13A20.    2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.   The woman who extends hospitality to Elisha, says, “I know that he is a holy man of God.”  In extending hospitality to Elisha, she is honoring  God at the same time.  Anyone whom God sends to do God’s work, spirituality has the presence of God in him.  Elisha, in turn, recognizes the presence of God in her, as she is honoring the presence of God in him, and so grants her a son.

Matthew 10:37-42.   Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  Not only did God create us but also he created within us the capacity to love and be loved.  God is love.  He is one and only source of love.  The first of the two great commandments says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)    The God who is the source of all the good we have should be the one who is entitled to receive all that same goodness from us.  One way we express our love for God is to love all those whom he loves, our fellow human beings.  Jesus is saying we are only worthy or deserving of him when we put him first, the root from which all our love flows.  In John15:5a, Jesus said, ‘Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” Also in John 13:20, Jesus said, “Amen, amen I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me,” God the Father. That same God is present in anyone who serves him and his will.

Romans 5:12-15.  Paul writes, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.  That newness is our life in Christ.   Each day we live “through him, and with him, and in him.”  The old self was a person, whose life was one’s body, keeping it well, pleasing it, and guarding it.  It was all about one’s physical, material life.  Now the newness of life is a body that is about its spiritual self because Christ now is the source of one’s life.  Now we “must think of ourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”

13A.  2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.  A woman of Shunem, who was a person of influence, was accustomed to offering hospitality to Elisha, the prophet, keeping open a small furnished room so that he would have a place to stay overnight whenever he passed through.  Elisha, asking his servant if anything could be done for her in turn, was told that she had no son.  Elisha calls her to say to her, “This time next year you will be fondling a baby son.”  Our Gospel this Sunday says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”  The Church has given us an example of this from the Old Testament.

Matthew 10: 37-42.  From this world’s perspective and the perspective of each living being, one’s survival on this earth is of absolute, prime importance.  Expanding from that and from one’s innate, natural bent, it is consummately natural to want to experience the maximum amount of good feelings and pleasure and the minimal amount of pain or bad feelings.   In a totally different vein, this Gospel begins with Jesus saying to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  He goes on to say, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (also Mt. 17: 24-25)  Luke’s version (14:26) uses even stronger language: “If anyone comes after me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  Jesus is saying that we must commit ourselves totally to God and to nothing else other than what comes out of our commitment to God and his Will and not to our own natural desires and will.  In Mt. 22:37, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.”  Jesus goes on changing the Second of the Two Great Commandments, saying, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn. 13:34).  God is the measure of all things.  In Mt. 5:48, Jesus says, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” in other words, to the capacity that God has given you, be holy as God is holy.  We are to be people whose guiding principle is of the heavenly spirit and not to be people of the worldly flesh.

In this Gospel Jesus says, “Whoever receives you receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”  The principle stated here, I believe, is that as God the Father works in union with the Son and so the Son works in union with each one of us who belong to him.  He is Emmanuel, God with us.  Jesus in John 15:4a said, “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”  Also Jesus said in John 14:23b, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  Receiving one who has the presence of God within him, a prophet, a righteous man, a disciple receives the God who is within him and a reward that is equal to God’s work within each.  Jesus says in John 13:20, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11.  Paul writes, “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”  The life within us is far more than the bodily life that earthly animals have but Christ himself sharing his divine life with us.  As a true follower of Jesus it is never I alone every once in a while appealing to the lord as I see fit, but the Christ, who is my Lord and Master, always living within me.  Paul continues, “As to his death, Jesus died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.  Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Jesus Christ.”  We are a new person with him and in him in us.

12A20.   Jeremiah 20:10-13.    Jeremiah has told the people what the Lord wants them to hear but they refuse to listen.  They said of Jeremiah who has just proclaimed the words of the Lord, “Let us denounce him.” Jeremiah says to the Lord as a response to his enemies, “Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause.”  He does not fear those who would harm him because he entrusts himself to the Lord.

Matthew 10:26-33.   Four times in this gospel “Jesus said to the Twelve: “Fear no one.”  Do not hide anything of have said to you for fear of what they might do to your bodies.  “Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”  Your Father who cares for even the sparrows will care for you.  If you acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah, heaven is yours; if you deny him, heaven is lost.

