love once again moved downward from heaven, for the Holy Spirit is a gift of Love given from the hand of the Father through and in the mighty name of His Son, Jesus Christ.
"If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you." From these words of Jesus, we learn of the Holy Spirit's ministry in our lives. But first, I want us to see the generous care of God, who gives not one Comforter and Advocate but a second Paraclete, the Holy Ghost. Jesus said he would pray to the Father, and another Comforter (Paraclete) would be given. The Holy Spirit is another paraclete because Jesus is the first.
We know Jesus is our Paraclete because John, the author of today's Gospel, tells us in the second chapter of the first Epistle by his name, writing, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate (παράκλητος) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 Jn 2:1-2). And we are comforted each Sunday by these same 'Comfortable Words' spoken in our Eucharistic Liturgy.
We Christians have two paracletes, one in heaven and one on earth. Jesus, our heavenly intercessor, and the Holy Spirit, our earthly advocate. The risen and ascended One stands at the altar in the Heavenly Jerusalem as an eternal, perpetual, and effectual sacrifice for the sins of the world. "He is a priest forever, says the writer of Hebrews, "in the order of Melchizedek." And "because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Thus, He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him since He always lives to intercede for them" (Heb 7:17, 23-25). Therefore, Jesus is our heavenly Paraclete.
While on Earth, Jesus promised the Apostle not to leave them as orphans, so he vowed to send another Paraclete after his ascension. This is why the Holy Spirit has been given as another advocate because Jesus went to heaven, and the Holy Spirit has come to mirror the ministry and presence of the first advocate, Jesus Christ, to be our comforter, advocate, guide, and helper on earth; the Divine gift given to the church for the continuance of Jesus' earthly ministry in our lives.
"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth." Since the Holy Spirit was given to be the presence of Jesus during his absence from the earth, we shouldn't be surprised that Jesus, who is "the way, the truth, and the life," calls him the 'Spirit of Truth.' In Love, the Holy Spirit communicates truth and the Divine truth he speaks. He says not of his own authority but utters "whatever he hears" (Jn 16:13) in the same manner as our Lord, who, in refuting the Pharisees, said, "I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak" (Jn 12:49).
Like Jesus, the Spirit speaks Divine words; he speaks the words of God, and therefore, he speaks the truth- always. Like Jesus, he never lies. You see, we have been given a trustworthy guide, which again, in the words of Christ, "leads us into all truth" (Jn 17:17). It is the Spirit of God who teaches all that we need to know for life and godliness; the Spirit who brings all things to our remembrance, all the words of Christ found in Holy Scripture by which we are comforted and convicted; in which we rejoice and find joy; the words of Christ which bring healing, solace, and peace.
Through his words, he leads us into the majestic truths of God and aids our ability to recall Jesus' message correctly. It is by the ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit that we even understand the things of God in the first place! So, from Jesus' words, we learn that the Holy Spirit is our advocate on earth; he speaks the truth and leads us into the same. But there's more: Jesus has promised that the Holy Spirit will abide with us forever.
Now, I want to qualify this statement and help us to understand what Jesus means. First, the promise of sending another paraclete who would abide forever is given to a community of twelve Apostles, not individually. Hence, the promise of God spoken through the prophet Joel "to pour out His Spirit on all flesh" (including sons and daughters, the young and the old) is promised to a people. And in today's Epistle, taken from Acts chapter two, God does just that.
We read of the Spirit descending upon and indwelling the believers (men and women) gathered in a house. Then, a plurality of people, Jews from all over the known empire, gather around this strange happening, and guess what? The Spirit falls upon even more people. So, you see, the Divine gift of the Holy Spirit is promised to a community, a people. But take note: the communal pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost is individually received in Holy Baptism, the Divinely ordained means by which an individual receives the promised blessing of the Holy Spirit.
If we fast forward just a few verses in this same chapter of Acts, we find the crowd is amazed and confused because they individually understand the apostles' words in their respective languages. Amidst such amazement and wonder, St. Peter steps forward to explain this extraordinary phenomenon and, in doing so, preaches one of the great sermons found in all of the Bible. After connecting the Pentecost event to the promise prophesied by Joel, he pricks their hearts, saying,
"Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Luke continues, "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself" (Acts 2:38-39).
