When the day of Pentecost came; the disciples were waiting…
I don’t know about you but I am not very good at waiting, and especially not good when I am not sure what it is that I am waiting for. Many of you will know that my daughter Jo got married last November, Jo is an organiser, and as she planned and waited for her wedding day she made lists and took care of details, planning and preparing everything. She was living at home with us for a few months during that time, and occasionally when all of the men were out of the house we’d indulge in what can only be described as horror viewing; we’d watch “Don’t tell the bride…” For those of you with more sophisticated viewing tastes “Don’t tell the bride” is a reality T.V. show where the brides put everything into the hands of their husbands to be and them wait (not so calmly) for the wedding day to happen! I am sure you can imagine some of the tensions and nerves involved….
When the wedding day comes, there are surprises, but usually everything is OK, because love overcomes… and everyone breathes a sigh of relief as a new life, two becoming one begins…
When the day of Pentecost came…
The disciples were doing what Jesus had told them to do, they were waiting together, waiting and praying and hoping for the gift that Jesus had promised them, but they did not know quite what the gift was or where it would lead them. They knew that the gift was the Holy Spirit, but like the brides in Don’t tell the bride, they did not know what the gift would be like, not did they know where their new lives would lead them…
When the day of Pentecost came…
There was a sound of rushing wind, and flames of fire separated and rested above the disciples’ heads, God was there in power, surrounding them and filling them….
The gift that Jesus had promised had arrived, and they were all overcome! The filled with joy and what must have been a sense of holy awe they burst out onto the streets, preaching and praising in languages they did not know, into a stunned city full of folk who wanted to know what was going on…
It was then that Peter, Peter who'd let Jesus down and got it so wrong who stood and proclaimed the message of Jesus crucified and risen, Jesus who had given his all, whose love knows no boundaries, giving himself even to death on the cross, and that same Jesus overcoming death, raised in power who now poured out his new life into his followers that their new life could begin.
And all of this added fresh significance to the Feast of Weeks that the gathered Jews were celebrating, for they were celebrating and remembering the birth of a new nation, when Moses had received the Ten Commandments from God. Now there was something new, God was pouring out his Spirit into the followers of his Son, something new was happening again! A new life, a new kingdom was forming, a new adventure lay ahead.
The Holy Spirit had come, and nothing would ever be the same, and the Holy Spirit remains alive and active in the church today, bringing new life, calling the people of God outward and onward on a continued adventure, and it isn’t always easy…
Think about it, when the Spirit came the disciples did not receive a nice gift and a warm fuzzy feeling and then go back to their old lives, they were propelled out into a world of danger and difficulty, fired and fuelled by the message that God had come through an itinerant preacher in Palestine, and through him had put his plan into action to save all of creation. Through the cross he displayed his complete self-giving love, through the resurrection his power to overcome death and to set his plan of restoration and renewal into action…
The church today is still called to be a part of that movement, the movement of God towards his people, offering radical love, a radical welcome, a radical acceptance and radical freedom….
Just as a bride and groom give themselves to their new life together so Holy Spirit comes to us, inviting, wooing and drawing us, calling us to follow, to dare to walk the way of Jesus, the way of radical self-giving and love. As we dare to step out with God into our community and asking “who needs us?” and “What can we do with our resources to bear Christ’s love to this part of the world?” we will find ourselves changed just as the early disciples were changed, changed and challenged and filled with the awesome love and power of God….
...for yes we’ll make mistakes and get it wrong just as they did, but we must not let the fear of that hold us back, we must experiment and count on failing, innovate and count on failing, invent and reinvent and follow God into the adventure he lays before us. This IS the story of the church throughout the ages, ever changing, ever responding, ever learning new ways to share the love it has found…
No marriage is a bed of roses, and I’d dare to ask any couple who tell me they’ve never argued or faced a difficulty whether they have dared to live. Jesus calls us to a new life, he calls us to share the love he has for all; and if the cross teaches us anything it must be that success does not always look like success, and that victory often comes disguised as defeat, so we must not be afraid of giving ourselves to God’s plan and purpose for us, for our future is not secured by our abilities but by God’s good promise, and because of that we can stand with and reach out to the vulnerable, we can take risks and dare to enter into great adventures. The Janapese often mend broken objects with gold, highlighting the cracks, they believe that when something has a history and suffers damage it is made even more beatuiful, God is like that with us, binding our woulds and cracks with love, filling us with the gold of his presence so that although we clay jars and cracked pots his glory shines through us higlighting his presence, telling his story.
We don't need to protect and preserve ourselves for God is with us, but we must remember we have a part to play; resurrection always follows crucifixion, and we must die to self and selfish self protectionism both individually and corporately if we are to enter into the new life possibilities that Pentecost holds for us…
The questions we have to answer is these:
- Are we ready for a new life adventure?
- Are we willing to let go of the past and to let God hold the future?
- What will happen if we don’t dare to enter into a new life?
- What might happen if we do?
On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, turning the lives of the disciples upside down, setting a spark within them, and propelling them out to change the world. That same life giving world changing Spirit of God is here moving among us today, waiting for us to pray afresh… come breath of life, come sweeping through us…. draw us into fullness and newness of life, together with you.
