Allow the Spirit to Give Witness - Fr. Dave Pivonka

[Applause] Thank [Applause] you. I just said to Jimmy, "Jimmy, our stories are so much alike." He said, "Father, the only thing I like is our haircuts." Yeah, so it's a great pleasure and honor. John, thank you for allowing me to be with you this weekend and with the conference. A great blessing to be with you this morning.

Um, actually, my hope is not that you hear something in the next 49 minutes and 30 seconds. Um, my hope is that you encounter someone. Amen. I say, "Amen," you respond, "Amen." Amen, amen, amen.

So, do me a favor, stand up, maybe stretch a little bit if you have to. This may be the most courageous thing I've ever tried in my life, but we're going to sing together. We're going to sing that, "Come Holy, Come Holy Ghost," and we all know that together. So, do me a favor, just quiet yourself, take a breath. In your own mind and your heart, just ask the Lord to be present to you. Maybe for a moment, what was the one word that Jimmy shared that really touched your heart that you're going to take with you? Lord, we ask that you'd be present to us this morning, and let's try to our best sing the first verse of "Come Holy Ghost."

"Come Holy Ghost, Creator blessed, and in our heart take up thy rest. Come with thy Grace and Heavenly aid, thou to fill the hearts which thou hast made."

And again, in your own mind, in your own heart, pray that your heart would be open to what the Lord wants to say today, that we be less concerned about what I say and more concerned about what you hear. Come Holy Spirit. Amen. Nice, impressive. I like that.

Romans 8:17 says, "The Spirit himself bears witness." The Spirit bears witness. So, John and I were talking a little while ago about the theme for this weekend, and he said, "The theme is witness." And immediately what comes to my mind is the text from Romans: "The Spirit gives witness."

Well, how is it that the Holy Spirit gives witness? The reality is, as we've been challenged, we've invited in multiple times over the last several days to be able to give witness. And I want to suggest that to the degree that we allow the Holy Spirit to be working and operating in our life, that the possibility of us to give witness is magnified.

I think often times, particularly in the West, what we struggle with is this idea that I have to do this, right? I need to go forth and I need to be a better witness. I need to be a better Catholic. I need to be more loving. I need to be more kind. I need to be more patient. And the problem is, is that we have this desire, and it lasts a couple of weeks, and then we fall. And we, "Okay, okay, I'm going to do better next time. I'm just going to do better next time." And we try again. And that's why we have these seasons in our Lent, right, in our church years, is that we've got Advent to kind of help us focus, and then we've got Lent to help us focus. All of these things that helps us ideally to be a better, faithful Catholic Christian. But the reality is, is often times we fall and we say, "Well, I'm just going to try harder."

And I want to suggest to the degree that we allow the Spirit of God to work and operate in us, the possibility of us being a witness is exponentially greater. Amen. It's not merely about you being a witness; it's rather allowing the Spirit of God to work and operate through you, and that in itself gives witness. Amen.

I had occasion, one of the images that I use for this is, uh, I love to go snorkeling. You know, I, there's a, the cruise, the Good News Cruise. I suggest everybody go on the Good News Cruise. Amen. That was easy. Well, all right. It's really one of my favorite activities is actually to go snorkeling. And it's such a beautiful image that when you go to the water, if you go down to the Caribbean and you've got the beautiful sand and the water and the trees and all that kind of things, it's just exquisite. It's really, really beautiful. But when you go snorkeling, you put this mask on your face and you put your face in the water, and it opens up a whole new world. Uh, there's fish, and there's animals, and there's colors, and there's plants, and there's ferns, and all of these kinds of things. And it's the reality is that it was there all along, right? It was there. It's not just the fact that you put this, that it magically appeared. It was there all along, but we weren't able to see it until we put a mask on our face, and then it opens up this whole new world.

I suggest that this is what the Spirit of God is like, is that there is a life of the spirit, there is a life of the supernatural, there is a life of faith. And the reality is, often times it's there, but we're not accessing it. And as soon as we experience more the presence of God in our life, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life, it opens up to us a whole new world: a world of grace, a world of mercy, a world of the supernatural, a world of forgiveness.

So, this is ultimately my prayer, is that today we allow the Spirit to come upon us and then allow the Spirit to bear witness, right? It's not just about me trying to figure this out, but once we experience more personally and more profoundly the Spirit, that's many of you have thanked me for the work that I've done with in Wild Goose. And the Wild Goose is a video series that I did, and it's, it's, the Wild Goose is a term that the ancient Celts used for the Holy Spirit, right?

