Topic: Pentecost

Our present reality makes the Church’s calling all the more urgent – the Church will not survive if she looks no different than the world around her. On the other hand, if the Church is faithful to God’s Word, then her people will persevere to the end.

Our hope – this sure and steadfast anchor – is also a guard against the cynicism and nihilism which now grips our political and cultural landscape. Confidence in the Resurrection cannot be separated from confidence in the Last Judgement, which Jesus teaches in the parable of the weeds.

Here is the key for us today: all of us have been commissioned in the priesthood of believers as planters for the kingdom of God. Not only does that mean the preaching of the Gospel, but it means the seed of our own faith as well – perhaps that more than anything else.

Jesus’ message is simple, but profound: come to me, and I will give you rest. This passage is also familiar to us, as it is cited in the Comfortable Words of our celebration of the Holy Eucharist. But what does Jesus mean by “rest”?

Few statements from U.S. history have been so misunderstood and distorted as this preamble to the Declaration of Independence. As our nation celebrates her independence this week, this most memorable text will be quoted (and mis-quoted) countless times by people who fundamentally reject the same Judeo-Christian worldview which made such a document (and such a nation) possible in the first place.

We are not all called to be Richard Wurmbrand (thank God!). In His mercy, God might not even call us to any serious persecution in our lives. But Jesus does send us out as sheep in the midst of wolves, he asks us to be ready, and he tells us not to fear.

What things are distracting you from the Gospel today? Which distractions are holding you back from sharing the Gospel with your friends and family? Our mission is short, the harvest is plentiful, and the laborers are few. Pray how God may use you as a laborer in His harvest, that He may help us lay aside every weight which clings so closely, and run the race He has set before us.

As sinful human beings, we have a unique talent for making ourselves and our needs the center of attention, if not the center of our universe. Holy Communion should shatter our illusion that we are the most important thing in our lives.

The Holy Spirit made possible the unity that was lost at the first Tower of Babel, and it is only by the Holy Spirit that broken humanity can today be renewed in the rubble of our modern Towers of Babel.