[Note: the audio recording above will vary in places from the prepared text below.]
And so the womb of the Upper Room went boom. To those that believe in Him, to those who abide in Him, to those who keep His Word, Jesus said “Out of [their hearts] shall flow rivers of living water.” The hearts of the Upper Room apostles were full of the Holy Spirit. They had all become like Blessed Mary: full of grace because their souls were overshadowed, their spirit enlightened by the Paraclete, because they had conceived the holy Jesus in their hearts, because they bore Christ in their mind. Having been told by Christ to receive the Holy Spirit, on Pentecost the Holy Spirit came in all power.
The Holy Spirit is the promise of the Father, and proceeds from the Father: proceeds, that is, from the He Who is the maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. The Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life at Pentecost comes and gives life to the Church. Without the Holy Spirit, we walk in darkness, confusion, and alienation. As Saint Paul says, it all depends on what our mind is set: to set the mind on the flesh is death, Paul says; but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. Because with the Holy Spirit, we can see Christ, proclaim His Holy Name, be saved through His mercy, and remade into Him.
This is all an incredible marvel, and absolutely astounding. With the Holy Spirit, the Church shows herself publicly, and this Church is not some mere social assembly of persons who share common social interests, but rather is the Body of Christ: the mystical Body of Christ in mystical, holy fellowship. This Body: already of many members, all members of One Body, and all inspired by one and the same Holy Spirit. And this Body it is that Christ ordained to continue what began in Him: He ordained them to continue His ministry of reconciliation, continue His ministry of transformation through repentance and illumination, continue His ministry of drawing all people to Himself. This Body: the 120 apostles of the Upper Room Church, which, through the nine days together in one accord in prayer, were born into the world. And this Body proclaims, as Saint Peter did in his Pentecost preaching, that Jesus Christ the Crucified One is also Jesus Christ the Resurrected One, and that this Jesus is Lord and Christ, the one revealed through the opening of Scripture and the breaking of bread.
Pentecost, my dear brothers and sisters, is as the 110th Psalm has it: “In the day of Thy power shall Thy people offer themselves willingly with a holy worship: Thy young men come to Thee as dew from the womb of the morning.” That womb of the morning is the Upper Room, endued with the anointing oil of the Holy Spirit, given the power of the Holy Spirit to offer themselves willingly with a holy worship to Christ. Finding Christ in the Old Testament is what the Church does; it is an action that fundamentally defines and delineates the Christian Church, and gives the Church its identity, that along with finding Christ in the breaking of bread. Stating these as necessary fundamentals is no overstatement: it is seen in the New Testament directly from Saint Luke’s hand. That at Pentecost, the life of the Church was revealed, and that life is continuing in what began in the Upper Room: continuing, that is, steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. Christianity is this.
My dear brothers and sisters, the life of a Christian is a continual initiation into the reality of Pentecost which is the Church. The Day of Pentecost is the Day in which we live and move and have our being within the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit constitutes the Church as the Body of Christ, and thereby bears witness to and makes known through the opening of Scriptures and breaking of bread Jesus Christ the Crucified and Resurrected One; so that the Father can be revealed through Christ and only through Christ. And so to receive the Holy Spirit – as sheep inspired by the Upper Room Saints, and through communion with them growing in holy fear by their guidance which is the beginning of wisdom, embracing the religion revealed on Pentecost as the means by which we yearn for the spiritual milk of the Word – to receive the Holy Spirit happens as we allow our hearts to dwell always in the Upper Room: to receive the Holy Spirit and be filled ever-more by Him; that our sense of Christ’s ascended presence is real, unmistakable, and joyfully convicting. That as we receive the gift of the power of the Holy Spirit, we seek to pass Him on to others, that the Holy Spirit Who flows through our hearts may flow through the hearts of all people: that as members of the local New Smyrna Beach chapter of the Upper Room Church, the womb of this here Upper Room may ever go boom. Amen.