I remember I was giving a talk one time talking about the Wild Goose, and this lady comes up before. She said, "You're going to talk about the Wild Goose?" "Yeah." She goes, "That's so disrespectful." I said, "What do you mean?" She goes, "Next you're going to say, 'Jesus and the homies!'" All right, the Wild Goose was the ancient, ancient term for the Holy Spirit, right? And the reason I did this was, was this sense that ultimately it's, it's what we need, right? That something needs to begin to animate this, and once we experience this Holy Spirit, it opens up and we see everything different.

So, I want to take a look at one, two, three, four, or five ways that the Spirit wants to be able to witness for us. Amen.

The first comes from Luke 3. It says, "After all the people had been baptized, and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, Heaven opened up and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a bodily," it says, "a bodily like a dove." I might have been a goose. Dove, goose, tomato, tomato, right? "And a voice came from heaven and says, 'You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased.'"

In John 15:26, it says Jesus tells his disciples that the Spirit will give witness to Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I suggest that we are able, the only thing apart from the Holy Spirit that we can give witness to is ourself or our job. Everybody's giving witness, right? We give witness to something. But when the Spirit is operating in our life, then we begin, as we hear today, to be able to give witness to Jesus. You are able to do nothing and give witness to nothing apart from the Holy Spirit. Scripture says we can do literally nothing apart from the Holy Spirit. What can you do apart from the Holy Spirit? What's that? But with the Holy Spirit, we give witness to Jesus.

My experience tells me, and it was interesting, in seminary they would continually just grind in our mind and our hearts that we need to have a Jesus-shaped God, a Jesus-shaped God. And I think many of us have this image or this idea of who Jesus is, or perhaps who we want him to be. But it's important again that the scripture says to us that the Spirit opens up and the Holy Spirit reveals, "This is Jesus. This is the Son of God." And I think we have so many misunderstandings of who Jesus is.

I remember an individual I was walking with, and they were really struggling with a particular difficulty, and they knew that the Lord was asking something of them, but they just didn't have this strength or the ability to do it. And he said to me, he goes, "Father Dave, I just can't imagine that Jesus would ask something difficult of me." So, where does that come from, right? I don't know what Bible you're reading, but the first thing Jesus says is, "If you," this is bad PR, right? Jesus says, "If you want to follow me, deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me." Where do we get the idea that he's not going to ask anything difficult of us, right? This, this image that we have of Jesus or who we want Jesus to be. And the reality, guys, is that the Holy Spirit desires to reveal to us who is Jesus.

And I remember one time, it's a long story, I'm not going to get into it, but the bottom line is, I was sitting next to this lake, and the Spirit of God just rested upon me, and he, and he broke this image that I had of Jesus, that in some ways Jesus was mean, and he was kind of harsh, and he was, not judging, but kind of weighing, like, like a principle, right? That if you're, if you're good, you're going to be good, or if you're bad. But this, and the Lord broke into that, and he said to me, "Dave, that's not the kind of God I am." And I want to suggest, if you have never heard the Lord say to you, "That's not the kind of God I am," that it's quite possible that you have created in your own image, in your own mind, who God is. And it's a scary thing to hear the Lord say, "Dave, that's not, I'm not a harsh God. I'm not a critical God." The Spirit of Jesus reveals to us who is Jesus.

And I think if we're honest, if we're honest, there's not a significant difference between God and Santa Claus. Think about it. God is always watching us. So is Santa. Okay, this, this, right? Don't we tell our kids, "Santa's watching you"? What's up with that Elf on a Shelf? That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life. Just ridiculous, right? Um, God is paying attention if we're good or bad. Oh my gosh, so is Santa, right? If we do good things, we're going to get presents. If we do bad things, we're going to get coal. If we do good things, we get to go to heaven. If we do bad things, become the coal. Is it that different?

I want to suggest there is a profound, radical difference between Santa Claus and Jesus, and it's the Spirit that wants to reveal that to us. The Spirit wants to free you from your image that says Jesus is just always kind of watching for you, waiting for you to make a mistake.

