When we read the Old Testament, we discover that Pentecost was one of the major Jewish festival days.
The Jews called it the Feast of Harvest and it came on the 50th day (or 7 weeks) after the Feast of Firstfruits.       
​The name “Pentecost” came later and is the Greek name, meaning 50th.
Today, we’ll look at the time just after the death and resurrection of Jesus, when the Apostles were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of the Harvest, and the Holy Spirit descended on them.

Please read the following:               Acts 2:1-21  -  The Coming of the Holy Spirit
Imagine how you’d feel if you were attending a modern-day, multi-cultural meeting, where a group of uneducated people, who weren’t from your city, started speaking knowledgably and logically about God – and in languages that all people who heard them, could understand in their native tongue?
All this after hearing a mighty rushing wind and seeing tongues of fire descend to land on each head.
There would have been about 120 believers with them at that time, so it must have been quite a sight.

I don’t know about you, but I think it would have freaked me out if I was there.

The day of Pentecost is often seen as the “day the church began”. 
It’s the first occurrence of baptism by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, points us to the inauguration of the Christian church.

Our story is at a point where the disciples seem to have found their courage and are speaking out boldly.
Only 7 weeks earlier, at Easter, they’d scattered and hid for fear of their lives. Even after Jesus had re-appeared to them a number of times, after his resurrection, they were still reluctant to speak in public. 
It must have been a very confusing time for them. 

On the one hand, they were sad because their master had been killed and taken away from them, so that part of their life, which must have been a great experience and adventure for them, was now over.
But on the other hand, they were about to embark on a thrilling new task for God - taking the gospel to the rest of the world.

I guess it could be likened to taking a child to school for the first time.
Excitement is tinged with sadness.
One part of their life is over (i.e. growing up at home, with day to day bonding between parent & child), but a whole new world of education and new friendships, is opening up before them.
They may not fully understand, but they know that something good, new and exciting, is about to happen.
Likewise, it can be a time of big change for the parent, a tinge of loneliness and having to “let go”, mixed with the excitement of knowing that they are preparing their child for the time when they will leave home and commence a new life – one where they have to look after themselves.

​Compare that to the disciples being with Jesus for 3 years and then experiencing his death & resurrection and the 40 days of teaching and learning, before his ascension.
Now they seem to be on their own, but (as promised) Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to be with them forever.

It was only after baptism by the Holy Spirit, that they had the courage to speak out in front of their peers.
The report that “3,000 were added to their number” indicates that they must have been impressive when they spoke and obviously made sense to those who heard them (and it was even in their own languages).  Wow! That must have been a mighty sight to witness.
And then Peter addressed the crowd. For the first time, he preached publicly about Jesus, the Son of God.
This is the same Peter who was so scared that he had denied even knowing Jesus only 7 weeks earlier.
What was different?        The Holy Spirit had given him the ability to speak so eloquently and boldly.

He started off explaining to the crowd what had just happened, and he defended the other 11 disciples against accusations of drunkenness that were being made by the crowd. He pointed out that it was only 9am and they couldn’t possibly have had too much wine. On a festival day, such as this, they wouldn’t have broken their fast before 10am.

Instead, he postulated that what the people were witnessing was a fulfilling of the words of prophesy, spoken by the prophet Joel, when he said that, in the last days, God would pour out his spirit on all people and that miraculous things would happen.

The message of Joel can be summarized in three simple statements:
    1.    Calamities are God’s warning of judgment to come
   2.   Heed these warnings and return to God with all your heart
   3.   When you return to God, God’s fullest blessings will be poured out on you and on all people.

​Joel talked to the people of Judah, some 860 years before Peter quoted him.
And Peter’s message was the same:
You may have done nasty things to God’s son, Jesus, but God is still willing to forgive you and bless you, if you accept his message and are baptised.
Peter told the crowd about how Jesus had brought the gift of the Holy Spirit to them and that they could receive it, too - if they repented of their sins.

Surely this should be the basis of every evangelist’s message today.

