Scripture Readings: Acts 2:1–21 | Psalm 104:24–35 | 1 Corinthians 12:3–13 | John 20:19–23

​“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ ” (John 20:21-22).
 
There’s something wonderfully welcoming about gathering around a fire. When I was a young person, back in Northern Ontario, I remember spending many an evening in Summer and Fall hanging around a fire with my friends. Sometimes we’d be roasting hot dogs or marshmallows. Sometimes we’d be burning a huge bonfire of brushwood, and other times we’d sit close to a few dry logs, poking the coals with sticks to stir up the flames. Those are good memories… times I look back on warmly… moments when the main agenda was just spending time together. Sharing unspoken fellowship as we watch the flames dance, and feel the comfort of their heat.
 
This morning, we gather here together as God’s people, welcomed and warmed, and comforted together not by any old fire, but by the presence of the Holy Spirit of God. Today is the feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover, when our Saviour Jesus Christ gave His life at the cross, and was raised again from the dead.

At Pentecost, the Church was born… God’s Holy Spirit arrived like a mighty wind, breathing God’s life into the Apostles, and filling them with His heavenly fire: uniting them to one another, and empowering them to proclaim the Good News of the Risen Lord Jesus, so that the whole world might draw near to Him and receive God’s new life as well.
 
Our Scripture readings today invite us into the story of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit… calling to mind not only events from the first days of the Christian Church, but also the essential purpose and source of divine power for all God’s people today. 
 
Our Gospel reading this morning from John Chapter 20, gives us St. John’s account of the Holy Spirit’s gifting to the Apostles… not at Pentecost, as we might expect, but at Easter, at their first meeting after His resurrection.
 
That first Easter evening, St. John tells us that the disciples… just a handful of believers, still wrapping their heads around the message of the resurrection that they heard from Mary and the other women who went to the tomb... St. John says these disciples were gathered together behind locked doors… huddled together in fear of their fellow Israelites, the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem… whose leaders, just a few days ago had put Jesus to death at the cross.
 
But then, Jesus the Risen Lord Himself arrives, despite all their locked doors and fears, and He says to them: “Peace be with you.” (John 20:21). Then after showing them His wounds… proving to them that He wasn’t a ghost or a vision… He says to them again: “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:21-23)
 
So much is packed into this first meeting! The Risen Lord comes to them pronouncing peace… and commissions them to go out into the world and share in His own ministry… but not before Christ bestows on them the Holy Spirit, God’s own Personal presence and power… who once filled the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and the Temple in Jerusalem with God’s divine glory… and which now filled Christ’s faithful people themselves… turning them together into a living Temple… the ‘place’ on Earth where the Living God is to be made known and encountered.  
 
And along with the Holy Spirit, Jesus entrusts them with the ministry of forgiveness… remaking them into Christ’s royal priesthood and holy nation, as St. Peter would later refer to all Christians… a community set apart to offer others the opportunity to receive the forgiveness of God… and charged with making known God’s Good News and glory… so that the rest of the world can draw near in faith and be reconciled to its Lord as well.
 
One moment, they were a handful of confused and frightened disciples… the next, they were signs and ambassadors of Christ’s Kingdom… transformed from one to the other by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and sent out into the world to share the grace and the gifts they had received from the Risen Lord with God’s wider world.
 
But how would this story unfold? How would the Church grow from that small group gathered together in one room in Jerusalem all those years ago into a truly worldwide family?  
 
Well, for that part of the story, we need to turn to Acts Chapter 2.
 
There we find St. Luke’s account of the Holy Spirit’s arrival on the day of Pentecost… when Jerusalem was filled to the brim with pilgrims from all over the ancient world. But there’s an important detail we need to remember about these pilgrims: St. Luke tells us they were devout Jews, who were gathered to celebrate one of the important Jewish festivals in the Temple, the Feast of Weeks.  
 
