Tag: Holy Fifty

The Feast of Pentecost

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Sam Fanous

Passage: John 15:26 – 16:15

Today is the beautiful Feast of Pentecost – the Feast where the apostles and disciples went out and converted the whole world. If you look at the whole history of humanity within the Bible, you can see that it is a process of God teaching humanity. In ancient civilisations, the world was pretty barbaric – humanity behaved in a way that was very depraved in many instances. In those times, they behaved in that way often in service to the gods they worshipped. Some offered up their sons and daughters, and burned them in an act of worship to their gods.

Throughout the Old Testament, God told these people that, though they were primitive, this was not the way to behave. So He revealed himself to them as God the Father, the one God. In those days, the concept of one God was alien to them – there were hundreds of gods. Each tribal group had their own group. He revealed himself to the Jews firstly to teach them the most important lesson: there is only one God. The other gods were idols. But the God of the Jews was the only one to be worshipped. 

And even though he said this to Abraham and Moses, it took about a thousand years for this idea to sink in. Initially, they thought that this was their God who was stronger than all the other gods. But after thousands of years that concept became ingrained that the other gods weren’t real, and were simply works of man. The God of the Jews was the only God. He revealed that He was the transcendent, unknowable, eternal God. 

This is why in the Old Testament the people would question “how can I have seen God’s face?”. They believed that if they saw God’s face they would be immediately killed. But throughout the whole Old Testament there are snippets of revelation that somehow God is further than we could ever imagine, yet somehow close to us. We see Moses in the Burning Bush – the angel of the Lord walks on the earth. But who is the angel of the Lord? 

So somehow, throughout the Old Testament, you get the indication that there may be more to the story than this one, eternal, unknowable God. And finally, when we get to the gospels, we discover a new level of truth: God, the word, the second person, became man.  

He was the angel of the Lord. He was the one who spoke to Moses through the Burning Bush. In the fullness of time, through St Mary, He became man. 

And this movement of revelation from God the unknowable coming towards us moves to another level now. Now, Jesus walks with us. We can listen, touch, hold and see Him. He is there. 

But the movement of God towards us is not finished there. Jesus’ death and resurrection is only the second stage. The next stage is today – Pentecost – when the disciples were gathered together in the upper room, waiting for the Holy Spirit to descend on them. This is the final revelation.

In the Old Testament, we have the eternal God unknowable to us – and that is still true. God the Father cannot be known by us. We cannot put Him in our brains – He is far above us. 

But now, we know Him as Jesus Christ. He is close to us. 

But the final stage of the revelation is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit within us. God is not only beyond everything, He is not only someone we can see, He is someone deep within us, closer to us than we are to ourselves. 

As one theologian puts it,

“God is beyond all things we could think or express, yet closer to us than our own heart”. 

This is God’s revelation to humanity – and we are the heirs of this revelation. We have received the Holy Spirit in baptism and chrismation. God has moved from His eternal throne all the way into our souls, even though we don’t deserve it. 

And now God is fully revealed to the world. There is nothing left for God to teach us from an external perspective. The only thing we have to do is find him. And we cannot say “you’re too far away” or “we don’t know you”. The disciples and Jews saw Jesus walking on earth, but He is closer to us than He was to the disciples because He is within our soul through the Holy Spirit. 

It is the Trinity: God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that works within us for our salvation. It’s the Spirit within us that pushes us to pray and convicts us when we sin. And when we pray, we pray by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father. The Holy Trinity, altogether, is working for our salvation. 

So today we have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Every action and word must be infused with the Holy Spirit. If you are not sowing the Spirit to the people around you, you are giving them emptiness. If you’re a servant in the church, and are empty of the Holy Spirit, your service is futile.

You may do good things for people and help them. Many people help those who are sick, which is a good thing. But what are you doing to make a change eternally? You may ease their pain for a short period of time, but are you easing their eternal pain? Are you giving them eternal glory? Are you giving them anything with substance or meaning? 

If you don’t have the Holy Spirit, whatever good you do will never be eternal. It will only ever be temporary. 

Think about it like a drinking vessel. You could have a drinking vessel that is beautiful and ornaments your house, but when you come to drink from it, it’s empty. Or you could have an ugly jug, cracked, hardly holding itself together, and when you drink from that drinking vessel, it has an outcome. It gives you something.

This is what we have to remember. If we are empty of the Holy Spirit, no matter how good we look, no matter how much we do, we are giving emptiness. We are giving from our own deficiency. 

Without the Holy Spirit guiding our actions, we are like zombies. We can move and do things but there’s no life within us. 

It’s not just in our service. Think about your actions when you raise your own children. When you raise them, you have to raise them with the Spirit. In everything you do, give them the Spirit. Every time you speak to them, when you pray together, when you discipline them, feed them the Spirit. 

