WHITSUNDAY

May 23, 2010

St. Augustine Anglican Church

“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”

The Rev. Gerald Parks +

          It is difficult to say why so many of us of (shall we say) more “mature” years view the reading of obituaries as an important part of our daily newspaper routine.  Perhaps it is a way to keep current with old friends and acquaintances; or maybe we do it out of some sort or morbid curiosity; and always there is the possibility that we do it just to make sure our name doesn’t appear there.  But whatever our reason for reading them is, there is a lot of information in obituaries, and for the experienced reader, a lot more that isn’t there.  Privacy after all is just as much a right of the dead as it is of the living.

          One of the things I have noticed in obituaries lately is a trend away from funerals as a religious celebration of life, toward a more secular observance of death.  Often, there is not a religious affiliation of the deceased listed, and sometimes no kind of service is held at all.  We may call this a sign of the times in an increasingly secular society; or it may be something else.  But whatever it is, it should not be seen as good or liberating for society.  To have not known Christ in this world and confessed Him Savior, to have not loved Him and served Him in the present, means that we can never know Him in eternity.  For us life will end at our mortal death, and there will be no tomorrows – no victory, only defeat.  Such a life is a great tragedy which runs counter to God’s Will for mankind, but it is the dubious “reward” offered to us by secular humanism.

          Today we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost, commonly known as Whitsunday.  It marks the descent of the Holy Ghost in fire and wind on our Lord’s Apostles, fifty days after Easter, and it is the commemoration of the beginning of Christ’s Church on Earth.  In the sense that it also marks the completion of God’s new covenant with mankind in Christ through His Holy Spirit, we might also say that it is the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the revelation of the New.

          It is difficult to overstate the dramatic change brought about in the disciples of Jesus by the descent of the Holy Spirit on them.  These were men who, a short while earlier, had run in fear for their lives from Jerusalem, at least one of whom repeatedly denied even knowing our Lord.  Yet, after Pentecost these some disciples began preaching the good new about Jesus boldly and without fear to anyone who would listen to them, in that same city.  The city hadn’t changed, and certainly the Romans hadn’t; but the disciples, now filled with the Holy Spirit, had been transformed; they were now inspired to change and save the world by their ministry.

          This is the great message of Pentecost: that each of us, having received and being filled with the Holy Ghost, can bring the news of Jesus to the world without fear or hesitation, and can proclaim His Gospel boldly to all people, to the glory of God and to the saving of souls.  Jesus said to His disciples, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” (John 14:26)  How else could these same unlearned and simple disciples have remembered all the details of our Lord’s life – His Passion, death and Resurrection, and His sayings and commands – and written them down, than through the inspiration of His Holy Spirit?  And how else could they have found the courage - for most of them even unto death - to roam a remote and hostile world to spread His Gospel?  These were men who probably until then had never been more than twenty miles from their homes and families, and who lived at a time when travel was difficult and dangerous.  Yet, somehow they were so changed by the Spirit of God that they set forth gladly and without fear to proclaim the Risen Christ to the whole of the ancient world.

          Recently, I was reading a book called “The Jesus Myth,” by Andrew W. Greeley, and in it Fr. Greeley writes, “One hears it frequently today that Jesus and his message are “irrelevant” to the problems of the modern world.  The irrelevance of Jesus is not however a new discovery.  He was irrelevant to his own world too, so irrelevant that it was necessary for him to be murdered.  The symbolism of his life and message was no more adjusted to the fashionable religious currents of his day, than it is to the fashionable ideological currents of our day.”  And he continues, “One hears that today the influence of the Jesus symbolism has finally run its course, But [the] announcement of the decline of the influence of Jesus of Nazareth has been made repeatedly since the soldiers rolled the stone across the door of the tomb. Nonetheless, somehow or other, the symbolism has managed to survive.”

          It is true that a large number of people today – as evidenced by their obituaries – have no time or place for Jesus in their lives, even here in the so called Bible belt.  But as Fr. Greeley wrote in 1971, that is nothing new: there have always been those who have found Him irrelevant to them.  And, of course, there are some churches also that reflect that confused notion, finding that Jesus is not only irrelevant, but detrimental to their new message of social activism and inclusion: He rather gets in their way, so to speak.

          But Pentecost should remind us that, far from being irrelevant, the light of Jesus still fills the world today through His Holy Spirit.  It tells us that we are not alone, and that we have no need to fear death, or the foolishness of sinful and arrogant men.  Our Lord rose from death, and by His rising He gives us hope that someday all men will come to the power and glory of His love.  The sum of our life should mean more than the observance of our death, for Jesus tells us, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you…because I live, ye shall live also.” (John 14:18-19)