By this point in history, there were many communities of Jews living outside the lands of Judea and Jerusalem… with some of these communities reaching back to the days of the Exile, several centuries earlier. And yet, even as they lived as small minorities in the lands of the nations that did not know the LORD their God, many Jews still remained faithful to God’s ways, and made the effort to attend the major feasts as the Torah required.

And so when God’s Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost upon Christ’s disciples, empowering them to speak in all sorts of languages and tongues they had not known before, they had as a ready audience God’s faithful people who were already gathered in obedience to the Lord from all around the ancient world… unaware that this Pentecost, God had a great surprise in store: the Good News of the death and resurrection of their Messiah, and the invitation to repent and believe in Him.
 
So the very first step of the Church… the first way in which it grows beyond the handful of those first disciples, involves the restoration and gathering together of God’s own scattered and divided people. God’s power poured out at Pentecost was first put to work overcoming the barriers between God’s own children! Reconciling them to one another by the clear and miraculous communication of the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord, drawing these diverse brothers and sisters into one family… not just in abstract ideals or theory, but in actual practice, as many of these pilgrims end up staying in Jerusalem and creating the first multi-cultural Church community.  
 
Now there’s so much going on here in Acts Chapter 2, that we can’t really get into this morning… like how what happened with the speaking in tongues is the undoing of the divisions that took place at the Tower of Babylon in Genesis 11. Or how this gathering together of God’s people who had been scattered among the nations brings to mind many of the words of the prophets, like Ezekiel… who pointed forward in hope to God’s plan to restore His children, not only to their land, but also to one another, healing their shattered relationships so they might all share in His blessed life together.
 
Through a small handful of Apostles, not long ago spending their time hiding from their Jewish neighbours, God’s Spirit reached out to devout Jews from all over, and invited them to respond to the Good News of their crucified and risen Messiah. The power of Pentecost was first put to work uniting God’s people around the Good News of Jesus. 
 
And where does the story of the Church go from there? Well, everywhere!
 
The Book of Acts goes on to tell of the expansion of the Church throughout the whole region… from Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and beyond towards the farthest ends of the Earth. And all through Acts, we hear how the early Christians responded to the Spirit of God constantly pushing them and expanding their horizons, and transforming their expectations of what was possible… and where the LORD was leading them.
 
In Acts, we hear St. Paul’s story, who goes from being one of the most devout persecutors of the Church… to one of the most devoted proclaimers of the Good News of Jesus among the Gentiles… the nations who had not known the Living God, or followed His holy ways. Rather than ignoring all these ungodly strangers, the Holy Spirit of God sent folks like St. Paul to share the Good News with them too, inviting everyone, everywhere to draw near to Jesus Christ the Risen Lord in faith… encountering God’s forgiveness and glory up close, and welcoming them into this new Christian community as well.
 
As we know, many of the best things in life aren’t easy, and that was true as the Church continued to spread, and as more and more people from diverse backgrounds and cultures were trying to grow together as God’s people. One of the major areas of tension and controversy in the first decades of the Church revolved around how to handle the diversity of God’s growing family… a challenge each generation of the Church has had to wrestle with in our own ways.
 
And sadly, after two thousand years, a lot of us are still quite scattered and divided… looking around at our fellow Christians and asking ourselves: how are we ever going to get along with those kinds of people? We speak different languages, sing different songs, eat different foods… wear different clothes… and so on.
 
Wouldn’t it be better if we just do our own thing over here, while they do theirs over there?
 
Well, no. What’s better is that we begin to understand that the unity of Christ’s Church is not optional! It’s not a nice add on, it’s the point! We are called to be ground zero of God’s reconciling love at work in the world… beginning with those who already know the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord… practicing the implications of this Good News together, seeking to be a people of peace… and hope… and love… and forgiveness… so that the rest of the world may come to know and draw near in faith to their Lord and Saviour.
 
Faced with the challenges of trying to help a diverse and fragmented Church learn to come together, St. Paul wrote some powerful words in his letters to the Corinthians.
 