We spend so much time making sure we have enough food or clothing so we can provide for them materially, but that doesn’t mean anything. They will only remember if you fed them the Spirit when they looked at you and saw that you had something special, eternal and transmitted it to them. 

St Seraphim of Sarov said,

“Acquire the Spirit of Peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.” 

Just one person can acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands will be saved. With the Holy Spirit, twelve uneducated fishermen changed an entire empire without lifting a sword. With the Holy Spirit, a poor young virgin gave birth to the Saviour of the world. 

This is the purpose of our lives – to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Any church that is not filled with the Holy Spirit is dead. You can do all the services you want, but it is a dead church. And being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn’t start with the priest or the hierarchy. If every member of the church was filled and overflowing with the Holy Spirit, then the whole country would be changed just from that church. If every single person made that their goal in life, the whole world would be changed. 

So this day of Pentecost, let’s not forget our purpose on this earth – to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that it overflows. Let’s follow the example of the disciples. First, they gathered together in the upper room, waiting patiently for the Spirit to descend upon them. We need to drink daily, hourly, minutely, from the Holy Spirit. 

Every time we lift up our eyes to heaven or bow down on our knees to pray, this is us drinking daily. When we fill ourselves up and then interact with the people around us, it’ll naturally be transmitted to them. Even without words, as St Francis of Assisi said:

“Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”

We don’t always need to use words to preach God – we just need to be filled with the Spirit. 

Together, in this season of Pentecost now, remember that God, who is beyond our comprehension and above anything we can begin to imagine is also deep within our souls – our whole purpose in life is to discover and find him there. Glory be to God forever Amen.

Full Sermon Here

He Blessed, He Broke, He Gave

He Blessed, He Broke, He Gave

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Mark Basily

This is the First Sunday after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. After the resurrection of Christ, our Lord appeared to many of His disciples and to others many times. If you read through the Gospels and in the book of Acts, you’ll be able to see at least twelve documented times that Jesus appeared after His resurrection. There probably may have been more that were not documented.

In one of these appearances He appeared to over 500 people at one time. St Paul says this in Corinthians, “He was seen by Caiaphas then by the twelve and after that He was seen by over 500 brethren at once of whom the greater part remain to the present but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James then by the Apostles, then last of all He was seen by me as by one born out of due time.” An undeniable proof of the resurrection is the appearance to many eyewitnesses and as St Paul says at one point it was to over 500 people at the same time.

In today’s Gospel, we are presented with two of those appearances. The first is on the same evening of the resurrection – He enters into the closed doors where the Apostles were gathered and he enters with “peace be with you” in the upper room. The second appearance we read today is that Thomas was not present and He struggled to believe that Christ had risen and appeared to them. So Christ appears again, a second time eight days later, which would be the following Sunday. This time Thomas was gathered with them and our Lord demonstrates and shows the wounds in His hands and His side. These are some of the appearances of Christ.

What about His disappearances? We know that Christ appearing to them will give them tremendous joy and peace, but what about his disappearance? When He would leave them – how would that leave them? Remember as a child whenever we would have guests over our house and it would come time for them to leave, there would be always be this sad feeling. When they come there’s joy – family is coming over, friends are coming over, but when they come to leave you feel this sense of sadness and emptiness. We see here Christ appearing, but what about when He comes to disappear? It is always joyful and happy to say hello and welcome, but very difficult to say goodbye.

Another appearance that took place just before the appearance we read in today’s Gospel in the Upper Room, is a very beautiful appearance that happened with two disciples who were travelling on the road to Emmaus. St Luke presents to us this story on the day of the resurrection, on the Sunday. They leave Jerusalem and head seven miles a way to a village called Emmaus. As they were travelling on their way to Emmaus, they were talking. As they were talking, Christ appears and joins them. They did not know it was Him because their eyes were restrained. The Lord asked, “what conversation is this that you have with one another?” One of them named Cleopus answered and said, “are you the only stranger in Jerusalem and have you not known the things which happened there these days?” Christ entertains the question and says, “what things?”

 They then said to Him,

“The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.” (Luke 24:19-21)

You see here that the disciples had some loss of faith, they referred to Christ as the prophet, not the son of God. They said that they were hoping that it would be Him who would redeem Israel, as if now their hope have somewhat been dashed. Christ responds to them and says,

 ““Oh foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)

Essentially Christ walks with them and gives them the greatest Bible study in the history of mankind. He explains the starting from Moses and Genesis and throughout the prophets, and explains how all of these point to the crucified One – to Christ. When they had gotten near to Emmaus, which probably had felt like five minutes when walking with Christ, it was now time to say goodbye. Christ would continue His journey, and the two would go to their home. It was at this point they were meant to say goodbye. What actually happened was they constrained Him saying “…for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” They clung to Christ and said don’t leave us, stay with us, come into our home, have a meal. The Lord went to stay with them, however it did not last very long. He sat with them at the table and He took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. This action of Christ is unique to Him – the same action in the last supper and the same action in the feeding of the multitude of the five thousand. It was a trademark of Jesus. It was then their eyes were opened and they knew Him and He vanished from their sight – disappeared.

