Texts: Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15 I want to start this morning by drawing your attention to a few lines from today's liturgy; in fact, they are part of our intercessions on page 413: Father, enliven the Church for its mission that we may be salt of the earth and light to the world. Breathe fresh life into your people. Give us power to reveal Christ in word and action. There in those few lines of intercessory prayer we have the essence of what Pentecost is all about. At Pentecost the Spirit did not come to the world at large; the Spirit came to the believers, the embryonic Church. That's the first thing to say about the Spirit. Sometimes we hear people insisting that the whole of Creation is infused with the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit. That's a lovely thought, and it's usually well-intentioned. Apart from anything else, if we believe that we should be more careful of our environment, so such an idea has a practical use. Others who may not wish to go that far claim that all human beings have within us a deposit, as it were, of the Holy Spirit, sometimes called the divine spark in all human beings. Well, that's a lovely thought, too, and has a very practical advantage if it leads us to treat all human beings with more respect than we might otherwise do. But however lovely those thoughts may be, and whatever practical advantages they may carry with them, there is a problem we as Christians need to ponder. In short, they do not seem to take account of Pentecost. They may be true as far as they go, but they don't go far enough. For something extra was given to the church at Pentecost, a second helping, if you like, that was not given to other human beings, or other species or parts of Creation. And whatever it was, it wasn't given to the Church because the believers were loved more dearly by God, or because they were special and deserved it, or even that they were so hopeless they needed an extra portion! As our intercessory prayer reminds us, the Spirit came to "enliven the Church for its mission", and to "give us power to reveal Christ in word and action". And we can recall the words of Christ as recorded towards the end of St Luke's gospel: "I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." Pentecost is the Day on which they were "clothed with power from on high". That it is also the beginning of the new creation is beautifully illustrated by our first lesson this morning, which features Ezekiel's famous vision of the valley of dry bones. As I've said in the notes in the pewsheet this morning, this vision draws on the language of the Genesis story of the creation of Adam. (As I have been saying recently, there are echoes of the earlier story in this one.) We remember how we are told that the Lord God formed the body of Adam out of the dust of the earth; and then, says the author, the Lord God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being". A similar two-stage process is described by Ezekiel in his vision. The physical stuff comes first; the bones come together and tendons and flesh appear on them and skin covers them; but, says the author "there was no breath in them". So the four winds were commanded to breathe into them, "and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet". And, of course, immediately another bell is ringing loudly in your minds! For you recall being told on more than one occasion that to stand up (or stand up again) is the literal meaning of resurrection. So what we have in this vision is a preview of the general resurrection, which as St Paul reminds us, will be brought about by the same Spirit that raised Jesus to life on Easter Day, the same Spirit that breathed life into Adam. Our second lesson describes the coming of the Spirit upon the embryonic Church, and it makes a very interesting point. It does not say that the apostles preached in different languages; it says the people from the various countries listed all "heard" the gospel in their own languages. "Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church", we say, not "hear what we are reading to the Church". The Spirit takes the words of the Apostles and speaks to the various ethnic groups in their own languages. It is often said that this is the solution to the problem of The gospel reading makes one more very important point. The Holy Spirit is the guardian and teacher of the divine truth; and that, apart from anything else, tells us that there is such a thing as truth in this sense. Some things are true and some are false; and it is simply not the case that one person's truth is as valid as anyone else's. Jesus taught as much truth as the apostles were at that time able to bear; but there was more to know and that was to be made known to them by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was, above all, known to them as "Rabbi", teacher: his ministry was first and foremost one of teaching. The same is true of the Holy Spirit; he comes at Pentecost to continue Jesus' ministry of teaching. That's why there is such an emphasis on identity of material. Jesus has made known that which the Father has given to him; and the Spirit will take from that same revelation and give it to them. It is all one, as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one, a mystery that we will ponder again next week as we celebrate Trinity Sunday. The Spirit brings life, and empowers us to bring life to others: the Spirit brings us into all truth that we may teach that truth to others. That is why we pray in confidence and trust: Father, enliven the Church for its mission that we may be salt of the earth and light to the world. Breathe fresh life into your people. Give us power to reveal Christ in word and action. |
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Breathing Fresh Life
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