I remember one time I was at a conference, in a Men's Conference, and I said a really simple line. I said, "God is for us," right? Romans, "God is for us." And this guy comes up to me afterwards, and he says, "What do you mean, 'God is for us'?" I actually didn't think that was that complicated. It's like, you know, when you get an asked an obvious question, you don't know how to answer. It's like, "Well, well, okay, here's what I meant was, God is for us," right? Let me try to put it a way for you, like Yoda, "For you God is," right? Right. He begins to weep. He begins to weep. He says, "It's not my experience. My experience is that God is waiting for me to make a mistake," or as Jimmy was referring, "God was expecting me to be something other or something different or something more." It's like he said, "I always felt like I don't quite measure up." It's not the kind of God we are. It's not the kind of God we have. The Spirit gives witness to Jesus.

So, do me a favor, close your eyes for a second and take a breath. And this is, we're going to do this several times. I'm, yeah, it's not about you trying to figure out. It's not about you trying to remember. It's about allowing the Spirit to come through us and give witness to who Jesus is. And maybe for a second, what's the image of God that you hold on to that's not true? And it's not you just trying to figure it out. It's, it's allowing the Spirit to give witness. Lord, come with your Holy Spirit upon my brothers and sisters. Give witness to who Jesus is. Give witness to what Jesus has done for them. Give witness to the price that has been paid for them. Amen.

Romans 5:5 says, "Hope does not disappoint." I, that's a really powerful line, and we can come back another time and totally unpack that, that, that, that sense that hope does not disappoint, because the reality is, I think at times, yeah, we're disappointed. But if the word of God is true, and I believe that it is, and when the word of God says, "Hope does not disappoint," we have to ask ourselves, "How is that? How is that?"

Paul goes on to say, "Hope does not disappoint because," and everybody should just lean in at that, "because," okay, "because why? Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." The Spirit of God desires to give witness to the love of God, and you've all heard that before, but I'd like to suggest that when the Spirit gives witness to the love of God, it's different. It's not just, "Oh yeah, God loves me," but it's, it literally changes. I mean, how can Paul say, "Hope does not disappoint," and we think of those moments in our life that they were so disappointed, and Paul can say, "Hope does not disappoint," and why? Because the love of God has been poured forth into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But my concern is, is this holy image of familiarity breeds that contempt, that, that, "Well, I've heard this before. Well, what's next?" I love Father Kiesa, and Father Kiesa says, "If you could take the entire scripture and narrow it down to three words, it would be, 'God is love.'" But we've all heard this before, and we say, "Okay, I know that, Father. What's next?" Well, the reality is, nothing. The, I, I wrote a book on freedom, and the last chapter is, is ultimately this all needs to engage us and encounter us, bring us to this encounter with the love of God. And I remember one of my students at the university, she comes into my office, and she, she just finished my book, and she said, "That's it?" I said, "What do you mean?" She goes, "It all builds up to God's love." It's like, "Sorry," right? Right. "That's all I got." But the reality is, is when it's all said and done, that's what it is. And my concern, brothers and sisters, is, is we say, "Well, I know this," but I suggest that there's something profoundly different when the Spirit of Jesus reveals this to us, right? And unfortunately, for in some ways, we've all heard this before.

I've had the opportunity a number of times to go to China, and I worked in the underground Church in China. And I remember this one woman I met. She was an only child, as is almost everybody in China, and she shared with me her entire life she was raised believing that there was no God. Her government told her that, her family told her that, her education system told her there was no God. And, and that that in itself is quite remarkable, because we live with, with God all around us, and we see all these things and all these places, and we have things like this that we can come to. But there was not even on her radar. And she would share that when she was in high school, she was asking herself, "What is going to give my life purpose and meaning?" Right? This idea of purpose and meaning just resonated and moved and drilled into her mind and her heart.

She goes onto a university. She was a small village in China. She goes to a university in a major city, and she says she's going to begin to study art, because there's something about art that can move the human spirit, right? And she says she remember she was looking at this beautiful piece of art, and she heard in the back of her mind, "Art cannot give purpose. Art cannot give meaning. And art cannot feed the poor." To, she said, "Where did that come from?" She said a number of days later she was walking past this Catholic Church in this, in this large city. She said, "I'd never been in a Catholic Church before," but she, "I felt pulled to come into this church." And she walks in, and she sees in large characters along the side of the wall, "God is love." She probably looked at that different than you would. She was stuck on the word "God." She didn't know the story of Jesus. She didn't know what he had done for her. She had no stories of faith. She had no context. But she said to herself, "Is it possible that my whole life I've been living a lie, and that there might be a God? And if that's true, is it possible that God is love? And if that is true, that's what I've been searching for my whole life." She said, "That will give my life purpose and meaning." She walks around the corner and makes an appointment with the priest and is baptized a Catholic Christian a year later, because the Spirit witnessed to the love of God.

