Fire. It fascinates us. It captures our gaze and delights us. How often do we gaze up in wonder at the
stars; those gigantic balls of fire that seem so small to us? Or did you, like me, feel extra joy these
past few days when the sun finally came out?
Or have you ever spent time around a camp fire, or in front of a fire
place, fascinated by the flickering? Fire
warms us, it lights up our world, it cooks our food, it fascinates us and attracts
our gaze.
I invite
you to raise your heads and look up.
Because those of us who are baptized (and if you’re not, let me know and
we’ll get that sorted by this time next year) have been gifted with God’s own
dignity and life, through water and the Spirit and resting on us are tongues as
of fire, descended from above. Today at
St. Matthew’s cathedral, 43 adults from all over this half of the diocese will
come together to receive the sacrament of confirmation, including four from our
parish. For those of us who are
confirmed (and again, if you’re not, talk to us), those tongues of fire are
strengthened. It’s a blazing fire,
tenderly lapping the top of your head, and it should capture our gaze, it
should draw us up, to the full stature God created us to have, to gaze with
longing at the heavens for which God has claimed us, by making us mature,
confident, heads-held-high, missionary disciples, gaze captured by the delightful
fire of the Spirit.
Ninety-six
days ago, we were marked with ashes on our foreheads and remembered that we are
dust. We lamented that sometimes that’s
all people can see when they look at us, the leftovers, the remnants of God’s
fiery passion in which we each have been embraced, because a fire in which what
grabs your attention first is the ashes isn’t much of a fire. But there are no ashes without flames. There is lamenting to be done for each of us
and for all of us, but not today. No,
today, we celebrate. We have lamented
and sought to grow in grace and virtue through our fasting, prayer and
almsgiving; we have celebrated Easter, set alight the new fire, and watched our
Paschal candle burn throughout these fifty days of Easter. And now, we celebrate, that God has gifted us
with His own fire. It does rest on
us. It is pulling us up and, however far
we have to go, we will blaze triumphant with him forever.
And the
lesson of Acts is that this gift of the Spirit is given at the service of
universal proclamation, that the good news of the Gospel, of God’s fiery
redeeming love which he shares with us, may resound in every human tongue. Because no human way of speaking is unable to
communicate the Gospel. No human is
undeserving of hearing that Gospel, hearing it as proclaimed at once universally
and uniquely, personally to them. To
you, to me, to each of us.
God is
among us and within us, dwelling with us in an even more intimate way than when
Christ walked the earth. Our breath, our
sighing is alive with the Spirit of God.
And fire spreads; breath is exhaled; the gift we are given is given to
be shared. Alleluia! We are aflame with the brilliance of God’s
love, and that love can set the world ablaze.
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