From these words of St. Peter, we understand that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost signified by tongues of fire above their heads, but the promised blessings of the Holy Spirit are received in baptism: forgiveness of sins, the receiving or indwelling of the Holy Spirit; a gift given corporately to the church by grace and appropriated individually by faith. And it is by loving Jesus that the indwelling Holy Spirit remains or abides within us.
Returning to today's Gospel. "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth." The promised abiding of the Spirit is conditioned on "keeping Jesus' commandments." You see, the same condition by which the Holy Spirit abides and remains is the same condition by which the Lord Jesus abides with us: the condition is Love.
"If you love me, keep my commandments." Love and obedience are but two facets of the same way of life; Love obeys, and obedience loves. Our disobedience signifies the temperature with which we love Christ; a cool and lukewarm Love grieves the Spirit, and if not rekindled and enflamed, the soul becomes an inhospitable home for the Spirit to dwell. Our waxing and waning in obediently loving Jesus directly impair our relationship with the Spirit, who is the presence of Christ in us. To turn away from the Son is to forfeit the Spirit of God, which is the animating Love of life. To have the Spirit, we must love Christ, and yet without the Spirit, we are incapable of loving Christ. St. Augustine, in speaking to what appears to be an unsolvable conundrum, answers as follows,
"Without the Holy Spirit, we can neither love Christ nor keep His commandments; while the less experience we have of His presence, the less also can we do so; and the fuller our experience, so much the greater our ability. Accordingly, the promise is no vain one, either to him who has not [the Holy Spirit] or to him who has. For it is made to him who has not, in order that he may have; and to him who has, that he may have more abundantly. For were it not that He was possessed by some in smaller measure than by others, St. Elisha would not have said to St. Elijah, "Let the Spirit that is in thee be in a twofold measure in me."[1]
The Spirit received in baptism must be nurtured and increased as we love the Lord Jesus Christ by doing what he has told us to do.
From scripture, we know what obedient Love looks like; it's not complicated. First, love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. We worship what we love, therefore, Love worships. We love Christ when we gather on His day to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, giving thanksgiving for Him and to Him, raising our voices in songs of praise as he is lifted high above the altar and spiritually present with us through the breaking of bread and the blessing of the cup; we invoke the Holy Spirit who makes our Lord present in the great Eucharistic mystery. One's desire, or lack thereof, to worship Christ each and every Sunday in his church (as he commanded) is a sad commentary on our devotion, fidelity, and Love of the Lord.
The second aspect of obeying Christ is to love our neighbors as ourselves. The Love of God towards sinners like you and me, The Divine Economy of our Salvation, is the grandest demonstration of loving others. God the Trinity, who in himself is perfect Love and perfectly loves within the Godhead, created everything out of Love and redeemed his creation when it fell by Love. His great concern and Love towards you and I is how we are to love others with the Love we have received from the Holy Spirit. Love the Lord Jesus Christ and love those who are made in his image; that's how you keep his commandments and, by doing so, remain a home where the Holy Spirit is pleased to dwell.
Jesus so loved the world that he came down from heaven and became man. He suffered and died for his enemies to bring them from death to life. Then, by the power of the Spirit, he rose from the grave, conquering death, and ascended into heaven from where he asked his Father to send the Holy Spirit down upon the Apostles to indwell them with eternal life and reside with them forever. In a real sense, Love compelled Christ to procure the gift of the Spirit for the church by his death and victorious ascension. The risen, victorious, and vindicated Christ keeps his promise, even as he is enthroned in heaven, remembering his beloved disciples and their need for another comforter and the Divine presence.
Just as Jesus loved Peter, James, John, and all the Apostles, he loves us, his bride, the church. The same Spirit poured upon the twelve at Pentecost has surely been poured upon us through the regenerative waters of baptism. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" Yes, we are, and yes, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, the church of God. And why? Because God is Love, and he loves his church.
Jesus has not left us as orphans in this world but abides with us by the indwelling Spirit. He has filled you with the Spirit of eternal life, and because Christ lives, we, too, shall live by the Spirit. So not only do we enjoy the Love of Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit, but we also our Father as well, for Jesus said that whoever loves him will be loved by his Father. And in all of this, we enjoy Trinitarian fellowship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He in us, and we in Him. Such is the Divine Love poured upon the earth on that awesome day of Pentecost. Amen+
[1] Philip Schaff: NPNF1-07. St. Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John; Homilies on the First Epistle of John; Soliloquies - Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.lxxv.html