These days we are focusing on Christ’s appearances, but I would like us to think of his disappearances, like how He vanished from their sight. After He vanished, they said to one another, ““did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.”

Why did He disappear, why at that particular moment at the breaking of the bread? The reason is profound but simple. Jesus was pointing them to the way that He would remain present with them. When they begged Him saying stay with us, this was the way that He would stay with them – through the Eucharist. This is how He would remain with them. After His crucifixion and death, He appeared in different glorified forms, but now He is saying this is the way He will remain with you – the breaking of the bread, the eucharist, He is with us.

There is a story that came out of Russia during communism when the Priests and Bishops were thrown into prison and they could no longer celebrate the Eucharist. When they were sitting in the cell, they thought, ‘well they are giving us bread and cranberry juice, why don’t we pray the liturgy with the bread and cranberry juice.’ One of them said, “but we do not have an alter, not even a table,” they cannot put the offering and the Eucharist on the floor. So one of the priests lied down with his back on the floor, and they prayed the liturgy on the chest of the priest. Christ was present with them even in the prison cell. This is the extent that is taken to have Christ stays with us. In every liturgy, our Lord is answering this request of those two disciples who begged Him to “stay with us.” In every liturgy He is saying I am with you in the breaking of the bread, and he says to us I am with you always even to the end of time.

Glory be to God forever Amen.

Understanding the Holy Fifty

Understanding the Holy Fifty

Inspired by Fr Bishoy Andrawes

The church gives us 50 days to enjoy the resurrection of Christ. There is something special about this feast that we do not want to let go. We get something brand new during this season. It is a season of victory. It is the season where God changes our hearts.

Throughout the 8 weeks of Lent, our eyes were on the Cross. We wanted to crucify the old man and my habits so now is the time to live as the new man. During this season of resurrection, how do we receive the new man and victory in Christ?

We can fall into sin and rise again or we can be slaves to sin. Anyone can fall while they are walking. There is a difference between someone who fell, got up and kept walking and the one who falls, stays down and chooses to allow sin to control their life. Today, there is something in you. You no longer fight according to your own power. You have grace that gives you power and strength so you’re no longer enslaved under the law. You have grace that pulls you up. Something extra and powerful. God is planting His life in us.

To be a good person, I stop sinning. That’s not the truth. Not doing bad things and attending church does not make holy people, it makes you a church pew. If you become in the image of Christ, His love, His patience and His holiness makes you the person God wants you to be.

In Lent, we struggle to defeat the old man and the uprooting of sins. If these roots are now empty, something else will enter. We do not want to leave the roots empty, but implant the life of Christ within us.

If you have your arm in a cast and the cast comes off once the bone has healed, do you think you can move your arm right away? It will be painful to move. It did heal and the bones are healing but it’s not used to the movement. For this to happen, it needs practice. That’s exactly what God does in our lives. Doubts that I can’t move or I can’t do anything good are not true. You’re healing, the bad roots are out. You need to keep moving your arm little by little. This takes a lot of faith. God has worked in you. Now, use your members as instruments of righteousness. Walk while you have the light. When Jesus gave Lazarus new life, did he jump out of the tomb? No, he needed someone to untie him.

The grace of resurrection is given to us in 50 days so we keep noticing and practicing. When a cast is taken off, physiotherapy commences to re-train the muscles. This is our 50 days of spiritual therapy to move the muscles of righteousness. This is a pain of health and not of sickness as we grow in Him. Do not be discouraged when you fall. The dominion of sin is gone, but that does not mean we will not fall ever again. It means that when we fall, we rise.

If someone is done with his cast and tries to carry something but can’t and thinks their arm is still broken, this is not true. The arm is fine, it just needs some training. Some belief that it is okay. This is the same as a slave who has no control over sin. God has helped me, God has worked in me but I do not believe that I am capable of change.

We receive resurrection through the life of Jesus Christ but we need to believe in that. During this time, we celebrate His grace and His work in me that has given me living hope.

 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hopethrough the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”– 1 Peter 1:3

Hope is not, “I hope my grades get better.” Hope is in the resurrected Christ. When Thomas did not believe, Christ told him to touch His side and His hands. Why did Christ do that? It is impossible for an Apostle to preach Christ without experiencing the resurrection. It is impossible to a be a servant of Christ without experiencing the new man in resurrection. That is how I was. I was blind but now I see. I was dead but now I live. I experience this not every year but every Sunday! Resurrection is the miracle of Christianity.

Christianity is not about healing the sick. It’s not about making people better or nicer or kinder. Christianity is about resurrection. New life. New beginning.

My resurrection is dependent on Him and not on myself. The old man is gone. O Death where is your sting?