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11.   By our baptism we are called to die to sin.  But death to sin calls us to rise from the dead with Christ so that “we too might live in newness of life.” “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”  Christ’s death to sin and resurrection, means he “dies no more; death no longer has power over him.”  “Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”  Jesus now lives in us and we, in him.  Our life now is Jesus who never dies; not this world where death continues for ever.

CorpChristiA20.   Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a.  Moses continued on to say to the Israelite People: The Lord “therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.”  God fed his people then; he feeds us now.  “God let them be afflicted with hunger” “so as to test them by affliction and find out whether or not it was their intention to keep his commandments.”  The Lord tested them or let them fall into temptation so that when they were facing difficulties whom or what they would depend on to help them, their God or some substitute such as a golden calf.  To whom or to what did they really put their faith in or believe in?  Moses goes on to say they must remember it was the Lord who brought them out of slavery, who saved then from the saraph serpents, who saved them from starvation with the manna.

John 6:51-58.   “Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  “ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”  Science studies the material things of the earth.  Biology recognizes human beings as one of the animals of this material world.  When Jesus spoke of life, he was talking of the life that is beyond the life of this world, spiritual life.  To believe that there are spiritual beings, who are in this world here and now who are invisible, was beyond and is beyond what is acceptable to many.  To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus means that he gives his very self to us to nourish and sustain our spiritual life.  HE REMAINS IN US AND WE REMAIN IN HIM.  An animal onlly has earthly life; as material and spiritual beings, we have both earthly and spiritual life in us because Jesus and the Holy Spirit are in us and are life for us. We have Jesus’ flesh and blood as the source of that spiritual life.  As the Lord tested the faith of the Israelites, likewise the Lord tests us with the challenge to believe in his invisible yet genuinely true presence in us.  Many people find that belief to be silly, absurd and insane.  The challenge to be alive spiritually and to grow in an inner spiritual life daily drawn from the divine presence within us requires that we must always be going to the Lord to live in him a life that is well beyond our natural instincts.  Without God’s indwelling and nourishing us, we are only animals of this earth.  “Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  Our God created us out of a love for us that desires that we share in his love eternally.  The family of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and all the saints is our family.  He has always had a place for us there, not just a grave for us here.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17.  Ours is “a participation in the blood of Christ” and “a participation in the body of Christ.”  That is a participation in the sanctity of heaven while we are still here amidst the worldliness of earth.  The oneness of the loaf that is Christ himself that we share makes us one body, one people in him.

CorpusA.  Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a.  “Moses said to the people: “Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments.  He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger.”  The peoples who left Egypt had been there four hundred and thirty years (Ex 12:41).  Their faith as a Hebrew people suffered because their circumstances were so difficult.  Besides the Hebrews, “A crowd of mixed ancestry also went up with them,” (Ex. 12:38) which is to say, those leaving Egypt where not all committed to the Jewish faith.  The forty years in the desert was to form or reform them as God’s People whose intention it was “to keep his commandments” and so be God’s faithful People “that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.”  It was by their commitment to God’s Will and not by their prosperity and human achievements that they were to have eternal happiness.  The first reading goes on to recall how God cared for his people by giving them the material things they needed when they needed them.

John 6:51-58.  Jesus tells the Jewish crowds, “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  They found this quite repulsive, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat.”  Despite the fact that they reacted so negatively, he makes his first statement even more explicit, saying in a strong formal way to note how important this statement is, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” Of course the life Jesus is referring to is the spiritual life that is forever.  If that were not enough, he repeats explicitly this same statement twice more and implicitly yet twice more.  Jesus makes no attempt to clarify as to how the Eucharist really works but seems to want to challenge their faith.  Believe or leave!  Their negative reaction is deepened so much more that “many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” (Jn. 6:66)  It seems to me that Jesus is saying to his followers that they should follow him out of faith and not because of miracles, how good he makes them feel or what he says makes so much sense.  All those things are good but what really matters is the faith in Jesus that sustains us in the good times and the bad and that never falters no matter what.  As Yahweh formed his People in the forty years in the desert so Jesus is forming his followers during his public ministry.  “Jesus then said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to leave?  Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’” (Jn. 6:67-70)  As with the Israelites and Jesus’ disciples, the life time of each one of us is a journey when we are being tested or pushed daily to choose Christ as our life.  Do we daily in the good times and the bad grow in faith in God or not?

“Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”  Here I think Jesus is speaking of the Father dwelling in him in his humanness and so likewise Jesus lives in us and graces us with his divine life so that our earthly selves are enliven with a heavenly, spiritual share of God’s life in which, as the second reading says, we participate, which is then a part of us.  Jesus’ body and blood, he himself, integrates himself into our being.  Then we are far more than we would be if we were just our earthly selves.  Jesus said, “For my flesh is true food and my blood true drink.”  Faith is living a life dependent on God’s life within us.  Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.”  (Gal. 2:19b-20)  Matthew 10:39 says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  To live our lives in ourselves without Jesus is spiritual death.  To live our lives in Christ, in his personal active presence within us, is spiritual life, life forever.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17.   Paul is saying that the Eucharist is a union or communion of ourselves with Christ who draws us together with him in union with all who participate.  The many members of the celebrating community are made one through our participation in the one Christ, in his body and blood.  “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you,” (John 14:20) united to Jesus, we are put in communion or in a community with one an

other.

 

TrinA20.   Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9.   Moses goes up to the top of the mountain and the Lord comes down to the top of the mountain.  Through Moses man reaches up to God to come into contact with the God who reaches down to man.  In reaching down to us the Lord manifests himself as God who not only is infinitely good in every way but especially infinitely loving and caring.  He so loves his people that, even though they had just worshipped the golden calf, his mercy is infinitely greater than their sin.  He takes them back as his own.

John 3:16-18.   “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  The Son, while still retaining his divinity, became fully human so that he could offer himself up as a sacrifice on the cross to wash away our sins with his blood.  Only the infinite God could himself satisfy the infinite God to redeem us from our offenses.  However, in order to receive our redemption we must, as Moses went up the mountain, go up to God by putting our whole being into his hands by believing in his Son as our only source of eternal life.

2 Corinthians 13:11-13.   “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”  The Christian Corinthians had been a community of many factions who did not get along.  Paul is calling upon them to live in the unity of the triune God, one God yet three persons, the unity in which infinite love is the binding force.  Our home one day in heaven is to live in God whose love is so immeasurable that there is plenty room for billions of saints.

TrinA.  Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9.  Our God is, at one and the same time, all-powerful and all-loving and kind.  With Moses we too bow down to the ground and worship him.  As he took the Hebrew people as his own and went along in their company, so he does with us.  How good it is to have the God who is love as our God!

John 3:16-18.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.  In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) We are God’s creatures, created by him to be loved by him and by receiving his love, to becoming loving as he is loving.  However at times, all too often, we become self-centered, loving ourselves as though what has been given to us is ours by our very nature and is not God-given, in other words, I choose to believe it is I who makes me good and not God.  We can so easily say to ourselves ‘look at me, at what I have done on my own, independent of any source outside of me.’  I can so readily deny that I am God-dependent but believe self-dependent and so I can think that love is not to be shared but to be horded.  The truth is, on the other hand, that God loves me so that I might bring his love to others.  “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.” (1 John 4:11)  To believe in God means to have a pervading consciousness of being God-dependent.  Not to believe in God means to think that I, of and in myself apart from God, have everything I need.  In others words the crucifixion was to no effect for me because I see myself as totally self-sufficient.  I have condemned myself for my lack of belief in God as the source of my goodness and all goodness.  “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:18)

2 Corinthians 13:11-13.  Paul blesses the Corinthians calling upon them to live in the presence of the Trinity: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”  He tells them to make their community like a home that God is proud to live in and feel at home in.  “Mend your ways, encourage one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

 

 

 

PentA20. Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11. At “the time for Pentecost” “suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind.” “There appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” “Now there were devout Jews from every nation,” who spoke many different languages. “They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,” “We hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” One God yet three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How often have we heard of the Holy Spirit who is the One given to us for our daily sanctification by the Trinity? Only saints are allowed in heaven; the Holy Spirit enables us to become saints, if we only cooperate with him daily. Nothing is impossible for God. The Holy Spirit accomplishes whatever he wishes since He is truly God but God will never force holiness upon us. We ourselves must choose to die daily to our own self-centered tendencies so as to belong to the beneficent Will and Love of God. The Spirit enabled the Apostles to speak miraculously. If we belong to the Spirit, he will miraculously enable us to be holy, despite the devil, our own natural desires and the ways of the world around us.