As long as the early disciples sat and meditated and prayed behind locked doors, they remained defeated and downcast.  
When they ventured out to share the Gospel, the Good News, they found the gift of the Spirit of God in life-changing ways.  

Is it an exciting thing we can participate in?                                 Certainly.  
Are we given a peace within?                                                            Absolutely - even if all around is turmoil.
Can every Christian receive the gift of the Holy Spirit?              Definitely – if we follow Jesus in his mission.  
Can we predict where the wind of the spirit will blow us?       No way.

So, what CAN we do and how CAN we be as brave as the disciples, when we’re talking to friends and acquaintances in the coming weeks?

We can be reassured that the Holy Spirit will make our words understandable to those we talk with, just as he did those thousands of years ago.

If we plant the seed, God will ensure that it grows and bears much fruit.
Therefore, don’t be shy about talking to those who may not already have God in their heart, give it a go and the Kingdom will surely grow. We know that from a little mustard seed, a great tree will blossom.

So be out there and be brave, because the Spirit is with you.
Go into this week in the peace of Christ, the love of God, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.    

Pastor Rick

In this congregation, we generally follow the liturgical calendar, and this week brings us the seventh Sunday of Easter.
During these last fifty days, we've been celebrating the time when the risen Lord took the light of Christ to the world and extended his kingdom through resurrected hope.

In our Gospel reading, we hear Jesus talking to his Father, God, about his followers on earth and it includes the words:       “….because they are yours.”

He was letting us know that we are God’s people, and the events of Easter tell us that we are saved by his death and subsequent resurrection.
But, I wonder, is it enough for us to just know all that and then just sit back smugly, trusting that Christ has reserved a place for us in God’s Kingdom?

Earlier in John’s gospel, Ch. 13, Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment, when he tells them to:
“Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

But will that be enough?
Can we just love others and that’s it?
I don’t think so.
If we’re to be the people Jesus wants us to be – to be like him – then we have to tell them WHY we’re loving them.
Telling them about the love that God has for all of us, his children, and offering them the same gift that he’s given us. 
In other words, we have to be God’s disciples, as well as his children.

So, why are we hearing this particular message from John's Gospel today, so long after Easter?
It seems out of order, and we hear Jesus is praying what’s generally known as the High Priestly Prayer.

But we know that it must have occurred before his crucifixion.
There's not a single reference to the resurrection in this passage.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that this week is remembered as “the Ascension of Jesus”, when Jesus ascended to Heaven, after his resurrection.

But I see the main point of this out-of-order Gospel is that Jesus was serious when he called you and me.

We know that the concept of a “call” is paramount to discipleship.
After all, we fill our churches with all kinds of programs and curricula to help us identify, understand, and respond to God's call.

But, these days, statistics show that fewer and fewer people have any affiliation with a community of faith, and mainline denominations are shrinking at a rate that calls the future of these churches into question, all of them accounting for less than 20% of the population.

Worse still, these gurus indicate that no one is getting it right.

Evangelicals are bringing people through their doors in record numbers, only to watch them also leaving in record numbers.
In fact, faster than their mainline Christian counterparts.
These statistics are hard to hear and the picture they paint is not affirming.
But what these studies actually tell us is less about the death of the church and more about its future.

I'm sure that when the disciples heard the High Priestly Prayer all those thousands of years ago, they would have turned to one another thinking this is not what we signed up for, this is not why I left my nets upon the shore, this is not why I have left my family.
Hearing Jesus' words, accepting that the difficult hour had come, those were not words of comfort but words of change, accompanied by the fearful unknown.

The beauty of this out-of-order Gospel proclaiming the cross during our season of the resurrection, comes raging right back into our lives, right back into our calls when we hear Christ's words once again.

​If we had heard this prayer before Good Friday, we might have mistakenly heard it for that day alone, for that appointed time.
But on this side of the prayer, on this after-Easter day, when we go back and listen once again, we hear the whole prayer and realize that what starts as Christ's obedience to change, ushers in our obedience to change.

