“THE FLAME OF THE WORD GIVES LIGHT”
Saint John 14: 23-31
Whitsunday: 4 June Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Spirit of The Lord filleth the world, Hallelujah. That is what makes today and every day Whitsunday. Today is the day that The Lord hath made to be sure, but every day since our Lord’s conception (The Annunciation), Nativity (Christ-mass), Epiphany (revelation to the Gentiles as well as the Jews), Atoning Redemption (Good Friday and Easter), and enthronement to the right hand of The Father’s majesty (the Ascension to His means of Grace as to be administered by the Apostolic Office of His appointed men) is Whitsunday. What Jesus promised His church, that which He did on The Ascension, bore full fruit on Whitsunday—The Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem. It bears fruit on the 4th of June, 2017 in exactly the same way, though a bit less dramatic and pyrotechnic.
This is no gobblygook psychobabble of charismatic lunatics, liars, and heterodox. This ongoing miracle of Christ is His Word enduring forever. His Word, Himself, endures and works through His preached and taught Words and through He The Word given in the Sacrament. His prayer “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful…and kindle in them the fire of Thy love” is not His wishes or hopes for your dynamic and exuberant thrashing, barking, rolling, flopping, or even special “warm feelings” and deep thoughts of what you think should be. No. He fills your hearts the way He filled the hearts of the Saints gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost, by The Word being preached; then by Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, Thomas, Philip, Bartholomew, Jude, Simon, James, and Matthias. And now by Pastor Watson, Pastor Reusch, Pastor Penikis, Pastor Brockman, Pastor Boyle, Pastor Noland, and Pastor Ulmer…to name just a few. Peter preached, as Paul prescribes and describes, Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins…your sins. So do all who are legitimately in the Holy Office of Christ’s ministry—His public office. You are filled by the Holy Ghost and with The Holy Ghost when I preach Jesus into your ears…the same Jesus that Peter preached to the crowd of both Jews and Gentiles on that truly awesome day.
Sure, it might be “cool” for all of you…tingling and hair-rising, to hear a great rush of the wind, to see a tongue of living fire dancing over my head, and to hear me speak in fluent Spanish, German, French, and other tongues of men the tongue/language of God… but, does not that happen nonetheless in a “still small way” with a still small voice, the one little word that fells the devil, every time a pastor baptizes a baby, pronounces absolution over a penitent, trumpets Jesus’ love and forgiveness to you in a homily, or places Peace enfleshed on your tongues in The Sacrament? Yes, it does. Repent of your old Adam’s sinful desire for glory and greatness and demonstrable signs and wonders. These things the Pharisees demanded. Jesus gave them the sign of Jonas…the sign of The Cross.
A while back this pastor was privileged to preach the Whitsunday message of Christ crucified at the installation of the New Testament Prophet and Apostle, Fr. Michael Brockman in Hoxie, Kansas. There were, there and then, tongues of “fire,” called and ordained men in Christ’s Office wearing Red that gathered around the installed Shepherd and spoke in the tongues of Holy Scripture the Master’s love and losing forgiveness. At Father Kurt Ulmer’s ordination into said office, a few years back, we the white robed brethren also bearing the red tongued color of the Spirit laid our hands upon the head of Fr. Kurt as Saint Paul advised His presbyters to so do. For Red brings White, even as White once and still does, send red. The breather of wind, the ho Logos, for the Holy Ghost spirates out of Father and Son, does breathe the Holy Ghost into you at your own anointing as a royal priest—you Holy + Washing. But He does so only by His Blood and water. His red blood from His sacred wounds is placed upon you heads as tongues of light and life by The Holy Spirit’s calling, gathering, and sanctifying.
Christ’s Apostles—His “sent ones”—in the stead and by the command of The God/Man—bear the flickering, yet never extinguished flame of His love and peace in their orders, their callings, their ordinations. Though you are not (not yet anyway) martyrs, like the Saints in Revelation 7, you nonetheless have also had your robes made white in the blood (the red blood) of The Lamb. This happens through The Word and not through immediate man-generated gyrations or ecstatic preparations. The Spirit gives you Christ by your pastor only through The Word.
The Lord does teach the hearts of His faithful people by sending them, this day, the light of The Holy Ghost through these words, and soon through the Sacramental Verba. By this Godly light which is Christ for you, you have a right judgment by having the Righteous Judge Himself as your Redeeming Lord and your Loving God. Rejoice evermore in His holy comfort at His Holy Table here—now, and in Heaven hereafter.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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