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Saint Irenaeus of Lyon said that God does nothing without his two hands,
His Word and His Holy Spirit.
Fifty days ago we gathered for the Easter vigil and Pascha itself. On the morning of Holy Saturday we read the story of the dry, bleached bones over which God sent his Ruach, his Spirit, his breath, his wind, and the bones first joined, and then tissue and sinew was formed over the skeletons, and finally the Breath of God brought them to life. The vigil of Pentecost is given over to the final, and most important, commemoration of the dead, the final All Souls’ Day. And the connection in both cases is important and pregnant with meaning.
I’ve shared with you before our Tradition’s opinion that the soul of a departed person lingers for a few days near the body, and then travels the world, and even heaven and hell, until it is judged on the fortieth day. This journey is a time for reformation and purification. (Roman Catholics envision the time after death as Purgatory; and while it is a place of fire, it still functions for the same purpose, purification and reformation.) I maintain that the human soul of Jesus—and he did have a human soul—also made this journey after death but in his case there was no need of purification or amendment; he was sinless. And so, upon his death, he destroyed hell itself and that released all the righteous dead from its confines, and instead of being judged on the fortieth day he was enthroned at his Ascension at the right hand of the Father. This is the work of Jesus, the right hand of the Father. But the process of salvation—ultimate well-being—does not end there. Jesus was able to spend those forty days with his disciples and continued to teach them. But he knew that they needed something more; they needed the Holy Spirit.
So on the fortieth day—the Ascension we celebrated nine days ago—Jesus went to the Father and presented him with something that had never been in heaven before: someone human, with a human body and all its constituent parts. And more than that, Jesus led with him all the righteous dead from all times past. The Father welcomed his Son with his innate love, the Holy Spirit, and then he welcomed all the dead in his train. This Spirit, having moved across the ranks of all the righteous dead, spilled over the edges of the heavens and dripped down upon the disciples in the Upper Room. Now we just heard a line in the Gospel that might be misleading. John said “there was no Holy Spirit as yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” He didn’t mean that the Holy Spirit didn’t exist, but that the Spirit was not yet available to us with all its power and dynamism. We could not receive the Spirit in all its power just as a thin wire cannot carry a very heavy electrical charge.
Consider this: when Jesus was baptized the Holy Spirit—who loves to masquerade—appeared in the form of a dove. But on Pentecost the Spirit came as fire. You can cage a dove, but you cannot as easily contain fire. You cannot parcel out a dove without killing it, but you can spread fire as much and as far as there is fuel to feed it. When Jesus was baptized the voice of the Father was heard, but at Pentecost the Father did not speak; the voices were those of the disciples making “bold proclamation,” as we heard in the reading from The Acts. God is now dwelling in people through the Spirit, as Ephesians 2:2 says. The circuit has been completed, the connections all in place. With the coming of the Holy Spirit the left hand of God reaches for us and we are completely embraced by God. Just as an electrical engineer must be sure all the components are connected properly, that there are no breaks in the line, so the Holy Spirit had to be given to us. Did you hear the prokimenon from psalm 18? “Their voice goes out through all the world, their message to the ends of the earth.” The voice of God is heard throughout the world from the mouths of human beings.
Well; what shall we do with this great opportunity? Let us not neglect so great a prospect. It is for you and me to make “bold proclamation” to the extent that we have made ourselves available to the Spirit, to the extent we have welcomed its presence and its operation. In return we shall reap an amazing reward; so let us work tirelessly for it.