God's Work Within Us

“I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you." 

The Pentecost, El GrecoThe Feast of Pentecost, a Jewish festival, has taken on a new and significant meaning for Christians.  The original Jewish festival of Pentecost celebrated Moses’ reception of the Law from God on Mount Sinai.  At Pentecost we, too, celebrate the reception of the Law of God, not on tablets of stone, but rather written on our hearts.  We do not seek to obey cold laws; we do not seek to obey God out of resentment or fear; we do not seek to obey merely for the sake of obedience. 

As Jeremiah prophesied, “After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (31:33).  “And because ye are sons,” says St. Paul, “God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4: 6).  God’s Law is not to be understood or experienced as, say, the laws of Parliament or the House of Assembly.  God’s Law is the Law of Love.

God sends the Spirit and we receive Him into our hearts, and it is that Spirit which cries to God intimately within us: Abba, Daddy, Father.  Note carefully that this new spiritual reality, first experienced by the Apostles on the Feast of Pentecost, the Birthday of the Church, does not come from us—it comes from outside of us; it comes from God to us.  The Holy Ghost is the gift of grace.  God sends the Holy Spirit—not because we deserve God to dwell with us, but because God loves us.  Pure and simple.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples that if they love Him they will keep His commandments.  He will ask the Father to send the Spirit of truth, the Comforter, to be with them forever.  “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you,” Jesus says.  It is important to note that when we speak of the Comforter we do not mean an encouragement of ease or leisure.  In its root sense, to comfort means “to strengthen.”  Our hearts are strengthened by God.  For what?  For love.  We desire to keep God’s commandments because we love Jesus. 

Obedience to God’s law does not make us love God—we are faithful because we love God.  We do not need to try to convince God to love us by our feeble attempts at obedience—He already loves us, and we abide in His love—God puts this desire and love for Him in our hearts by the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.  Obedience is the proof of love, and our witness to the world.  The world doesn’t know the love of God, says Jesus, because they have not received the gift of love.

The Holy Spirit brings no new truth to the Church, but He allows Christ’s truth to be practically lived out in our lives.  He strengthens us; He opens our hearts to receive God’s love; and He allows that love to bear fruit in our lives through our faithful obedience to Him.  The coming of the Comforter upon the new Church, as recorded in the second chapter of Acts, powerfully shows God’s activity among us.  Our human task is to be witnesses of God’s love to the world.  And that mission is strikingly shown in the apostles’ God-given ability to be able to speak in all kinds of languages, symbolizing their mission to communicate the Gospel to all of God’s creation.

            Pentecost is about God’s work in us which strengthens us to be His hands and feet to the world.  Our sphere of influence may seem very small --it might appear that we can do very little in this world, and we might then easily give in to despair.  In the children's hymn "Jesus Bids Us Shine" we sing: "In this world of darkness / So we must shine / You in your small corner, / And I in mine."* We can be faithful with the portion we have been given, and that is all God asks of us.

 It is God’s work within us, his love and his peace reigning in our hearts, which causes us, as St. Paul says, to be changed more and more into reflecting the glory of Lord (2 Cor. 3:18).  We are to be reflectors of God’s glory in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, showing the world what it means to love and to be loved by God.

* Hymn #719 in the 1938 Book of Common Praise

Andrew Nussey is the Rector of The Parish of Rose Blanche in Western Newfoundland.