The Fullness of Life
Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily
Passage: John 15:26-16:15
We celebrate the feast of the Pentecost, 50 days after the crucifixion. The day after Pentecost, we start fasting again. On a day like this our minds consider, what are we going to eat tonight? What do we want to eat just before the fast? How much can we eat?
We get really full as though what we eat will sustain us for the next month or so of fasting. There is another kind of fullness that is taking place of this feast day, beyond eating. St Luke gives the entire passage of his description of what took place on the day of Pentecost.
He says, “When the day of Pentecost had fully come” (Acts 2:2). He mentions Pentecost as though the reader knew what is was. This was because Pentecost was a Jewish feast, celebrated 50 days after the Passover. Pentecost meant 50, like a pentagon has 5 sides, the Pentecost was celebrated 50 days after the Passover.
On the day of Pentecost, it was a celebration of the day that they received the law on Mount Sinai. It was also a time that they would bring the first fruits of the harvest. Many of the major Christian events take place on major Jewish dates. On these dates, Jews would travel to Jerusalem to partake of the feast. The Crucifixion took place on the day of Passover. This was to fulfil the law firstly. Also, there were thousands of people gathered from the surrounding villages to celebrate the Passover. When everyone is there and everyone can see, Christ is crucified.
Again, thousands of people flocking into Jerusalem for Pentecost to offer the fruit fruits of their harvest, and then, the Holy Spirit descends. Everyone is there to see, everyone can hear the message. This is why it was essential that the disciples could speak in different languages to cater for all the people that had come from surrounding villages. God uses prime time events for everyone to see and witness. St Luke says, “When the day of Pentecost had fully come. Why not just when the day had Pentecost had come? Why use the word fully?
Scholars suggest that St Luke was deliberately using this word as a running theme throughout his entire book of Acts;
- Acts 2: 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
- Acts 2:28. You will make me full of joy in Your presence.
- Acts 4:8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit
- Acts 4:31. and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
- Acts 5:3. why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?
- Acts 6:5. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit
- Acts 13:52. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
These, among other examples, were St Luke’s way of emphasising the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit would fill them, would fill their lives, would fill their church.
This is the fullness we need to search for in our lives. To be filled with the Holy Spirit. St Seraphim of Sarov, a famous Russian monk of the 20th century, wrote a beautiful book called Acquiring the Holy Spirit.
He says, “the aim of your Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.”
“What do you mean by acquiring?” I asked St. Seraphim. “Somehow I don’t understand that.”
“Acquiring is the same as obtaining,” he replied. “Do you understand, what acquiring money means? Acquiring the Spirit of God is exactly the same. You know very well enough what it means to acquire in a worldly sense, your Godliness. The aim of ordinary worldly people is to acquire or make money; and for the nobility, it is in addition to receive honors, distinctions and other rewards for their services to the government. The acquisition of God’s Spirit is also capital, but grace-giving and eternal, and it is obtained in very similar ways, almost the same ways as monetary, social and temporal capital.
“God the Word, the God-Man, our Lord Jesus Christ, compares our life with the market, and the work of our life on earth He calls trading. He says to us all: “Trade till I come” (Lk. 19:13), “buying up every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). In other words, make the most of your time getting heavenly blessings through earthly goods. Earthly goods are good works done for Christ’s sake that confer the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, on us.”
Before we can even begin to obtain or acquire, we must know – who is the Holy Spirit? Mark Sidhom once asked a group of pre-servants to describe the characteristics of the Holy Spirit.
One said, “It’s the Comforter.” To which he responded, “Wrong.”
Another said, “It is the Spirit of God that fills your heart.” Again, wrong.
Something that makes you feel peaceful? Wrong.
This continued until finally he explained that the problem was that all these answers began with, “It’s.” The Holy Spirit is a Person. He is the Comforter. He is God’s Spirit that fills your heart. He is what gives you peace. He is a Person of the Holy Trinity. He is One whom we can have a relationship with. He is the One that we can be filled with. The Holy Spirit dwells in us that we can acquire Him, obtain Him, be filled with Him and live with Him.
This coming period of the Apostles fast in the time in which we acquire the Holy Spirit. Let us consider what a church that is full of the Holy Spirit looks like. What does a home that is filled with the Holy Spirit look like? What does a father that is filled with the Holy Spirit look like? A wife, a youth, a child? What do I look like when I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Let us spend this Apostles’ fast asking these questions.
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