Transition from Easter to Pentecost

Deacon Les
Homily

WEDNESDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK OF EASTER (C)
5 MAY 2010

Acts 15: 1 - 6

[Acts 15:1] Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved."
[Acts 15:2] Because there arose no little dissension and debate by Paul and Barnabas with them, it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and presbyters about this question.
[Acts 15:3] They were sent on their journey by the church, and passed through Phoenicia and Samaria telling of the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.
[Acts 15:4] When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, as well as by the apostles and the presbyters, and they reported what God had done with them.
[Acts 15:5] But some from the party of the Pharisees who had become believers stood up and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them and direct them to observe the Mosaic law."
[Acts 15:6] The apostles and the presbyters met together to see about this matter.

John 15: 1 - 8

[John 15:1] "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
[John 15:2] He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
[John 15:3] You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
[John 15:4] Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.
[John 15:5] I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.
[John 15:6] Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.
[John 15:7] If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
[John 15:8] By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.







We are now in the fifth week of the Easter season, a season of profound rejoicing at the absolute victory over sin, Satan, and death won for all of us by the Resurrection of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ. However, today’s gospel reading seems to strike a somber note in the midst of our Easter rejoicing. In this Gospel, Our Lord states that His Heavenly Father

[John 15:2] ...takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does bear fruit he prunes so that it bears more fruit.

Of course, it is not the case that this Gospel reading inhibits in any way our Easter joy. In fact, at this point in the Easter season, the emphasis of our rejoicing is making a transition from the birth of our salvation at Easter to the manifestation of that salvation at Pentecost, and the profound responsibility that lies upon each of us to be a fruitful instrument of that manifestation. As Our Lord stated in John 7:

[John 7:38] Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: 'Rivers of living water will flow from within him.'"
[John 7:39] He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

In our individual lives, we receive the Holy Spirit at the Easter of our Baptism. We can then be likened as fragile vessels containing the living waters of the life of God Himself. At our Confirmation, which is our own personal Pentecost, we become fountains from which that living water flows out for witnessing the Gospel to the world.

Pentecost is not a feast which contrasts with Easter, any more that one end of a yardstick is in contrast with the opposite end. Rather, Pentecost is the crown of Easter. Easter Sunday is the first day of the fifty-day Easter season, and Pentecost Sunday is the final day. However, the entire fifty days of the Easter season constitute an indivisible unity of the celebration of the Resurrection.

On Easter Sunday, we experience the indescribable beauty of the dawn of our salvation. We rejoice in a beautiful dawn by regarding the Eastern sky with its heavenly pastel of color. We are looking at the sky more than that which is around us, which at dawn has a subdued appearance. As Easter is dawn of our salvation, so Pentecost is the blazing high noon of our salvation. We can no longer look directly at the sun, but when we look about us, we see the things of creation in the brightness of full color.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit brings into full operation His seven sanctifying gifts. One of these gifts, the gift of understanding, enables us to see the creation in which we are to work out our own personal salvation with something like the way God sees it. We possess a supernatural power which enables us to ascertain whether each created being which we encounter in our daily lives is a stepping stone on our journey to our heavenly home, or a hindrance.

Today’s Gospel delineates our transition from rejoicing over the gift of salvation received at Easter to rejoicing over the empowerment granted to the Church at Pentecost to manifest spiritual maturity in ministering the Gospel message of that salvation to the world. Our Lord states that anyone who does not do so will be separated from Him by His Heavenly Father like a branch separated from its vine, where it will wither and subsequently be burnt. In contrast, anyone who is in fact faithful to the grace given to him, ministers the Gospel to the world through Christian witness within the arena of his state in life. Our Lord goes on to state that such a person, bearing the good fruit of the Holy Spirit, will be pruned so that he will bear even more fruit.

Pruning here means cutting away anything which is not helpful, or possibly even which is a hindrance, to the bearing of more fruit. Let us pray for an increase of the supernatural gift of understanding, so that as we proceed on our Christian walk, we will relate to created beings--not necessarily as we perceive their place in working out our salvation--but as they are perceived by Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, Who uses us as His hands to hold up, His feet to spread, and His voice to proclaim the living Gospel of Truth.