Do me a favor again, close your eyes, take a breath. The problem we have is we use the word "love" so much, brothers and sisters. All love is not the same, contrary to what our culture says today. All love is not equal. I've had too many kids in my office share stories of things that they did and were forced to do out of love. But there is a love that's different, a love that's so powerful, a love that's so tangible, a love that's so present, so different that Paul could say, "Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured forth into your heart by the Spirit." And when you know that love, yeah, when you know that love, you realize that all love is not the same, that it's not all equal, but this love is radically different. This love is for me. This love is on my side.

So, just for a moment, come home, Holy Spirit. Lord, in your name and as your priest, I pray that you would free my brothers and sisters here this morning from the false images of love, from the wounds that they've experienced because people have loved them poorly or selfishly, and may your Spirit give witness to love. Amen. Amen.

Romans 8:15 says, "The Spirit itself bears witness to our spirit." Okay, again, "The Spirit bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God." And this is, I think it's so key for us, is, is the Spirit of God wants to be able to come upon us, and as he does that, he bears witness that we are his children, that we are his children, that, that we are his sons and his daughters. And, and that is fundamentally who we are, brothers and sisters, is that I am a Son of God. I mean, one of the things that, that I, I love about being Catholic is that we define ourselves by that, right? Yes, as Jimmy said earlier, we're all of us sinners, absolutely, unequivocally, but that's not what defines me. What defines you is the fact that you are a daughter of God. That's, that's what defines you fundamentally, first and foremost, you are a daughter of God. You are a son of God. Have you sinned? Yes. Have you failed? Yes. Have you messed up a thousand times? Yes. But what defines us is that we are children of God. Spirit bears witness to my spirit that I am a child, that I am a Son of God. Amen.

And then Paul goes on to say, "But you did not receive a spirit again," in Romans 8, "you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear," right? And he makes comparison, this contrast, this, this image of spirit that we have a spirit of fear that we heard about in the Gospel yesterday that paralyzes us, a spirit of fear that causes us to think we are slave in the image between God and, and that he's trying to compare is, is God is this master, right? And we are slaves, and we're nervous, and we want to, we want to do whatever the master asks, and we want, we're always in fear, we're always anxious, we don't want the master to be mad at us, and we're walking on eggshells all the time. And Paul is saying that is not the spirit that you've received. What you have received is a spirit of God that bears witness that you are a son and daughter of God. And that we, spirit says that the Spirit comes upon us and you cry out, "Abba, Father," that the Spirit come.

I love this. The Spirit comes upon us and we cry out, uh, we don't cry out, "Curios," we don't cry out, "Lord," we cry out, "Abba, Father." And the Spirit gives witness that God is our father. And this is fundamental. When, when people speak about all religions being the same, that's ridiculous. Jesus comes to Earth, and one of the main things that he wants to do is reveal to you that you have a God in heaven who is your father. And I think we live in a generation right now that is just so broken and has this profound need for a father.

I remember I was speaking one time in Minnesota, and this, I was talking about the beauty that God is our Abba, not just Father, he's our Daddy, right? And this is again, we've all heard this before, but when Jesus says, "God is Daddy," everybody's like, "Because you don't talk about God like that. Much too personal, much too intimate. That God body is, he's out there, he's all power, he's not, not Daddy." And Jesus speaks of, of this God who is Daddy, who is Abba. And I, I was sharing this in a conference, and this kid comes up to me, he says, "Can I tell you about my dad?" I said, "Sure." Says, "My dad and I have never done anything together." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, one time we were going to go hunting, and I was so excited just to be able to spend some time with my dad. We were going to go hunting for pheasants." He said, "We put our guns in the car, and I'm just so excited, and it begins to lightly rain, and my dad says, 'Ah, I don't want to go hunting in the rain. We'll do it some other time.'" He said, "Father Dave, I'm still waiting just to be able to have a few minutes with my dad," right? The Spirit comes upon this and realizes and shows and witnesses to us that we have a father, not, not just God, but God who's Father.

