When God promised, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink,” He was inviting us to come inside the Church and He would quench our thirst for God. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God is everywhere, but He is inside the Church in a special way. The physical presence of God has been promised since He first told Moses He would be waiting for us inside the Church.
We just heard a promise from our Lord and Savior that I believe most of us have either forgotten in our life or we just choose to ignore it. The beginning of the gospel, Christ, is in the temple and He says, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
And we remember a few weeks ago when he saw St. Photini at the well. He said to St. Photini, “If you knew who I was, you would ask me for a drink and you would never be thirsty again.” This idea of thirsting for God is something that is true for each and every one of us. We thirst for something. Sometimes we don’t even recognize what it is. I can’t tell you how many times I meet people and they say, “Father, there’s just something missing in my life.” And they come into the church and they recognize it immediately.
Because my brothers and sisters, ever since God promised Moses in the desert, he said to Moses, “You tell my people I will be waiting for them there in the temple.” You see, my brothers and sisters, God is waiting for us inside the church. Now, one of the things I hear all the time, “We don’t have to go to church. God is everywhere.” And it’s true. In fact, today, we’re celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit and we sang a hymn during Orthros. You’re going to hear it again when we do the kneeling prayers. We say that God is everywhere present and filling all things. There is no place in the entire universe where there isn’t God there through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. But still, Jesus said, “Come to me and drink.”
You see, there was an old saying, “There’s water everywhere: in the air, in the trees. Everywhere, there’s water.” But if you’re thirsty, you can’t just go outside and open your mouth and quench your thirst. You have to go to the well. Lucky for us, we have somebody who cleans the water for us and we turn the little knob and the clean water comes and we drink the clean water. We can quench our thirst. God might be everywhere, this is true, but He’s promised something special in His church. You see, my brothers and sisters, at our baptism, when we receive the Holy Spirit, our baptism is right here in the church. And when Jesus Christ in the gospel says, “Whoever believes in me, they will be rivers of living water.” And then the gospel says, “But this, He spoke concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would receive.” We have received the Holy Spirit in our baptism.
For those of you who have chosen to come to orthodoxy from another Christian faith, in your chrismation, you received the Holy Spirit. But my brothers and sisters, we don’t live that truth. We don’t live remembering that the Holy Spirit has come to live inside of us. And so my invitation today on the Feast of Pentecost, the day the church celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit, live life remembering as St. Paul teaches that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
My brothers and sisters, you and me at our baptism, we became the temple of God. The time has come for us to honor the temple of God as the sacred thing that it is. We have to turn away from all of the damaging things in our world, whether we put it into our bodies, whether we put it into our minds from the garbage that we read on the internet. All of this is dangerous for our bodies. And yet the Holy Spirit is inside, waiting to gush out like a river.
Today can be the day that we open the valve and let the Holy Spirit start flowing in our life. And the Holy Spirit is going to give us not just the courage to stand for God, but the truth of who God is. Before Christ went up in the cross, He told the disciples, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and guide you into the whole truth.” We know these things about God because of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit taught and lives in the church.
Because in a few moments, when we are preparing the bread and the wine, listen carefully. You’re going to hear me say to God, “Send down your Holy Spirit upon us, You and me, and upon the gifts: the bread and the wine.” Each and every single liturgy is like our own little Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is going to come down on us today. Open your hearts to receive it, to embrace it, and open the valve and let the waters flow. And I promise you, you will never thirst again because God will quench the desires and the thirst that we have.
