“The Paraclete’s 50 Days of Purpose Is Calling You to The Mass 52 Sundays a Year”
Saint John 14: 23-31
The Feast of Pentecost: 9 June Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Holy Ghost of course “filleth the world” for He was there with The Father and The Son before the beginning—and AT the beginning: “and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” [Gen. 1.2]. Both truth and Baptismal imagery. The Holy Ghost always gives The Son: “and God said let there be light; and there was light.” That “Light of Light,” of the same substance with The Father, was the Word of God, the Light and Life of the world.
The Scriptures are overflowing with the Holy Spirit and His work of calling and gathering the Saints of God. The “Spirit of God” and The “Spirit of The Lord” are specifically mentioned 123 times in the Old Testament. The Spirit “falls upon” men of the Exodus, groups of Prophets, Samson, King Saul, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and even Balaam. But you know that every verse of every chapter of Hebrew Scripture is Holy Spirit breathed. King David himself writes by the Spirit: “my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” [Ps. 45.1]. All of you just confessed that Jesus is Lord and God by the self-same Spirit when you spoke The Creed: “and I believe in The Holy Ghost…Who spake by the Prophets.” Hallelujah! How can you not rejoice?
Well…your enemies are everywhere. They attack you incessantly and with ferocity. Satan is a roaring lion. His allies of the “world,” “mammon,” and your own sinful “old nature” accompany him like jackals and hyenas. But The Spirit fills you with Jesus, straps Jesus on you, over you, and in you, as both your righteous robes and Baptismal + Armor. The Spirit places in your possession the shield of The Word, and places Christ’s crown of thorns on your brow as your own heavenly crown and battle helm!
Do you love Jesus your God? Yes! He has found you by His work of Law-keeping; rescued you by His work of sin-atoning when He suffered and died for your trespasses on Calvary; He has washed + you totally clean and placed you in His sacred Wounds of comfort and peace; and He feeds and strengthens you for the remainder of your earthly Exodus by Holy Absolution and Holy Eucharist. These things He has not said to you with a visual, local, or corporeal presence. But He has sent to you The Holy Ghost. The Father has sent you The Holy Ghost. You are taught and catechized by the power of The Comforter in The Word—Who is Christ. The Holy Ghost places Jesus into your ears. You keep The Lord’s sayings because Jesus is in you. You speak Jesus’ words because the Spirit has placed Jesus’ Body and Blood on your lips and down your throats. Jesus tabernacles, tents, with and “in” you because The Spirit does. The Apostle speaks by the inspiration of The Holy Spirit: “…know ye not that your body is the Temple of The Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” [1 Cor. 6.19] That is what Christ was promising His Apostles, His Church, in today’s Gospel. That is The Peace you have: period! That is why your enemies are scattered and all those that hate you (because they hate Christ) flee before you—because they, like the infernal spawn named “legion,” flee from Him and His Word of reconciliation.
Are you faithful? Do you daily bathe yourself in The Word even as you use that flood of forgiveness to drown your “old Adam?” Yes! Yes, you do by the power of The Holy Spirit. He has taught you, Christ’s people, by sending to you The Light. He has given you judgment of innocence and blessedness by the judgment of condemnation and death, borne for you, by The Son. The darkness that Christ took upon His sinless flesh is now Christ’s resurrected light that fills you with the judgment of not-guilty…yea, even better, the pronouncement of INNOCENT!
Today is not the Day of Pentecost that Saint Luke writes about in Acts chapter 2. But today is a day of Pentecost. Every Sunday is Pentecost and every day you live is Pentecost. We are Pentecostals—followers of The Christ and filled with the Christ’s Words by The Pentecost Holy Ghost—the only 3rd Person of The Trinity there is—The One Who is The rushing mighty wind of God that fills the house—the nave of this very house! The cloven tongues of fire, now invisible, like the Paraclete, still sit on the heads of the followers of Jesus, and upon His under-shepherds. One to preach and one to hear, and to say amen! We are all filled with the Holy Ghost and all speak with a new tongue. Not Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Romans, and Greeks, but fellow sinners from all walks, lands, ethnicities, and mother languages. From Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, German, and 16th century Jacobean English, each man and woman hears the new word of Jesus—The New Testament, and understands the language of the God/Man!
It has come to pass that in your Baptisms; in your Holy Absolutions; in your receptions of your God’s Body and Blood; and in the full declaration of His Gospel: You are loved—you are forgiven—you are in Him and His Peace. You prophesy, speak God’s Words, as you confess The Faith and your faith. And when the great and terrible day of The Lord comes you will stand bold and upright having His crucifix as your spine and His countenance as your vision and comfort. In Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, that is, in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and in its respective parishes…here at Augsburg…you shall be delivered as The Lord hath said!
It is time for Christ’s New Language of Love—the Pentecost “payoff” which is given in The Sacrament. That is where His true Peace is left for you; there at the altar and rail is where is real Peace is given unto you. There, His presence calms your troubled and fearful heart.
The Holy Ghost has “called you by the Gospel.” “He will now enlighten you with His gifts” (with The Light Himself) You will be sanctified and kept in the true faith. “Arise, let us go hence.”
The Spirit of The Lord filleth the world. Hallelujah!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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