And having just lost my father recently, that's even has something different for me. I, one of the last conversations I had with my dad, and we were talking about what heaven was going to be like, and my dad says to me, "And Dave, Jesus is going to present me to the Father," right? Yeah, Dad, it's exactly what's going to happen. And just this, this image of, of Jesus taking my father by the hand and, and presenting him to the Father. I mean, this is how my father discipled me, because he knew that one day that I was going to be presented to the Father. A new series that I'm working on is called "My Father's Father," because we need, we need the Spirit to give witness to us that we have a father, a father who looks at us and delights in us, a father who's not harsh, a father not who's not waiting for us to make mistakes.

I love the image, right, of, of the prodigal son, a father who is literally waiting on the porch for his son or his daughter to come home. I mean, think about that, right? If, if you did what, what he did, and, and you notice you're walking up and you see your father, and your father's running to you, every part of you wants to turn the other way, 'cause I'm pretty sure you're going to get your butt whooped, right? And what does he says? He says, "Welcome home." But unfortunately, too many people, that's not their experience of father. And this is why it's important that, that it's the Spirit that bears witness to the Father, right?

But that's not it. Paul goes on beautifully. He says, "You did again," Romans 8, "you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a spirit which cries out, 'Abba, Father.'" But Paul says that you received a spirit of adoption. I love this image. I have a fondness for adoption. My father was adopted. And Paul says, "The spirit of adoption." But I find myself reflecting on, "Well, what, why a spirit of adoption, right? Why not just some?" But, but Paul's writing to the Romans, and the Romans, the, the law of the Romans was really fascinating, and that if you had a child, you could abandon that child for whatever purpose. If you had a boy and you wanted a girl, you could abandon the child. If you had a boy and you wanted red hair and the child had black hair, you could abandon for, I can't, just for whatever reason, you could abandon that child. But Paul says, "You've received a spirit of adoption," that the Spirit comes upon us and bears witness to the God the Father that we are children. And this Spirit of adoption, because according to Roman law, if you adopted a child, you could never abandon that child for whatever purpose. The thought of the rationale was that you knew what you were getting, that, that if you go and you adopt, you choose this child. Well, you chose that child, and because you chose that child, you could never abandon it, no matter what happened in the future, no matter what happened in the past, no matter what, there was nothing that that child could do that would allow you to abandon that child. So, what Paul is saying is that you have received a spirit, and the Spirit has come upon you, and in the Spirit you cry out, "Abba, Father," and that same Spirit speaks to our spirit, and we experience the spirit of adoption that says, "The Lord has chosen you."

Again, like Jimmy was saying, this, the sense of he didn't feel worthy of being chosen. He wasn't. He was a mess. Good thing none of you are. Good thing I'm not. I was, it was, I must say it was nice being raised just profoundly virtuous, right? Something I tried to say funny that wasn't one of them. You've been chosen. Been chosen.

Remember, I had an occasion one time. I was in, in eighth grade, and, um, I transferred from a, from a Catholic small high school or elementary school to a public school, right? 'Cause we didn't have a Catholic high school in my town. Well, those of you who know what that's like, right? Public school. I mean, Jimmy thought the prison was tough. Yeah, I remember being so scared. I remember being outside my mom and dad's room crying. It's like, "Don't make me go," right? And then just, just the sense of desiring to fit in and, and to be a part of it. And I remember just kind of starting to meet people, and there was this one girl, her name was Christie. Every eighth grade has a Christie. Amen. Right? Christie, long blonde hair. She, she didn't really walk, she just kind of floated, right? It's like, "Christie." And I didn't know Christie from, and I heard rumoring that, that Christie was going to have this party. And, and I'd go home and I'd tell my mom and my dad, "You know, Christie's going to have this party." It's like, "Oh, are you going to go?" It's like, "What are you talking about? Of course I'm not going to go," right? She doesn't have any idea who I am, right? So, this one particular day, Christie floats up to me, and she says, uh, she goes, "You know, Dave, I, I don't know if you've heard, but I'm having this party." It's like, "Oh, really? Uh-huh, no, I haven't. I haven't heard anything about it," right? She goes, "Well, like, would you like to come?" It's like, "Oh my gosh!"