John 20:19-23. The first day of week after the crucifixion was Easter Sunday, the same day that John the Evangelist, the author of this Sunday’ gospel, marks as Pentecost, thus differing from the other three gospels writers. Perhaps it is only that his recall of events was different, leaving our humanness as the reason for the discrepancy. Nevertheless, John speaks of the locked doors and the fear of the apostles in contrast to the divine capacity of Jesus to pass through locked doors and to bring peace to the fear-filled disciples. He shows the disciples his hands and his side that had been pierced as proof that he is the risen Jesus and not a ghost or an impostor. Then Jesus commissions them to go as he had gone out to convert the people. Next he immediately empowers the disciples by giving them the Holy Spirit so to enable them to accomplish the commission he has just given them. He next gives them the power to open the gates of heaven through the forgiveness of sins or to keep the gates shut to those whose sins are retained. Now the gates are opened by a life lived in Christ or retained locked by a life that shuts out Christ. The power that Jesus had exercised to open locked doors or to keep them shut is given to the disciples and their successors. The Holy Spirit works through the Church, the followers of Christ, to enable us through the centuries to become holy and so to enter into heaven.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13. “Brothers and sisters: No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (Please also read Matthew 16:15-16) In other words, God enables us to declare the truth. I personally believe that God and only God is the source of ALL goodness. Even when a person is agnostic or hates God, if they do any good that is truly good, God is the root source of that goodness that they have just done without them knowing that it was God who enabled them to do good. There can be no goodness in this universe unless that good work has God as the one who empowered it to be. “There are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” When we live in union with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit often uses us as his visible instrument in this world to do his work. If what we do is good, the radical or root source of that goodness is the Spirit who is working through us. “We were all given to drink of one Spirit.” The Spirit pours himself into us, the vessels who choose to be open to him, so that the life and gifts we have are from him to build the Church. In as much as we have chosen to be the instruments of the Spirit without whom we could do nothing good, we deserve a small portion of the credit. However, by far the credit belongs to the Spirit.

PentA. In Judaism on Passover, the people of Israel were freed from their enslavement to Pharaoh; on Shavuot, they were given the Torah and became a nation committed to serving God. The word Shavuot means weeks, and the festival of Shavuot marks the completion of the seven-week counting period between Passover and Shavuot. (Wikipedia under Shavuot) For Christians, Passover becomes Easter when we pass from slavery to our sinfulness to freedom because we have been redeemed by Christ death on the Cross. For Christians Shavuot, which is also the feast of harvest of barley & wheat, is Pentecost or the giving of the Holy Spirit who is our living, i.e. not written, guide and enabling force in the spiritual life, and the harvesting of Jesus’ work with his Apostles.
Genesis 11:1-9 & Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11. I wish to look at the first readings for the Vigil and the Feast of Pentecost together because it seems to me that they meant to be contrasting and in that sense complementary as left to right arms. In the Genesis reading the people already speak the same language but God confuses their language because their unity of language was being used to try to accomplish things without God; whereas in the Acts reading, they are being united in the one Holy Spirit by understanding each in one’s own language “of the mighty acts of God.” God brings about unity with God as the center but without God there is only division and chaos. If we try to reach to the sky on our own, no good will come of it; but being united with God who comes down from the sky to earth, all is well.
In Genesis 1:1-2 “a mighty wind swept over the waters” as a sign that God creative powers were about to work. In the Acts reading with the coming of the Spirit he appears “like a strong driving wind.” The Spirit comes as “tongues of fire” that gave the Apostles an intensity of desire to speak “of the mighty acts of God.”
John7:37-39 & John 20:19-23. The reading of the Vigil states that there had been “no Spirit yet;” nevertheless, Luke’s Gospel speaks of the Spirit working long before Pentecost (Lk. 1:35, 41; 2: 25-26; 3: 22; 4:1, 14). I believe John’s gospel means to say that the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, that was to give the spiritual gifts necessary to initiate the Church after Jesus had been glorified in the Ascension, was to arrive at the proper time later. Jesus “exclaimed, ‘Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. As the Scripture says: Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me.’ He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive.” The ‘rivers of living water’ that are to flow from the Christian believers perhaps are the graced workings of the Holy Spirit who dwell within them. In John’s Gospel the Holy Spirit is given on Easter Sunday (first of the week). Jesus said, “’Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” With Jesus present to them physically as he walked the surface of the earth, God’s grace or life flow into them externally. When Jesus breathed on them the Holy Spirit, the breathe of God’s spiritual life was within them. They no longer needed the external, physical presence of Jesus as a source of God’s grace or spiritual life.
Jesus said, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” He was also ordaining them as priests (Grk. presbyteroi) so that the Church then had the power to forgive sins so to renew spiritual life within the faithful. Spiritual life was what Jesus had come to bring, the gift that gives eternally. Miracles, that give or renew physical life, are only a sign that Jesus and the Church, Body of Christ, (that exists physically after Jesus had left the world physically when he ascended into heaven) have the power to give the spiritual life that is for all eternity. With the forgiveness of sins, the spiritual life of each one of the members of the Church is reborn and renewed and so the Church has the Spirit’s life as its driving force.
On Easter Sunday, Jesus said, “Peace be with you” to give a type of resurrection to the Apostles who had locked themselves “for fear of the Jews” in the upper room which had become a sort of tomb for them.
Romans 8:22-27. The lifelong labor or struggle for holiness leads us to a groaning because we cannot just go out and do it and it’s done. Rather it is a never-ending- till- death struggle because the opposition does not give up until we have breathed our last breathe and are in the firm grip of the Lord, adopted into heaven as his son and daughters. The Holy Spirit groans along with us in our struggle, interceding for us “with inexpressible groanings.” It is like the groaning of those who are in a tug-of-war, or pushing on something or pulling on something we cannot move. We do not want to give up but, no matter how hard we try, we cannot get the job done. The forces that oppose the Lord never give up because they know, that as long as we have free will, they still have the chance to turn the tide. Nevertheless, we will have the victory as long as we stay united to the Spirit who never ceases to intercede “for the holy ones according to God’s will.”
“As we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” Paul writes. I have always heard of redemption of our souls but as a whole person, our bodies need to be redeemed too. Paul wrote, “He will change our lowly bodies to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” (Philippians 3:21) Paul continues, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.” Paul is encouraging Jesus’ followers to endure through difficulties. “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weigh of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4: 17-18)

