One day when I was sitting down at the beach, I was watching two children, a little boy and a little girl playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sand castle by the water’s edge, with gates, towers and moats.
They had just about finished their project when a big wave came along and wiped out the castle. All that was left was a lot of wet sand. I expected the little boy and girl to burst into tears, to be devastated by what had happened to their hard work.
They surprised me! Instead, they ran up the beach away from the mound of wet sand laughing and holding hands. After a while they returned and sat down again to build another sand castle.
WOW!! What a lesson I learned that day! It is a lesson I have reflected on many, many times. So many of the things in our lives, all of the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationship to another person survives and endures.
Sooner or later in life, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold and take a walk with, will be able to laugh and to really live life.
On this Pentecost Sunday we should ask ourselves, “What Is Life All About?”
To me, life is a series of moments. To live EACH MOMENT is to succeed in life. I feel that I daydream through a lot of these moments….WHAT’S NEXT?…..WHAT’S NEXT? I need the Holy Spirit who came down upon the People of God – the Church – to bring POWER…ENERGY…and PASSION into these moments for me.
The Holy Spirit we celebrate this Pentecost Sunday is LIFE! REAL LIFE! At the beginning of the Book of Genesis, life happened on earth when the Spirit hovered over the waters, ending the CHAOS that the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs caused. This same Spirit of God is today hovering over the earth and is also embedded in our hearts to end the CHAOS that exists in our country and the CHAOS of war that is raging in Ukraine.
We hear about the Apostles in today’s Gospel (John 20:19-23) sequestered in the Upper Room with the doors locked. They were so afraid! Jesus was dead! Crucified! Gone!! Their faith was not worth two cents!
Then Jesus appears with a simple message: PEACE! This is what their beings were crying out for: PEACE, deep inner PEACE! This is what our beings are crying out for today, deep inner PEACE! Jesus gives them and gives us the Holy Spirit who overcomes the devastation of asteroids, the devastation of the coronavirus and the devastation from the senseless brutality of political infighting and death on the battlefield.
You and I today are witnesses to this deep inner PEACE and the POWER of the Spirit. My hot water tank is filled with 50 gallons of cold water. Down below a tiny pilot light can almost bring those 50 gallons to a boil.
The Pilot Light in you and me is the Holy Spirit. What you and I have to do this
Pentecost Sunday is TURN UP THE HEAT! We have to let the Holy Spirit melt our hearts so that they will tear down the walls of prejudice, racism, sin, hate and bitterness that divide us one from another. Our Families are so Divided!! Our Country is so Divided!! Our World is so Divided!! We’ve got to let the Holy Spirit do her work in us!
One day I was out on a lake in a power boat with friends. It was a very calm day with no wind. The boat next to us was a sailboat. It sat there “in the irons.” It was going nowhere. I could not believe what I saw. One man on the sailboat began to BLOW INTO THE SAIL. Everyone laughed.
So often this is what you and I do…..We BLOW INTO THE SAIL! But we go nowhere! We need the Holy Spirit to fill the sails of our hearts and souls with PASSION – TO BE ON FIRE FOR THE LORD!!
Thanks to Unsplash for the photo.
How have YOU been blowing into the sails of YOUR heart and soul the last couple of years and expecting YOUR life to go somewhere? What is the Holy Spirit revealing to YOU this Pentecost Sunday to bring YOUR family and our country together?
GOD CREATED OUR SKIN TONES WITH BEAUTIFUL VARIETY, BUT ALL OF OUR SOULS ARE THE SAME COLOR!