So, I go home that night, and it's like, "Mom and Dad, you'll never believe what happened! Christie, first off, she knows my name!" It's like, right, right. "And she invited me to the party!" My mom says, "Well, that's so much fun! You're going to have so much fun!" It's like, "Whoa, what do you mean I'm going to have so much fun?" She goes, "Well, you're going to go, right?" It's like, "I don't know if I'm going to go," right? "I just wanted to be invited. I just wanted to be chosen. I don't know if I'm going to go." I went.

Again, I, I have the great blessing to be able to work with students so much. The number of, of young women who have shown up in my office and shared with me that they hated high school proms or homecoming. They just wanted somebody to choose them, right? Sophomore year of high school, going out for a baseball team. I was a good baseball player. The day that everybody gets cut, I never thought the possibility that I would get cut. And there was always a line, those above the line, those below the line. So, I go in and I look at this, this list, and I always look above the line, because I had always been above the line. I was below the line. Promotion, raise. Everybody wants to be chosen. Everybody wants this experience of, of somebody looking at me and saying, "You. I want you. You're enough. You're okay. You're loved."

And when the Spirit comes upon us, and again, it's not just me telling you you're chosen, I mean, it's, it's the Spirit coming in you, realizing that you've been chosen. The Lord wants to be in relationship with you. He wants to know you. He wants to be known by you. And this thing is, is this, this, this experience of being chosen, it's not just a singular event, that, that when Christ comes and takes on humanity, when he takes on flesh, what he is saying is that he is constantly uniting himself to humanity, that, that God the Father is always choosing us. There's not a before and an after, but he's always, it's, it's the grace of the sacrament of reconciliation that, that we come to understand once again that the Lord is choosing us. If you care for a moment to imagine the worst day, the worst thing that you've done, that literally five seconds after that, the Lord chooses you again.

I love, I love David. I mean, David, David was a derelict, right? He, he, an adulterer. He covered up his adultery by having the man murdered. And God still chooses him. I mean, it's not like God's like, "Oh my gosh, did I blow that one?" Right? He chooses him, and he chooses you, and continues to choose you.

Do me, just close your eyes for a second, take a breath. The Spirit itself bears witness for our spirit that you are a child of God. Spirit comes upon you and you cry out, "Abba." I had one of the greatest fathers I could imagine, but the Father in Heaven is even better. And for some of you right now, all you see in front of you is your earthly father. And just for a moment, allow the Spirit to reveal the heavenly Father. And as great as your father might have been, or as horrible as your father might have been, your Father is present to you, and the Spirit reveals to you a Father that you can say, "Daddy," and that he delights in you, right? He notices you. He sees you. He has time for you. Amen.

Again, in that same text in Romans 8, "The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." And then he goes on, he says, "And heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him." Come on, Paul, seriously? Things were going great. No, I'm serious, that like, love being a son, love you being a father. "If only we suffer with him." Again, the Spirit bears witness that we are children, that we are heirs, if we suffer with him. The longer I walk with the Lord, oh yeah, I get a, one of our students wrote a song. Again, she was 17 years old. She wrote a song. It was really beautiful. She was very gifted. But the first line of the song is, "I've been walking this road so long." It's like, "You're 17," right? "You're so cute."

Luke 4, right after Jesus's baptism, the Spirit comes upon him, and then the next thing the scripture says, "The Spirit drives Jesus." It's really an great image, right? Not the, the Spirit drives Jesus to the desert. For the Jew, the desert was a place of defeat. It's a place of suffering. It's a place of difficulty. It's a place of death. The scripture says, "The Spirit drives Jesus to the desert."

The reality is, uh, everybody's life has a desert. I think the greatest lie of the evil one is that life is supposed to be easy. Life is not supposed to be so hard. Just not supposed to be so difficult. Because if, if we begin to believe that, then when life happens, we, we, we get frustrated. "It's not supposed to be like this." I mean, it, it's, it's fundamental. It's at the heart of the culture that we live in, is, is that it's just, it's just not supposed to be so difficult. So that when difficulty happens, when our deserts come, when the suffering is experienced, there's something that the world is saying, "It's not supposed to be like this." So, if it's not supposed to be like this, then something's wrong. And if something's wrong, somebody is to be blamed for this. And the evil one says, "I've got a good idea. It's that one who says that he loves you." I mean, what kind of love is this? And we begin to believe that, and we begin to believe that something happened that, that was wrong or that shouldn't have.

