The great gift that we Christians have received is God's Holy Spirit. Through His Spirit, God comes and dwells with us and He is in us and we are in Him. On this Feast of Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Ghost which came down upon the apostles like tongues of fire. Fire is s symbol of the indwelling comfort, warmth and life of God's Spirit. That is why on the Feast of Pentecost the altar hangings and vestments are red, symbolizing this life-giving presence of God within us.

In the modern age, in the Western World, the spiritual presence in life has been to a great extent ignored. In the beginning of scientific advancement the laws of physics indicated that the world was a huge mechanical structure. For a long time the world has been looked upon as an enormous clock with everything working according to mechanical laws with no spiritual depth or power within it. Human beings were thought to be only one more manifestation of the physical elements of life with no room for a spiritual presence.
Phillips Brooks spoke of the mistake in viewing life this way. He said:

It is through the Christian Church that the fire of God's Holy Spirit is transmitted to the world. This is the meaning of the appearance of our Lord to His disciples following His resurrection in which He showed them that He was the Risen Lord indeed. He breathed upon them and said, "Receive the Holy Ghost." He gave them His Holy Spirit, which is transmitted through the apostolic succession and through the body of the faithful down into history.

This Holy Spirit is what cures mankind's alienation from God. Jesus said, "Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted. Whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained." The word sin means simply this, a state in which all mankind lives in alienation from God. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that this alienation is overcome. Instead of being apart from God we are reunited to Him. Through His Spirit He enters our hearts and minds. We are at one with Him and no longer alienated. Our mental, moral, spiritual selves are redirected and empowered through His indwelling spirit.

Unfortunately, those who do not have the power of Christ's spirit in their lives, no matter what they claim, are in a state of alienation from God. They must try to live by some other spirit, some other force or power to help overcome the lost condition of their lives. We are beginning to realize the truth of this alienation and the frantic efforts that mankind has made throughout the ages to overcome it to no avail. The exposure that Americans have had to the religious practices of foreign nations during the last three wars has helped us see how the religions of the Orient and of Africa have attempted to deal with alienation without the benefit of the Christian gospel and the Christian sacraments, and how destructive this can be. Especially harmful are the use of psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs which are used to induce religious experience. Also of concern are the various forms of mind control such as group hypnosis and crowd delirium used by demagogues and charlatans.

Many of these practices have filtered back into our society and create today a great problem for people, who in their alienated state and not wishing to let Christ heal them, are lead astray. It is easy to fall into the trap of some bogus liberation movement or some form of cheap grace, which on the surface seems to afford salvation, but in the long run spells domination and finally disintegration.

The fact that we are alienated from God is behind our feelings of loneliness, fear, guilt and anxiety, plus all of the other inner contradictions that the human soul is subject to. Desperately we try to get out of ourselves and to transcend our situation. We seek an altered state of consciousness, which will give us peace and hope. There are many ways that the world offers for self-transcendence or for momentary feelings of peace and release from anxiety or guilt. All of us have a predilection towards addiction in order to escape from ourselves.

I remember years ago I met one of the most prominent political figures in this country. He was a former senator from California, who was a member of the Prohibitionist Wing of the Democratic Party. He was nominated for the presidency in 1928 on the Campaign of the Dries and lost out to Al Smith. I discovered much later that he was a user of cocaine. It is the drug of choice that presents the problem. If it is not alcohol, it can be some even more debilitating chemical substance. We find drugs being used in Far Eastern religions to give a momentary spiritual transcendence.

These are not the only spirits that must be discerned and must be guarded against. There are other ways in which the human personality seeks to find a kind of false ecstatic experience. The use of music has long been known to create an altered state of consciousness. The rhythmic repetitive drumming of voodoo drums can eventually break down the resistance of the strongest opponent because of the way this rhythmic sound affects one's brain.

One of the attractions behind the great rock concerts that we see happening in this country and in Europe is just this. They provide the participants with a temporary altered state of mind. The participants get out of themselves and lose themselves. On the surface this does not seem harmful. It depends on what suggestions are being given to them while they are in this state. Are they going to reintegrate themselves or are they going to be further disintegrated? We have seen how terribly destructive crowd delirium can be when it is deliberately induced. A demonic spirit can be built up which will cause people to behave totally contrary to the way they normally behave. A spark is tossed in and violence occurs.

Some of the great modern political religions have deliberately used this means of spiritual control over their followers. It was the demonic genius of Hitler who divined how this could be done by sound magnification, electronics and pageantry to create a pseudo religion through which millions of people could be drawn into a process of manipulation of their minds and hearts, causing them to lose their ability to make rational judgments. Then by a shouting, ranting demagogic form of preaching they could be induced first to hate the Jews, then to hate the Slavs, then to hate everyone who was not part of their own tribe. Communism has done this too. You can listen to Fidel Castro. This is exactly the technique he uses.

This is the life building presence that God has loosed into the world beginning two thousand years ago. There is nothing magic about it, there is nothing strange. We have experienced this truth for over two thousand years. Millions of people who, seeking God's power in their lives and coming to Him in fear and trembling, in anxiety and concern, in doubt and despair, have been reintegrated through His Holy Spirit. What a wonderful, glorious gift this is. We do not have to use some false spirit to try to induce sleep at night, or to give us a few moments of peace, or to get us involved in some kind of movement which can give meaning to our lives. We have God's Holy Spirit. He has come to us and all we need to do is ask Him to be present and He is here. He comes with His love and His grace and His healing power.

Jesus said to His disciples, "Ask and it shall be given unto you." He used the analogy of an earthly father. "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone, or if he ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?" No, of course not. "How much more," said Jesus, "will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"

May you live by this marvelous presence of God in you, who has come through Jesus and is present at every moment, especially when you need Him. You are never alone. You are never abandoned. You are never without His almighty power and presence. The marvelous thing is that this true. Christians have known this. We have this presence which the world can not have. We live by Him and we are strong. We are able to do what we have to do.

There is a beautiful prayer in the Prayer Book, which I would call upon all of you to learn by heart, "The Invocation of the Holy Spirit." Pray this prayer and God will come to you.

Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire. Thou the anointing spirit art, who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart. Thy blessed unction from above is comfort, life and fire of love. Enable with perpetual light the dullness of our blinded sight. Anoint and cheer our soiled face with the abundance of Thy grace. Keep far our foes, give peace a home. Where Thou art guide no ill can come. Teach us to know the Father, Son and Thee of both to be but One. That through the ages all along this may be our endless song. Praise to Thy eternal merit, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.