This week we celebrated Pentecost -- the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles that gave them the courage and tools to go out and proclaim the Good News. In John's gospel, Jesus breathes the Spirit upon upon them, and in Acts of Apostles the Spirit comes down like tongues of fire. Either way, the Spirit empowers them to do things that would otherwise have been impossible.
Fr. David said something that really stuck with me: that religious faith is the most powerful human experience there is. It's real. It's so real that it calls us to, and speaks to us of, the kind of life God wants us to have -- Eternal life. Basing our lives on Christian faith is like building a house on solid rock, like planting our roots in deep earth.
The 'world' is seductive with answers, and it tells us we have everything we need in it. Cars, televisions, hockey matches; everything that is exhilarating; everything that is life. But really, all of it is fleeting, here for a season and then gone. Basing our lives on these things is like building a house on sand, like planting our roots in a land without water.
As Fr. David pointed out, Jesus found his disciples at the shore because they had returned to their old lives and were fishing. It was too much for them, and they ran. But he came after them, and called them back, and gave them the Spirit so they could do the work they were called to do. In the same way we, too, sometimes run away, back to the soft and easy ground that demands less of us. And, in the same way, the Spirit fills us with the power to return to God Who is our rock and fortress. The Spirit is not gone but among us, was given and has not been taken away.
As members of the universal priesthood of all believers, we have been given the power of God and the strength of God to preach the Gospel by building our lives on the faith of Christ Jesus. At Pentecost, we celebrate the work of the Spirit in all the world by recalling those disciples who, though frightened, built up the foundation of our faith.
How do we, as Christians, lead others to the sure foundation of faith, and how do we build upon it by allowing the Spirit to move within ourselves?
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