The Descent of the Holy Spirit
Sermon preached by Subdeacon JD Swartz on the Sunday of Holy Pentecost, June 8, 2025
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – One God.
Today we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit and offer thanks for a revelation to, and a transfiguration of, our senses toward the recognition of reality. Pentecost is a theophany which illumines us, if we will allow it. That day humanity was offered regeneration to our perception of what is true, and through those who received such a renewal, the faith-filled proclamation of the Gospel of Christ flowed forth. That day, the Holy Spirit did not descend insofar as the Spirit was absent from us up to that point, but the descent was to the lowliness of our awareness.
There is nowhere where God is not; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the One God is everywhere present. There is nowhere where God has not been, for God is still there and there is nowhere God will not be, for He is there already. Our Lord is an oceanic abyss within which all of creation, all of time, all of space, from its first to its last moment, is drowning to life; every atom is permeated by, and saturated with, God’s being.
But we are small, and we require time and progression. Just as we were not deified upon our baptism and chrismation, humanity as a whole remains, to this day, unconfident of the freedom we were given upon the Resurrection of Christ. We continue to fear a hell that St John Chrysostom reminds us is abolished and whose gates are nonexistent. We continue to fear one another even, and especially, when motives are not known. We set up societal systems which induce anxiety over basic necessities such as healthcare, housing, or food. Within our limited, unnatural perception, disconnected from one another and focused on the self, we easily serve as hell for one another. We act upon one another, and upon ourselves, in ways that are counter to the love of God and against the peace offered by the Comforter.
Gathered in that upper room on Pentecost, whether speaking in some unknown and unknowable language which was heard by each passerby as their own, or if many languages were spoken so that all nearby could understand at least one speaker, the Holy Spirit renewed and empowered humanity with a force of connectivity, reducing difference and offering a path to oneness in Christ, a oneness modeled upon the Holy Trinity – the One God, Himself. Fr. Dumitru Staniloae said, “[The Holy Trinity] is love without beginning and seeks love’s expansion. What can justify existence more than love? Love can be endless because it is never satiated by anything. Love without beginning or end sheds light on and brings a complete thankfulness for existence.”
The Holy Spirit did not empower those who were assembled in that room for the sake of themselves, nor were they empowered with power or with might, but with peace, with a dynamic and vibrant stillness, and with a silencing of themselves through which the love of God was proclaimed.
St Isaac the Syrian spoke of such stillness and silence, saying, “From henceforth you will gaze at all times upon the spectacle of God’s continual loving care for his handiwork. Your mind will be swallowed up in awestruck wonder, your senses will be silent, and you, O feeble man, will lie prostrate on your face in prayer, your tongue unable to speak, and your heart incapable of praying; for in wonder at these divine acts even prayer becomes inactive. This is the inactivity which is superior to work, when a person is completely still in his senses and thoughts, and he lies continually prostrate before his Lord. Even his bones in their silence will offer up praise to God during this apparent inactivity…”
This stillness is not passivity but is instead the fullness of life – it is the very act of being.
This is the peace which surpasses all understanding. This is being enraptured with and enveloped by the love of God, which without, though we may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith – without this love we are nothing.
Before Pentecost, we had not received the Holy Spirit because we could not receive the Holy Spirit. As we heard in today’s Gospel, “Jesus stood up and proclaimed, ‘If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water." Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.’”
In today’s Gospel reading in Orthros from John chapter 20, we the find Apostles closed away in fear following the death and resurrection of Christ, and, “Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’ And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”
St. John of Damascus wrote, “We believe also in the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and resting in the [Son].” It was with the obliteration of death and hell by Christ that our humanity was ready to receive the Holy Spirit. And with the Holy Spirit resting in the Son, Christ was free to offer the Spirit which proceeds from the Father.
The work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit are not separate from one another, nor is their shared work separate from the Father. We see the Holy Spirit working at Christ’s baptism, at which the Spirit descended in the form of a dove. Fr. Staniloae wrote, “The Spirit is sent by the Father to rest in the Son as a demonstration of the Father’s love for the Son. For the Father Himself is pleased to rest in the Son through the Spirit who proceeds from Him.” And St. Gregory Palamas said, “And the beloved Word and Son of God Himself turns towards the Begetter – [the Father] – through the Holy Spirit, as love, and has the Holy Spirit from the Father, resting together with Him.”
What we find here, brothers and sisters, is that the peace and stillness granted to us by the Holy Spirit is an effect of God’s being, which is love. And in us, a love ablaze for God is ablaze also for His creation. The love of the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit, and the love of Christ and us through the Holy Spirit, and the love of us with one another, with our neighbor, with our enemy is through the Holy Spirit.
The descent of the Holy Spirit serves for us as a theophany; at Christ’s baptism it was a proclamation of the promised Messiah and of the Trinity – declaring both God’s love for His creation, and between the Persons of the Trinity. At Pentecost, it was a pathway to model the love of God with one another. At your chrismation, you were sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit so that your being may be transformed into His and by Him, through you, others may encounter the Lord. For over two thousand years, the good news has been told. I do not know anyone who has not at least heard of the name of Jesus Christ. The faith was spread, but we are small, and it is hard to keep these things in the forefront of our minds. We divorce belief from practice, and find ourselves without works of love – and faith without works is dead, and in having a faith without love we find that we are nothing.
Very soon we will recite the Creed together, the same way we do every Divine Liturgy, and we will say “And I believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord, the giver of life who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.”
The Holy Spirit is always with us, before Pentecost, before the Incarnation of Christ, speaking by the prophets, hovering over the face of the deep. And now, each of us has the senses to recognize, encounter, and serve with the peaceful stillness of the Holy Spirit. The Comforter came to bear witness to all creation the love that is God’s and we can now share that love and participate in the work of giving life. These are not acts of grandeur, but of simplicity. St Nikon of Optina said, "You must love every man, seeing in him the image of God, disregarding his vices. You must not dismiss people with coldness."
Love offers dignity with patience. Love gives of itself so that it may grow. Love is nurtured in prayer and increased in action. Love is life, for God is love. What was it that Christ said to us would matter on the day of judgment? “Whatever you did for the least of these…you did for me.” Feed the hungry, invite the stranger in, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned.
Next week we will see the return of our Neighbor Outreach food program “First Sunday Subs” and I would encourage you all to participate. Greet people, give to those in need, love generously. Take small steps in your everyday life and you will find that small steps will take you far if you don’t stop taking them.
Let us praise God today for the great feast of Pentecost and the love that He has given us to share.
Amen.