The point of Jesus' plea today is not only his obedience to the past; the point is his hope for our future.
This is not merely a prayer that Jesus throws up into the heavens so that his work on the cross might be fulfilled.
No, this prayer, heard on this side of Easter, is a prayer for you and me, for the Church, that we might realize the faith Christ has in us, the faith Christ has in our call.

We may have faltered.
We may have made every conceivable mistake. 
We may have so messed up that indeed the world begins to see us only as a hierarchical assembly of dressed up, religiously educated and out-of-touch people.
We may indeed be just as the modern media describe us
or
in this moment, seemingly out of order liturgically, we might hear the studies and census stats out there, for what they really say about us, and in that moment also hear Christ's praying for us. 
“Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

The disciples probably had no idea what was happening when Jesus prayed this prayer the first time.
But, brothers and sisters, we do.
We know the whole the story, and we get to hear Christ's hope, Christ's call, Christ's obedience to us on this side of the cross and the empty tomb.

Thanks be to God for this out-of-order prayer.
Thanks be to God that Jesus is still praying for us.
And thanks be to God for those who hold us accountable.

May we hear all their voices, and once again, accept our call.

My prayer for today is taken from 1 Peter 5:6-11. 
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.  Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.  To him be the power forever and ever. Amen”

​Pastor Rick

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to walk in Palestine 2,000 years ago with Jesus? To hear his stories and teachings and to be able to ask him to clarify what you didn’t understand.

Today’s passage continues directly on from last week's lesson, where Jesus reassured his disciples and told them that the way to the Father was through him.

We’re at the sixth Sunday of the Easter season and at the point where Jesus is preparing his disciples for a time when he will depart this earth to be with his father.

He’s told them about his betrayal by one close to him, how Peter will deny even knowing him.
And now, in this farewell address, as Jesus summarizes his teachings one last time, he also reassures his bewildered disciples that they will not be left on their own, to fend for themselves, to rely on their own resources and their own wits.

He teaches them about the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – the 3 in 1.
Jesus tries to get the disciples, and all people who become Christians, to understand the interconnectedness of all three parts.

You may have noticed that church art often shows episodes from Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.        
But portraying the Spirit is more challenging.
Yes, the Spirit's dove may hover above Jesus on stained glass windows, but the Spirit often remains on the margins when it comes to proclamation - and I see this as a problem.
On the one hand, some people equate the work of the Spirit with a particular kind of experience, such as excitement in worship, or speaking in tongues, etc.
Others are content with a kind of vague spirituality that seems to be mainly a sense that there is something "out there" that we cannot name.        

So, what does the gospel say about the work of God's Spirit?

In this week’s passage we read how Jesus anticipates the Easter passion when he says, "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you" and "because I live, you also will live" (14:18-19).

The Easter message is that life, rather than death, has the final word, and this is crucial for our faith.
In John's gospel, faith is seen as a relationship with a living being.
For there to be authentic faith in Jesus, people must be able to relate to the living Jesus, who is not absent, but present, because otherwise, faith is reduced to the memory of a man who died long ago.

Coming to faith is a bit like falling deeply in love with another person.
We don’t fall in love in some abstract, esoteric way.
Love comes through many close encounters with that person and the same is true of faith.
If faith is a relationship with the living Christ and the living God who sent him, then faith can only come through many encounters with them and the Spirit is the one who makes this possible.

John calls the Spirit the paraklētos (a Greek word similar to Advocate, literally "one called alongside").
It’s a term for someone who is with you as a source of help.

In modern contexts someone may serve as an advocate in the court system, while other advocates may lobby politicians in an attempt to get them to act on behalf of a certain cause.

In Australian terminology, it might even be likened to mateship, where one person will do anything for another and even act on their behalf, if the situation arises, and is required.

A quick reading of John may give the impression that the Spirit is the Advocate who brings our case up before God in the hope that God will do something merciful for us.
But in fact, the direction could also be considered to be the reverse.
The Spirit is the Advocate who brings the truth of that love and life to his people in this time after Easter, which makes faith possible.

