[Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below.]
Our patron the Apostle Paul certainly makes a bold choice when he was preaching in Athens. He said, in effect, “That unknown God inscribed on that altar? We Christians know Him.” And he in effect goes on to say, “All your religion is false unless it is centered on the so-called ‘unknown God,’ Whom we know, and Who made all the world, and everything in it, being the Lord of Heaven and earth. And that this Creator of all things, visible and invisible – this great Mystery – is also in us, and we in Him! for in Him we live and move and have our being.”
Can we doubt that the men of Athens were thrown into awe and wonder by Paul’s preaching? They seem most certainly to have been thrown into awe and wonder. What Paul could have added as a kind of “mic drop” moment is a verse from the 111th Psalm: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” To fear, in the Church, is to have wonder, awe, adoration, and trembling before God. Paul is saying that the Athenians do not have that fear because they are not worshiping the real God.
Such is the beginning of this Sunday’s reflection on our ongoing Eastertide question, “How do we receive the Holy Spirit?” Let us keep in mind where we left off two Sundays ago: that we receive the Holy Spirit by being sheep. Jesus Christ being our good Shepherd, we are sheep when we hear the Word of God and are led by it. The ability to hear the Word of God is indeed entirely given of the Holy Spirit. Hearing the Word of God so as to be led by it, as opposed to the many other things that may be floating through our awareness through the day, which sometimes lead us astray, lead us away from God. And to be sheep, as I preached two Sunday ago, happens as a parish takes takes up the threefold Rule of the Church, takes the Church’s religion: Acts 2:42 is where this is described first as the “apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers.” A parish takes on the threefold Rule of the Church, thereby becomes sheep, and receives the Holy Spirit.
In my stead last Sunday, Fr Jordan added an important reflection into the mix, which is that we receive the Holy Spirit by longing for the milk of the Word. And there can be no question about that: receiving the Holy Spirit is not something merely mechanical, but that comes from a heart that is yearning for God: longing for Him and the milk of the Word. As Saint Peter writes in the second chapter of his first Epistle: “Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.” We have to want Christ in the same way that newborn babes want their mother’s milk: yearning because we instinctively know we cannot live or grow with it.
Again we can reflect on Saint Paul’s memorable phrase: “in Him we live and move and have our being.” And here Paul can be said to be speaking about Jesus (because through our Baptism we are made members of His Body, the Church). Yet we can also see Paul’s phrase as speaking of the Holy Spirit, for our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (body meaning both our individual bodies, as well as the corporate body which is our worshiping parish). Through Baptism and Eucharist, and all the seven primary Sacraments, we are, as it were, “plugged” into the Holy Spirit, and Him into us. And He becomes more activated in us as we yearn for God, and yearn to be fed by the pure spiritual milk which is Christ. Activation can become easier the more we realize that in the Holy Spirit we live and move and have our being. We in fact cannot escape the Holy Spirit, only ignore Him. As the 139th Psalm reads: Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit? or whither shall I go then from thy presence?” Let us be in awe, wonder, trembling–that is, be in Holy Fear–of Him from Whom we can go nowhere to escape!
Our God has made the world and everything in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth, Paul says. The Word found when Scripture is opened and the bread broken is the Word Who embodies this great mystery, Who the ancient Greeks called the “unknown God.” Through abiding in Christ, the Father previously unknown becomes revealed, and becomes revealed in us, in Christ’s Body, in our hearts and minds.
My dear brothers and sisters, we receive the Holy Spirit by living in the Word, living in the mystery of Christ, living in the Vine Who is Christ, abiding in Him. Abide in Me and I in you, Our Lord teaches us. And Our Lord adds: “He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” We call “fruit” that which we do that is led by the Holy Spirit: fruit which is prayer; fruit which is ministry; fruit which is good works of any kind that give glory to God.
Yet to put it all rather bluntly: we are led to accept the verse from the 111th Psalm: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is of the Holy Spirit, and we receive Wisdom by having fear of the Lord: awe, wonder, adoration, and trembling: that He through Whom all things are made died on the Cross for our sins, and in His Resurrection raises human nature in Himself. By this fear, we desire God; by this fear, we long for the spiritual milk of the Word; by this fear, we are sheep; by this fear, we seek to abide in the Vine Who is Christ; by this fear, the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit lives and moves in us, and therefore becomes our being. Amen.
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