I want to take us back this morning, 600 years before the day when the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles at Pentecost. The prophet Ezekiel, was taken by God to a large field…not full of beautiful flowers and trees, but of dead and dry men’s bones. God said to Ezekiel: “preach and prophesy to these bones! Tell them that I will pour out my Spirit over them, and will put skin and flesh on them, and then put my Spirit within them, and they shall live and know that I am the Lord!”
Ezekiel did just that to these dead and dry bones, and an earthquake hit the field. The bones started to come together, and skin covered them. Then God told Ezekiel to prophesy and preach to the wind, and tell it to come into the dead men so that they could live. After he prophesied, the Spirit came within this entire valley of dead men, and what was once dry and dead, was now full of life.
This prophecy is fulfilled today on this Holy Feast of Pentecost. Throughout human history, God has always been with us. There has never been a time when He had abandoned His Creation. He was with Ezekiel that day. He was with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. He was with Israel in the wilderness and with Joshua in the promise land. He was with the Prophets.
Our Lord Jesus, God in the flesh, was with the disciples and preached among them. He healed and brought back from the dead. The disciples witnessed this, and left their families and professions to follow after Jesus. They listened to His teaching. They broke bread with Him. They witnessed His resurrection. They had 40 joyous days with the Resurrected Christ with them! And yet there was still something missing within them. They were not ready to go and preach to the masses. None of them had what was necessary to go and be martyred for His name. Even though God was with them, something was missing…
We sing often in the Church “God is with us”, and this is a beautiful thing…but there is a difference between God being “with us”….and God being “within us”. This is what we celebrate today! By virtue of our baptism and Chrismation, God is no longer with us…He is WITHIN us.
When Ezekiel saw this play out in the field of the dry bones, He watched as those bones came together and were resurrected from the dead…but it wasn’t until the Spirit came within them that they truly lived…that they once again were restored to being Human Beings. There is no true life…without the Feast that we Celebrate Today in Holy Pentecost.
As Orthodox Christians, we have been Baptized and Chrismated, and have received the Descent of the Holy Spirit WITHIN US. It is a precious gift, that God, through His Love for Us, has given the freedom to either accept this gift and live…or reject it and become dry bones once again. If we choose to reject it and follow after the fallen world, that is our choice. But if we desire to have the Holy Spirit continually dwell within us, there is only one way this is done: Through prayer, participation in the Holy Mysteries, and Humility.
One of the fantastic parts about being a Priest at this parish, is that I am not in the place of Ezekiel, preaching to a bunch of dry bones. There is a genuine desire from us to want to draw closer to God, and that is why I offer you all this short word about a difficult and annually worldly distraction that is placed before us.
Our society has designated every month of June as “Pride Month”. Regardless of the original motives for the month (which was to raise awareness for people that were being persecuted for their passions), it has sadly morphed into something much deeper. With a name like “pride” to celebrate the month, its transformation from a time of awareness of persecution to openly celebrating sin, was inevitable from the beginning.
Pride is, of course, the antithesis of humility, and leads us further away from True life with God. Therefore, I encourage each and every one of you with these words…a True Orthodox Christian can never be one to celebrate pride.
This is why I hope to designate this month for our parish community as “Humility Month”. Let us use the symbols that the government and corporations has placed before us to remind us of what it means to live a humble life. When we see a rainbow-colored flag, let it be a reminder of the pride that we are fleeing from in our own lives. When we see commercials or advertisements encouraging pride, let it be a reminder to say the Jesus Prayer to cultivate humility of the heart. When we see Pride parades in the streets, let us not be filled with anger, but let it be a humble reminder to pray that our Lord have mercy, not only on them, but on us all.
This is our task this month dear ones: The destruction of pride in our own lives, so that we can more fully receive the coming of the Holy Spirit. A God filled life is one that is powerful…and personal. A life with the Holy Spirit within us is one that turns us from being animals…constantly following after our own passions and desires…into True Human Beings that live not in the world, but above the world with God Himself.
Through our prayer life, through a denial of our denial of passions, and with an increased attentiveness to ourselves, let us spend these coming months opening our minds and our hearts to the Holy Spirit which is within each and every one of us…waiting to penetrate and mold us into living the life of a true human being.