God wants us to love him, serve him and honour him, but that’s not what ultimately saves us.
It’s because he loves us so much that he came to earth as a human, in the form of Jesus of Nazareth and remains with us forever, as the Holy Spirit, our paraklētos.
Jesus and the Spirit have similar functions. For example: 

• Jesus and the Spirit both come from the Father and are sent into the world
• Jesus communicates what he has received from his Father and the Spirit declares what he has received from Jesus
• If Jesus glorifies God, the Spirit glorifies Jesus
• Both of them teach, bear witness to the truth, and expose the sin of the world and in both cases,
• The reaction is the same:    the world refuses to recognize and receive Jesus or the Spirit.

The Spirit continues the work of Jesus, without taking the place of Jesus.
As the Word made flesh, Jesus reveals God through the life he lives and the death he dies, but the Spirit does not become incarnate and is not crucified for the sin of the world.

The Spirit discloses the truth about Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, but does not replicate them.
After Jesus returns to the Father, the Spirit remains; but this does not mean the Spirit replaces Jesus.
Rather, the Spirit discloses the presence of the risen Jesus and his Father to the community of faith.

You might like to think of the Spirit as the one who strengthens us, comforts us, guides us, inspires us.
It’s the Spirit who enables us to interpret the signs of the times in ways very different from the ways of the world.
It’s the Spirit who works through us for the transformation of the world.
It’s because the Spirit has already been given to us that, in the midst of our journey of life, we are able to live the promises into fulfilment. 

We may be considered foolish by those who live in the world without this hope, but it’s just that they don’t understand the Spirit of God.
John's community would also have been an embattled and uncertain church, in need of reassurance and promises and yet, like those first disciples and us today, in need of reassurance.

Maybe, though, we all need to know exactly what the expectations are.
We want to measure up, fulfil our obligations, make the grade, do what's right, please God.
So, what does Jesus tell his disciples to do?
He tells them to keep his commandments  -  and we all know what those are.
What mattered most to Jesus was love, and it's no surprise that "love" is in the very same sentence with "obey my commandments."

Could we, instead, interpret it as "Because you love me, you will keep my commandments"?

Love prompts us to pattern our lives after the model of Jesus, the one we love.
This means we will live with clear consciences, with gentleness and reverence.
The love that comes to us through the Spirit will overflow into the lives of others. 
We will be agents of God's love in the world....Our lives will be evidence of the presence of the Spirit in our midst.

But is it our love of Jesus that redeems us?
As I said earlier, it’s the other way round.
I believe that it is because HE LOVES US, that we’re saved.

​And that God wants us to have a LIVING relationship with Him.
He loves us unconditionally and in order that we may walk with him now, here on earth, he gave us a living reminder, the Holy Spirit, so that we might commune with him.

Does my interpretation challenge you to look at the spirit in a different light?
I hope so, and I trust that you will reread the Gospel passage, asking God’s presence on earth to help you discern what it means for YOU personally.       

Pastor Rick

“I go to prepare a place for you. … I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
It sounds so wonderful, doesn’t it?  
​It’s like what we imagine heaven to be.
If that’s so, then it’s a future place, a place that we’ll “go to.”

Well, that may be part of the promise that Jesus was making to his disciples.
The other part is in his answer to Thomas: “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Yes, we have been assured of eternal life, but we’re also told that we’re already housed by God, fed by God and carried by God.

We already have a foot in that place Jesus prepared for us if we but look around, look within and listen. But as nice as that sounds, it’s often difficult to see evidence of Jesus in the world.
If people truly believed that God is with us, wouldn’t “the world” be a different, better place?

Jesus often talked to his followers, and others who would listen, about the Kingdom of Heaven (also called the Kingdom of God) and he said that it was here already – it’s here and now – and also that we must join in the process of building it – stone by stone, using Jesus as the initial cornerstone.
This cornerstone, sometimes called a capstone, is the first one laid when building a mighty edifice and it’s imperative to set it accurately, as it’s the one on which all levels and strength of the building rely.

​But let’s stop for a moment and reflect on whether we have really progressed all that far from the kinds of things that were happening when our church was still in its formative years.