That I suggest that the Christian or the Christian community that suffers well, perhaps gives the greatest witness to God than anything else. I mean, it, it's easy to give witness to the Lord on, on a wedding day, right? Right. It's, or I love baptisms, right? I don't get to do a lot of baptisms, but you just grease that kid up and he smells so good, right? It's easy. It's easy. It's easy to give witness to the Lord there, right? It's a lot more difficult to give witness in the midst of dementia and infertility and in cancer.

At an occasion, uh, being in Africa one time, and there was this priest. The bishop asked if I would, if I'd pray with him. He was out in the bush. It was just out in the middle of nowhere. And we begin, as myself and the bishop and another couple of people, we went. And I, I profoundly, 100% believe that God can do miracles, because I've seen them. So, we begin to pray that the Lord would heal this guy, and it just seemed like nothing was happening. And I think what he had was actually ALS. So, because by the time we had met him, he could no longer really move his extremities, and he was just somewhat paralyzed. And, and the more we prayed, the guy was still not being healed. And it's like, "So what do you do? You just pray louder, right?" That's what you do. You just try to wake God up. It's like, "Hello, we're asking something of you here!" But as we're beginning to pray and praying with this guy, I just had this sense that, that God wasn't going to heal him, which is really kind of awkward, because that's what you're praying for, right?

So, I just asked, said, "Could I spend a moment or two with him by myself?" And they said, "Sure." And so, just myself and, in this priest, and he began to share with me his story. And he said, "You know, before I got ill, the church was about half full. I would offer confessions, and nobody would come to confession." He said, "But since I've been ill, people have said things have changed. They said, 'When I preach, I'm more loving, I'm more empathetic, I'm more relatable.'" Said, "Father, they, they bring me in, and I'm not even able to walk into the church, but they go and they sit me before the congregation, and the church is full. It's overflowing. More people than ever have been coming to church. I used to hear confessions, and nobody would come, and they take me to the confessional, and they sit me there, and there's a line. I could hear confessions all day long." I began to pray, "Lord, do not heal this person," because the reality is, is he was literally being changed and transformed by his suffering.

And we all want to be holy. We all want to be loving. We all want to be patient. We all want to be kind. Just not that way. There's got to be an easier way than suffering. How about everybody go to the beach for, for a mai tai for about an hour, and everything will be great? How about that for a plan? Somebody who can suffer in patience and kindness and joy, only the Spirit can do that. Only the Spirit can do that.

In John's gospel, the love of God is revealed most perfectly there, not in the resurrection. I mean, only the Spirit can cause somebody to look at this cross behind me and say, "Oh my gosh, God, his love!" Only the Spirit can give witness in the midst. One of our professors at the university, she was, she ended up dying of cancer, but as she was dying, she was kind of moving in and out of lucidity, and, and she was sometimes awake and sometimes not. And one of the times she was just kind of groggy, and she kept on saying, "No, no, no." And one of her friends was with her, and just rubbing her on the shoulder and said, "It's okay, Elsie, it's okay. Just, just let go. It's okay." And just in a moment of clarity, Elsie says, "I'm, I'm not saying no because I'm afraid. I'm saying no because I want to live for a few minutes longer to be able to offer my suffering to Jesus." Only the Spirit can do that.

Jesus is, is on the cross, and the Spirit is rested on him, and he says to, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." I mean, he's literally making excuses for us. "Father, forgive them. If, if they knew who I was, they would never have done this." In the midst of the greatest suffering known to human history, Jesus is thinking about me, thinking about me who put him there, and he's saying, "Father, forgive them." If, if that would have been me, "Father, smite them!" Seriously, if I would, I would, I would just do so much more smiting. They're just smiting.

I wasn't able to be with you yesterday. I was at a funeral. One of my alumni who graduated last year died, and he was 24 years old. He was from Tarpon Springs, Florida, and we buried him yesterday in St. Ignatius of Antioch Catholic Church in Tarpon Springs, Florida. His pallbearers were mostly students from Franciscan University. Three weeks ago yesterday, those same pallbearers were Nathan's best man. Nathan and his lovely wife, Mari, also a graduate of Franciscan University, were married, and they went on their honeymoon to St. Lucia. And three days after his wedding, he was in an accident of water skiing and was killed on Tuesday, October 28th.

