Today is Pentecost Sunday and thus we celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit as promised to his disciples and into the world by our Lord Jesus Christ to empower those who believe in him. Let's read what the Bible tells us about the Advocate and you will find it in John 14: 15-15, 23b-26.
"[Jesus said to his disciples,] if you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always. 23 "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of my Father who sent me. 25 I have told you this while I am with you. 26 The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name-he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you."
Now is a good time to test yourself, look into the mirror and ask... "Have I kept the Commandments of the Lord?" If you have not, how can you say that you love Jesus? Didn't our Lord Jesus say, "If you love me, you will keep my Commandments? Whoever does not love me does not keep my words?"
There are Ten Commandments ordained by God... and if we have failed some of them, it is not the end of the world because you can go to a priest and confess your sins and he is authorized to forgive your sins. So if you have been truthful to yourself before the mirror and failed the test, then what's stopping you from going to a priest to ask for forgiveness?
My favorite passage to commemorate Pentecost Sunday can be found in Acts 2: 1-11. "When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. 2 And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. 3 Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. 6 at this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, "Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how does each of us hear them in his own native language? 9 We are Parthians, Medes, Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia. 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, 11 both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."
Remember what we were taught in Bible class... that the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament? One of my pet advocacies is the respect of all spoken languages in this motley archipelago called the Philippines. But somehow, one ethnic group composed of Tagalogs insist on imposing that Filipinos should speak in only one language to promote Filipino unity. 61 years after we were granted Independence by the Americans, we have not achieve any unity simply because we are being forced to speak a language that is practically foreign to non-Tagalog speaking Filipinos.
This brings us back to the Tower of Babel, which you can read in Genesis 11: 5, "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men had built. Then the Lord said, 'If now, while they are one people, all speaking the same language, they have started to do this, nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do. Let us then go down and there confuse their language, so that one will not understand what another says."
That God wants us to speak in different languages is without any doubt. God created everything and in seven days, he also created man from his image and woman from the rib of man as his helper. But then when the Tower of Babel was built... God thought that it was time to adjust what was wrong with his creation... hence we now speak different languages. Now this story comes from the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament.
One would think that when the Advocate or the Holy Spirit would come, he would now change things and make man speak in one tongue again. On the contrary, the Holy Spirit fulfilled the Divine order by God during the Tower of Babel... but allow them to speak in Tongues for them to understand one another. The whole trouble is that, man wants to rule others and when they have gotten the power... they act like conquerors and treat the rest of us like their slaves. In this Pentecost Sunday, we hope and pray that with the Holy Spirit empowering us, we shall use this power wisely to help our fellowman be good Christians. That means obeying what God has taught us because the Holy Spirit will remind us of everything that the Lord has taught us, which we can all read in the Bible.
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