Ascensiontide and Whitsuntide Sermons, 2000 The Rt. Rev. John T. Cahoon, Jr. Acting Metropolitan, Anglican Catholic Church Bishop Ordinary, Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic States Rector, St. Andrew and St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Catholic Church Alexandria, Virginia

Whitsunday, June 11, 2000

"When the day of Pentecost was fully come…" Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven the disciples gathered to celebrate the Hebrew feat of Pentecost. Pentecost is the Greek word for the feast of weeks which came fifty days spent—after Passover. The feast of weeks was a celebration of the earliest part of the yearly wheat harvest.

It was a tradition in Judaism that it had been on a Pentecost that God gave Moses the law on Mt. Sinai—so as the agricultural connection became more egtenousous, Pentecost became a time to thank God for the law.

Jesus promised that the Holy Ghost would come, and he came down upon the disciple son Pentecost and manifested himself in three ways. There was a rushing mighty wind—sprit and ghost man breath or wind—and the first manifestation of the spirit of God was as wing in genesis-and tongues of fire—god revealed himself to Moses and the wandering Israelites as first—band the disciples began to praise God in languages they had never learned.

The fact that they could praise God in languages they had never learned represented the reversal of what happened at Babel, also in genesis. Originally everybody on earth spoke the same language. People Got together to build, a tower which would reach up to the God was and, as they said, make a name for themselves. God came down and saw what they were up to so he dispersed them throughout the world and confused their languages so they couldn't get together on a major world-wide plot.

The best thing God did was to call Abraham and begin his work in history through the family of one man—the Jews. Pentecost, with its reunion of language through the Holy Ghost makes the reunion of all men in Christ and the end of the need for Jews to keep themselves separate from the rest of the world.

When they saw the wind and the fire and they heard the languages, some of the onlookers said that the disciples were drunk. St. Peter said that the disciples were not drunk at all. He proceeded to explain what was going on in terms of a prophecy from the Old testament prophet Joel. Joel had said that some day God would pour out his spirit on everyone—that is, everyone in the world could have direct access to the power that comes from God and to the comfort that comes from God. Peter says—what you have seen here today is that Joel's prophecy has come true.

The most remarkable thing about that of course, was that based on previous performance, the last person anyone would have expected to be able to give a coherent sermon and a plausible explanation for what went on was Peter—always headstrong, usually stupid, mostly out of it Peter; preached a sermon which caused three thousand people to be baptized. The power of God in the world was unleashed in its fullest.

The power of God who came down on the disciples that day is still unleashed in us—getting the spirit into our love is what the sacraments of baptism and confirmation are all about. God tries us to him with his sprit. God teaches us about himself through his spirit. God welds us into a community through his spirit, God forgives our sins through his spirit. God gives us joy through his spirit, God gives us the promise of heaven through his spirit,

The coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost marks God's final decisive action in the world until Christ comes again. The law brought judgment. WE measure ourselves by the law of Moses and we realize that we can never keep it in full and that since its prescriptions cut to our thought and words as well as our deeds we know we are breaking all of the laws all the time. There is no possibility that we can ever have ourselves in such a way as to get God to save us.

But that is exactly why the spirit comes down on that day—the law is not obliterated—far from it, The law is established even more deeply. But the law takes on its proper use which is to show us we are sinners and that the only claim to a relationship to God and to eternal life in heaven that we have is purely through the grace of God. God does not save us because we are good. God saves us despite that fact that we are not good and because he loves us.

Jesus tells us that he has overcome the world and he has done it for us and he has done it precisely because we cannot overcome the temptations of the world ourselves. The spirit is the spirit not of bondage to fear but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry abba father. The spirit as adopted us and made us God's children. Nothing can take that away except our refusal to repent. And that is why Jesus says, "Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid,"

The Collect: O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle. Acts ii. 1

The Gospel. St. John xiv. 15.

The Sunday after Ascension Day, June 4, 2000

Today's collect reminds us of the predicament in which Jesus' disciples found themselves in between the Thursday on which he ascended into heaven and the Sunday ten days later when he sent them the Holy Ghost. In those days they were, in a sense, back to the same situation that had existed before the first Christmas. God was in heaven, Jesus was up there with him, but no person of the Holy Trinity was specifically on earth.

The collect acknowledges the great and powerful and victorious wonder of the Ascension, saying that God has exalted Jesus with great triumph into his kingdom in the skies. But now that he has taken Jesus away to his right hand, we ask him not to leave us here without any comfort.

We beg him to send his Holy Ghost to comfort us and, "exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before," that is to say, take us to heaven. We want him to do for us what he did for the disciples in the first century. Please send us the Holy Spirit--not only so we can be sure we are connected to God while we are here on earth, but also so we can be sure we are going to heaven in the end and experience some of heaven while we are still here—until his coming again.

The place we experience heaven most directly and most surely is during Holy Communion, especially when I say, "therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven." At that point in the service we are lifting our hearts up to heaven so we can sing the song of heaven along with the angels. That song is "Holy, holy, holy"—the song both the Old and the New Testaments tell us the angels sing before the throne of God all the time.

We lift our hearts and voices to heaven, and then the bread of heaven comes down to feed us. Jesus says, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." It is Holy Communion which puts us in heaven and which puts heaven in us. Holy Communion is a work of the Holy Ghost.

In that heaven section of today's celebration we are going to hear the proper preface for Ascensiontide. It says that after his Resurrection, Jesus "manifestly appeared to all his Apostles, and in their sight ascended up into heaven, to prepare a place for us; that where he is, thither we might also ascend, and reign with him in glory."

The proper preface connects most directly to what Jesus said to the disciples at the Last Supper—words from St. John's Gospel which we read frequently at funerals. Jesus is trying to tell the disciples not to be sad when he goes away from them and ascends into heaven.

He says, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

He means--Don't worry. You trust God, so trust me too. There is plenty of room in my Father's house. I would not lie to you about that. I am going up there to get your places ready. If I take the trouble to get your places ready, you can be sure I will come back to get you so you can go back up there with me and move in.

When I visited his parish late last year, one of our priests showed me a video which commented on that passage. The video said that the custom in Judaism was that after a woman and a man agreed to get married and drew up the pre-nuptial financial agreement, the groom-to-be would build an addition to his father's house. On the day of the marriage he would go to the bride's father's house to collect her and bring her to the new wing of his father's house and they would move in to it.

The video was making the very pleasant point that Jesus is using imagery connected to matrimony when he says—In my Father's house are many mansions…I go to prepare a place for you…I will come again and receive you…Where I am, there ye may be also. Jesus is our bridegroom, after all, so it makes sense that the place he gets ready for us after his Ascension is an organic part of his father's house. "From heaven he came and sought her/ To be his holy bride/ With his own blood he bought her/ And for her life he died."

But Christ's Ascension also has another, more cosmic meaning. St. Paul says he "ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things." The Ascension does not only mark Jesus' victory over the world—the final proof that he has indeed overcome the world--it also places Jesus on the throne as the ruler of the universe, who makes his presence known and felt throughout all creation by his Holy Spirit.

The only region of Jesus' universal kingdom over which any of us has control is our own heart. If we let him rule there as our king, we will be as close to heaven as this life allows us to be. "Leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before."

The Collect.  GOD, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only 0 Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.