I met with my students on campus in Christ the King Chapel. They graduated last year. They have lots of friends. The kids didn't know what to do, so they went to the chapel. Chapel's full of, of 18, 19, 20-year-old kids. They had this dazed look on their face. "How does this happen?" You know, the greatest day of Nate and Mari's life, and literally 72 hours later, she's alone by herself in St. Lucia with her husband who's dead. And what, what do I say to that that makes sense? What do I say yesterday as I preached with them and, and made any sense of this? It's like, "Well, let me explain to you why this happens and blah, blah, blah." "Oh, gee, that makes sense. Thank you so much, Father. I didn't think about it that way," right? There's nothing that makes sense. We're, we're looking for, for hope and, and for meaning.

And I shared with them yesterday that just kind of out of the corner of your eye, you, you see the cross, and you say, "That can't, you want to look away, because that can't, that can't be it. That's, that can't, that can't be it." Nate's dad and I were classmates together, and Nate and his wife go down to St. Lucia. It was interesting, Heather, she posted on her Facebook, and she goes, "I know this is the most ridiculous thing that's ever been said, but we're going to go down there, we're going to pray that God would heal our son." She goes, "I know this sounds ridiculous, so that I want to preface it with that." But she said, "Lazarus was dead for four days, and he's only been dead for three." So, she and her husband and the bride's mom and dad went down to St. Lucia, and, and they brought her to the morgue. And what, what mother, what father doesn't want to at least see and be with her son? And they prayed and they wept and they loved.

Heather would share with me that the, that one of the police officers were there, and I want to make sure I get this right, and said the police officer watched the way we prayed and said to us, "We wondered if maybe he wouldn't sit up," right? Such is the nature and the wit when the Spirit of Jesus moves through us in the midst of our suffering. Heather said yesterday in the eulogy, "Nathan, you are always so uber competitive. You had to beat me there, didn't you?" It was a celebration. Nathan said, as his mom was sharing some of this in his journal, "I want Jesus to be my greatest love, that when I die, I would be attached to nothing and run into the arms of my Father with a deepest love."

The Spirit gives witness when we give witness and bear witness that his presence in the, the middle of suffering. If the Spirit can reveal the presence of God in the midst of our suffering, we find him anywhere, right? We can find him anywhere. And, and it radically and profoundly changes everything, that, that he in, in literally in our darkest hour, reveals his love to us, reveals his mercy to us, reveals his forgiveness to us. Only the Spirit of God can bear witness to God's presence in the midst of some of the things so many of you, so many of us have experienced. And again, that when we experience that, when we see that, everything is different. We see God. I mean, if we can see God in the midst of our brokenness, in the midst of sinfulness, in the midst of suffering, we can see him anywhere. And I suggest that changes everything. Everything.

If, if COVID taught us anything, it's that at the heart of our culture is we fear suffering, and we want to do anything we can do to not suffer. And the reality is, is I used to think that I suffered because Jesus suffered. Well, well, Jesus was on the cross. Well, of course I'm going to suffer. But it's the other way around, that Jesus suffered because we suffer. Jesus enters into the messiness and the brokenness of our world, and he gives witness to the fact that the cross is not the end of the story. Rather, it's the stepping stone to eternal life, so as Nate said that he can run in the arms of his deepest love.

We opened up with the first verse of "Come Holy Ghost." The second verse, and I'm not going to make you sing it, because nobody knows the second verse, but it says, "Oh, Comforter, to Thee we cry, Thou Heavenly gift of God on high, Thou font of love and fire of love and sweet anointing from above, and sweet anointing from above." Acts 1:8 says, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses." What do we witness to? That Jesus is our hope, that we are loved perfectly and unconditionally, that we have a Father who is not only a Father, he's an Abba, and that he is always present with us.

Do me a favor, stand up, and we sing again, "Come Holy Ghost, Creator blessed, and in our hearts take up thy rest. Come with thy Grace and Heavenly Aid to fill our hearts which thou hast made. To fill our hearts." Jesus, I pray your Holy Spirit upon my brothers and sisters. May they give witness to you. May you give witness to their, the love that you have for them, that you bear witness that you are their Father. Be with them, present in the midst of their suffering, and in the midst of it, they may give witness to you and to your glory. May Lord bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you all. Thank [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you.