Welcome, sisters and brothers, and peace be with you. May the words on my lips and the meditations in our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. A blessed Pentecost Sunday to you all on this great celebration of the Holy Spirit. Today is the celebration of the Church's birthday, the day that the Christian Church was brought into existence. And what does a preacher like me have to say on this day? Well, I could tell you the story of Pentecost and how a diverse group of people who had, more or less faithfully, followed Jesus during his earthly ministry, and how they were gathered together, how they were filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered for their ministry. But that would merely repeat what Saint John in his gospel and Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles have just told us. So what do I have to add? Well, how about a quick question to you all? What is the Holy Spirit? It's a wonderful question, and there have been countless discourses, books, sermons, commentaries, and theses on this over the years, and no doubt there will continue to be so. However, how about this for my answer today? The Holy Spirit is the never-ending love that connects the Father, the Son, and us. God in three persons, blessed Trinity, Lover, Beloved, and Shared Love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let me try to make this a little clearer. From Acts chapter two, the tongues of fire descend, the great wind comes, and the disciples receive the Holy Spirit. At this, the crowd gathered, and each one of them heard the disciples speaking in his own language. Have you ever noticed how Luke goes to great lengths to describe all these different people and different places Parthians, Medes, Elamites, folks from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Rome, Cretans, Arabs. All of these different people are from different backgrounds, different cultures, different countries, different languages. And here is a critical point. All of these different people come together as one through the power of the Holy Spirit that has come down and entered their hearts. Please remember the spirit does not take away their manyness. The Spirit does not say things like Oh, you know, you Mesopotamians, you Judeans, you Parthians, Medes and Elamites, all of you have to give up your national identities. No no no. They are confirmed as different, but yet they form this harmonious pattern around the Father through the Son and the uniting love that comes from the power of the Holy Spirit at work in their hearts. It is this love that brings the one, the individual, and the many together to unite. In the Latin, this uniting of the ones into the many is termed in communio or if you prefer the English, it's the coming together of us as individuals in a communion. In a community. One of the great blessings of belonging to the faith alike community is that members of this extended family come together from all over the world. They bring their different languages, their different customs, their different looks. Yet no one is forcing a monolithic unity or identity upon them. The many are coming together around Christ to love him, to serve him and his purposes. We find communio. We become one with unity in diversity, thanks to the love that pours out from the Holy Spirit that is in our hearts, and that joins us together with the Father and with the Son and with the Holy Spirit. It's that Holy Spirit that entered into the disciples on that first Pentecost Sunday. It's the fire, the wind, the breath of God, the love from the Holy Spirit that descends upon and enters into the heart of each and every one of us today and every day. This is the Holy Spirit, the love and the power from Christ that really allows us to celebrate our unity in diversity. And may God bless you all, wherever you are from and wherever you are.
