“PEACE TO YOU”
Saint John 14: 23-31
Whitsunday—The Feast of Pentecost: 20 May Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
Now that the part of the Church’s year, Her celebration of Christ’s visible ministry is over…for a while…now that you’ve been bathed and fed in the Words regarding His Nativity, Passion, Crucifixion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension…now He Pentecosts you in His constant and daily presence by His Word and Supper. That is, now we have every Sunday just like the Disciples and the crowds that they preached to had Jesus.
No birthdays of The Church. God’s ekklessia, His called-out children, have existed since He made Adam from the dirt. But now the ever-living Ascended Lord Christ Jesus Who has Ascended to the Right Hand of Majesty to “fill all things” fills all of you, all of His Flock, by way of His Word as it is preached, taught, and given out in Water, Wine, and Bread. Now the Disciples are Apostles. Now the “12” are sent to all the world. Now the “12” are no longer twelve but have multiplied like the stars in heaven to serve the full heavenly panoply of Saints here in the Church Militant.
Do you love Jesus? It’s a fair question. The Lord asked it of Peter—three times. But when Christ asked Peter He was eliciting from the fisherman a three-fold confession so that the Apostle would have his three-fold denial forgiven again in a dramatic personal and individual absolution. And also, Jesus was using the form of the word love that refers to the unconditional and perfectly divine God-forgiving love that no sinful human is really capable of; unless they’re a Pharisee; unless they look to their own works and actions and not to Jesus’ Work and Sacrifice. But Peter said yes because Jesus had breathed on him and has given Him the office to love God and to love others “in the stead and by the command” of the God/Man. So too, you answer the question “do you love Jesus” with the Holy Spirit filling you with the eternal Trinitarian wind of God and speaking forth the confession of Jesus which, is now IN YOU, by Grace. Your “heart” pours forth the blood of God in Words of obedience and love. Your words are Jesus’ Words when you speak the tongues of His angels.
Old Adam want to live by sight and not trust in The Word. The devil tempts with mammon, with the physical. But Jesus trumps all these “things” which “change and decay,” the things which rust doth set upon and that moths fret and destroy. Jesus does not answer your real, physical, and earthy needs (needs that are real) with spiritual bromides and fuzzy platitudes. He is no spiritual force or invisible exercise, program, or feeling. Jesus is God in the flesh. This means what it means: Emmanuel! He is the incarnate, enfleshed, heart beating, blood-flowing, flesh radiating 98.6 degrees, lung breathing, eyes dilating, mouth smiling, and tongue speaking—TO YOU—"I AM well pleased with you; you forgive much for you have had much sin forgiven you!”
Yes, for the moment the form of Jesus’ real and true Body is “held” from you vision. But He tells you in His Word that He is in your very midst, in the middle of you (3rd person plural) and in the middle of you (2nd person singular). He is in His Church right Now in The Word and He is you His brother & sister in The Word.
He keeps the Word of His Father, of The Blessed Trinity, and thus, by being IN YOU and you IN HIM, this mystical union of Body & Head, Vine & Branch, Groom & Bride, you also keep the Word of God.
The Comforter, which is The Holy Ghost has been sent by The Father in Jesus’ Name. That is, you have been + Baptized. You are adopted and sealed in sonship. You are anointed as Royal Priests. You are enthroned as Kings at The Prince of Peace’s Right Hand…loyal and faithful sheep next to the Agnus Dei…Whose Blood makes you free.
Fallen nature always tries to turn this mystery, really all of God’s mysteries into manageable and bite-sized nuggets of information and mere “knowledge” to be controlled by the brain, the ego, the puffed-up personality. It’s why people like Bible Class more than the Sacrament of The Mass. But that’s not what He gives. He gives Peace not intellect; Peace not factoids; Peace not I.Q. or specialness in smartness.
The gift of Pentecost is The Holy Spirit who makes you White in the Blood of Jesus. This purity and virginal newness comes in forgiveness through Absolving Word. The word is no longer the cacophony of babel, the devil’s imbecilic screechings of self. The Kingdom is restored. The King has returned to His family. You speak the New Tongues of The New Testament of The Altar. Not drunk on new wine, but One with The Godhead in the wine which is The Blood of The Son.
The Body and Blood of Christ—THAT is The Peace given. Your fear is banished. You heart is set stable. “Arise, let us go hence.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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