“THE TONGUE OF THE SPIRIT; THE WORD OF GOD”
Saint John 14. 23-31
WHITSUNDAY-The Feast of Pentecost: 12 June Anno Domini 2011
Fr. J. W. Watson SSP
Jesus is the WORD. He was there before the beginning of the created universe, already eternally existing as the beloved Son of the Father; the Word through Whom all that was made was made. The Word goes forth as all words do. The Word is to be bouncing, broadcasting, narrowcasting, trumpeting, singing, speaking, consoling, and loving Its way into the ears and souls of the elect flock of God.
The Word says to you "If you love Me, you will keep My Words."
Yes of course, the Law of God, the Ten Commandments show you that you "as you," your sinful nature, DOES NOT love God or your neighbor. But that is not what the WORD is telling you in the opening verse.
The Holy Ghost is not just the accuser and convicter, He is also the Comforter! Bringing you to the still waters of regeneration and rebirth is the Comforter comforting you with salvation and new life. Bringing you the Peace of Jesus' tender pierced hands to wipe away tears and to "chuck up" chins with the determination of steadfastness is the Comforter comforting you with Grace through Faith. The Father sends the Comforter to you not so that you'll have the Comforter (the invisible Spirit God) but so that you'll have Jesus: "…Whom the Father will send in My Name." The Comforter is not here THIS morning, THIS place in the form of a dove or the likeness of a tongue of fire. The Holy Ghost IS here right now in the NAME + of JESUS. And where the Name of the WORD, the Word made flesh, IS, there is the real, true, total, genuine, Scriptural GOD/MAN!
It is only by the power and presence of the Comforter that the pastor intones the opening invocation. It is only by the calling gifts of the Comforter that anyone sits in these chairs/pews. It is only through the Comforter's ordaining gifts of continued apostleship that I can preach any of these words of The WORD. It is only by the power of the Comforter that you can say: "I believe in God the Father almighty, and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son."
Jesus does all this for you because He loves you. There is no pre-condition that you have to perform to earn or receive His love. His love is self-sacrificing and beyond all understanding. He loves the whole world and He loved it, and you, even when you were His enemy. He loves you, chooses you, and sees to it that you receive Him "The" WORD and His words.
The anniversary of that first Christian Pentecost is celebrated in parishes all over the Western Church this morning. You join this glorious Feast Day not with a memory or historical recognition. You receive the Pentecostal gifts of the Lord today…just like you received them last Sunday, and next Sunday. You won't be given the gift to speak in Latin, Greek or Cretan, but you are given the greater gift to speak in love and forgiveness. You are given the tongue of the Comforter to comfort yourselves and others with the Way, Truth and Life.
The Comforter uses the pastor, uses the organist, i.e. USES the Bible, hymns, and the Liturgy's handed down Scriptural traditions, to teach you all things about the Christ that the Christ wants you taught today. And yes, of course, the memories of the "12," those to whom the Lord spoke this Gospel, were utilized by them in their subsequent preaching and teaching; as well as in the Four Evangelist's written records. The doctrine of verbal inspiration that we believe, teach and confess is not that the Comforter "took over" the minds and bodies of Matthew and Luke and had them write in an auto-trance-like state, but rather that the Comforter, Who is God, enhanced their memories and powers of recall to the degree that what He wanted recorded was recorded without error; to be sure, in the own literary style and syntax of the individual author.
The prince of this world, Satan, indeed comes after you daily. But though he appears as a roaring lion: loud, scary, and hungry, he is in reality nothing but a scaly, loathsome, dying, defeated reptile. The Spirit empowers you to use the Name of + Christ, in your Baptisms, to drive him back into the shadows-like a cockroach scuttling for a crevice.
You love your Jesus because He has enabled you to love Him by first loving you. Your faith and worship of the Christ is a gift worked in you by the Comforter and the gifts that Christ showers upon you give you comfort beyond all understanding. So yes, you DO keep His words. You do guard and protect His Blessed Gospel by the Faith the Comforter has worked in you. You keep all the words of The WORD made flesh by believing and confessing Jesus.
Pentecost is Whitsunday, i.e. "White Sunday" because Jesus is now always clothed in those shining, bright, transfigured, righteous, redemptive robes of WHITE. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." [Is. 1.18] The comforter keeps you nourished by feeding you The Words and "The WORD." The Comforter keeps you clean by the fresh waters of daily + Baptismal absolution. The Comforter keeps you warm (or cool) protected, and beautiful, by draping over you Jesus' White robes…Jesus' WHITE SUNDAY gifts. The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world by filling you-you New Testament Temples of Christ!
In the Name of The Father + and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost