Pentecost Sunday 31.5.09
We understand that there are different degrees of happiness in Heaven. Everyone in heaven is perfectly happy, but some are more happy than others. It is all to do with capacity to receive. Think of two containers, a small cup and a large mug, both full. There is more liquid in the mug than the cup. So with Heaven. One soul has more capacity to be filled with the knowledge of God than another. Yet the smaller soul is filled to completion and is perfectly happy.
Knowing this we might settle for being a ‘small’ soul, for just scraping into heaven, doing only what we have to do to be saved, but no more. Surely though, if we have a choice; if we have the chance to maximize our knowledge of God, to draw closer to Him – then we should take that chance.
If large-souled, we can receive more. So we set out to be that, to drink as deeply as we can from the well of living water, to know as fully as possible the delights of God and Heaven.
We are doing this whenever we ask to receive the Holy Spirit.
We receive the Holy Spirit at Baptism, and again at Confirmation. Then we turn around and say let’s receive Him. We are always asking to receive Him, yet we already have Him. How can this be?
Both statements are true. We have Him, but not as much as we need or would like. To receive Him more means we can come closer to Him, can love Him more; that He can be more active in our lives.
Come Holy Spirit... It is not as though He is hiding from us. He wants to come. But He will usually come only if invited. We have a covenant relationship with God. He could just take over, but it is our glory to be able to love Him in return.
We would like to be just taken to heaven, but this way is better. Almighty God is waiting for us to learn to love Him from our own (assisted) understanding, to seek Him ourselves, not simply be passive recipients.
We might think we are happy already and we are at peak capacity. But no, we could always be more aware, and therefore more happy.
It is only ignorance that would ever lead us to say we know God well enough, or we have enough of Him in our lives. It can only mean we do not know Him. We do not miss what we do not know. But in this case we cannot live without the knowledge.
People will say: You must take up golf, or bushwalking, or some other pursuit, and will say, You don’t know what you are missing. You must try it. If you do you will never look back. We do not have time to follow all these lines of advice.
But in the case of: You must find out about God – this one is not optional. This is the very heart of your existence, the very reason you exist and you literally ‘have not lived’ if you do not know Him as fully as possible.
People who have had a conversion will say: how did I ever live like that, without God?
Once we have tasted even part of the joy of heaven we cannot look back. So we take the chance, while we are still alive, to increase our capacity to know God. We ask for more of the Holy Spirit, that He will take over our souls, possess them, and use them for His purposes.
Come Holy Spirit break down the barriers by which we minimise or sideline You. Take us to where we need to be. And then higher still.
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