Today’s reading from Acts brings a dangerous and dark shadow over our Easter joy.
Stephen, even though he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and evidently giving witness to what a life lived in imitation of Jesus should look like, is stoned to death by an angry crowd.

hey covered their ears and shouted.

Isn’t that a frightening image?

We see a manic crowd, hostile to goodness and their anger and frustration feeding off each other.
They couldn’t imagine that God would become manifest in Jesus, live among human beings, die on the cross and rise victorious from the dead.
Today, we might think to ourselves, “How sad. They had Jesus right in their midst and they missed him. We certainly wouldn’t have made that mistake!”

Yet, look at what happens today.
Groups of lay people, priests and nuns are brutally murdered by guerrilla groups with machine guns or machetes, just because they are working for freedom, or education, or because they belong to the wrong tribe or faith group.
A group of innocent schoolgirls in Nigeria are kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam, all because they are girls, who are at school, and who have been brought up in Christian families.

So where is this Kingdom of heaven?
For that matter, where is Jesus?
Has he gone to prepare a heavenly place for us and forgotten to come back?
Do our hearts become troubled when we hear these stories?
Yes, of course they do.

We wonder just how we can build our faith to the point where we can make it a different world – one where we can see God, even in the midst of hardship.

If we look at Peter’s letter to the early churches we can believe that, yes, we can drink that pure, spiritual milk that God offers us.
That’s where we can begin our spiritual life again, knowing that the Lord is good.
We’re offered that nourishment in many ways – through prayer, through the words and symbols of our liturgies and through the example of those who love others, because they believe in God’s love for all people.

​Perhaps the most powerful way of growing in the spirit is through our sharing at the Communion table and believing that Jesus left this symbol with us so that we could touch him and know that he IS in us.
There’s the power and the mystery that explodes within us, if we just open our hearts and minds to all that God reveals to us.

There’s the well of power that helps us continue looking for ways to build the Kingdom here on earth, while we wait to take our place in the world to come.

Peter reminds us that we’re chosen, we’re a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God.
How many of us, I wonder, really believe that?
If we don’t believe, how can we begin to grasp the meaning of those words?

When people DO begin to believe these words, they find themselves doing amazing things.
We might first think of those people like Stephen –and countless others in the years since - who have given their lives for what they believe.
They’ve added their stones towards the building of the Kingdom.

But then we also have to think about ourselves.
There are people who are called to build the kingdom in different ways, through teaching, writing, through the example of our integrity and genuineness.

Jesus never promised a safe and trouble-free life for those who follow him – far from it.
He was always very honest about the fact that “the world” would most often cover its ears and shout, and sometimes throw stones.
But if we try – if we believe that we are chosen, that there is truth in the saying that one candle brings light into the darkness – then we ARE building it - piece by piece.

We ARE adding stone upon stone, and we will feel the difference in ourselves.
We need to be careful, however, not to fall into the trap of thinking that we have to complete the building of the Kingdom either all by ourselves, or at least in our lifetime.
Our human desire to be successful, complete and wholly satisfied, can be a stumbling block for us - just as rejecting Jesus was a stumbling block according to Peter.

The Kingdom here will never be finished, it just continues to grow.
We’re a part of it - a critical and unique part - but we’re not the whole.
There’s always more to learn and more to offer of ourselves to others.
Evil will never cease trying to destroy the goodness of a holy place.
And so, there is a need to continue building ourselves up, but also to work together, pray together, become that holy nation, that holy community, right here - with those sitting around you.

Each and every one of us is called.
Each and every one of us is invited to follow Jesus who is our way, our truth and our life.

The Good News is that Jesus is with us and he promised never to leave us.
We are holy. We are chosen and we are God’s beloved.

I’m asking you now - are you ready to lay your stone at the feet of God and help to build his Kingdom?  Can you think of how you might fulfil the role God planned out for you? 
It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as Stephen’s, maybe just pray for healing and restoration in the world.

Maybe you can help those less fortunate ones in our community by volunteering your time.
Or invite a lonely neighbour over for a cuppa and a chat.
There are many ways of achieving the Kingdom, it all involves building it up, one stone at a time.

​Pastor Rick