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13. Paul wrote, “None can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to St. Peter who had professed to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God,” “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” (Matthew 16:16-17) We can nothing good, unless we are graced by God to do it, even if we deny the existence of God or do not even know or care that there is a God.
The Church is a community of believers who receive many, differing gifts so that, as a whole its tasks work a unified result. There are many parts of the whole body but all the parts are to work together for the benefit of the whole entity. There is one Spirit to work together through all the baptized to achieve God’s will. “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” God’s gifts, God’s will differs for each individual, but we work as a cohesive whole and so we, though many, are one. “We were all given to drink of the one Spirit;” but, if we do not, we will die on the vine and be fruitless.

AscenA20.    Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11.   Luke first writes his gospel and secondly the Acts of the Apostles.  He addresses both to Theophilus, which translated from the Greek means one who loves God.  In other words, he is speaking to people who are already believers but want to increase their belief.   Luke relates that Jesus was taken up into heaven, “after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit (but before Pentecost) to the apostles whom he had chosen.”  They only receive the Holy Spirit himself later at Pentecost.  Jesus says to his Apostles, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” “When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”  “Suddenly two men dressed in white garments” “said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?  This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.’”  In other words, Jesus wants the Apostles now to get on the next phase of their work here on earth and not just stare into the sky.  Jesus in effect is saying await the Spirit.  Once empowered by him go and convert the world.

Matthew 28:16-20.  Jesus says in Matthew 28:19a: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations; and in Matthew 28:20b: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  The end of the age means the end of the universe or Jesus’ Second Coming when Jesus judges all as Lord over all.  Meanwhile though not physically present, he is with us spiritually to continue his ministry to lead all to heaven through the power of the Spirit.

Ephesians 1:17-23.   Paul writes: “Brothers and sisters: May the God of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in the knowledge of him.” In Matthew 16:15b -16 Peter said: “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” Jesus said in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”  That was ‘the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,’ working in the name of the Father, working in a spiritually unseen but a divinely, real manner.  “And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.” Jesus is all that is all-6 good and heavenly given.  Though not here bodily he is here even more intensely spiritually to fulfill his mission to bring all to salvation.