And in our second Scripture reading today from 1 Corinthians 12, we hear the Apostle to the Gentiles offer a profound way of understanding the complex but complimentary reality of the Church, which finds its source of life, unity, and shared identity in the Living and Triune God: 1 Corinthians 12:4-, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”
 
He goes on to list a number of different ways that God’s Spirit empowers God’s people to share in God’s work and for the good of all: through words of wisdom, or insight, faith, and healing, miracles, prophesy, discernment, speaking in tongues, and interpreting them… all these Spirit powered activities aren’t meant to stand alone, but to serve as one note in the harmony of God’s symphony, and compliment the contributions of others.
 
He then moves on to make explicit that even though the Church is comprised of all sorts of diverse people with different backgrounds, and cultures, and ways to contribute, we are all united by the same Spirit at work in us all:
 
1 Corinthians 12:12-13, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
 
Whatever our natural differences may be… differences of ethnicity, culture, or class… God’s Spirit at work in us makes us one. And the wide variety of gifts within the Church are not grounds for greater division, but for our coming together as we all work together for the common good. 

The story of Pentecost, of the arrival and work of the Holy Spirit through the Church is our story. It’s the beginning of the story of how the Good News spread from that room in Jerusalem where a handful of disciples had gathered, and how this Good News made its way across the centuries and the globe all the way here to meet us in this place today in Gondola Point.
 
And it is also our story in the sense that, if the same Spirit who has done all this is at work in us… then we too are being drawn into the same movement of God, and the ministry of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord in the world.
 
Beginning here in this room… with this handful of disciples as we seek to wrap our heads around the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord, and learning to walk together in His holy ways. Right here and now God’s own Spirit is drawing us nearer to Jesus in faith, to receive God’s peace from His hands… along with our shared calling to be His own royal priesthood, and holy people… a community set apart to help one another, and those around us experience God’s forgiveness, glory, and grace.
 
And then, moving beyond this room, God’s own Spirit is drawing us nearer to the rest of God’s people… to our Christian brothers and sisters… be they down the street, throughout New Brunswick, or around the world. Of course, we may have some pretty big differences, but we still have the same Lord, and God, and Spirit at work in and through us, who is able to overcome all the obstacles we keep erecting withing the body of Christ… and to reunite us, God’s often scattered and fragmented people through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
In more concrete terms, how can we work towards closer co-operation and fellowship with our fellow Anglican sisters and brothers here in the Valley? And how can we also honour, and pray for, and support, and extend our sincere love to our Roman Catholic, and Wesleyans, and United, and Baptists, and Pentecostal brothers and sisters as well? How can we see ourselves not as rivals, or as distant acquaintances, but as different members of the same body, each with our own gifts to share, and ways to contribute to the work of Christ’s Kingdom, and the good of all?
 
And like He did with folks like St. Paul, God’s own Spirit can work through us to make the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord known to those all around us. Not by following some formula, or impersonal technique… but by being attentive to the actual person God places in our path, and to God’s Spirit… a closeness to Him nurtured through times of worship and prayer… and strengthened by our acts of obedience, and our knowledge of God’s good ways made known to us in the Scriptures… trusting that the Spirit of God can give us the right words and the right time. 
 
So as we celebrate the gift of God’s Holy Spirit this Pentecost, may we be open to all of the ways that He wants to work in and through us as Christ’s people today. May we experience the warmth of God’s welcome, forgiveness, and grace as we draw near to Christ’s table in faith. May we receive the comfort that comes from trusting in the Good News of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord. And may we be empowered to share all that we have received from God… for the good of all. Come Holy Spirit, and fill us with Your heavenly fire. Amen.  

Today we celebrate the coming of the Spirit of God to dwell with us in holy power, filling us with His holy presence, and preparing us to live as His holy people in the world, faithfully following Jesus Christ, our Risen Saviour King.

Here is a great video from the Bible Project exploring the implications of Pentecost as it relates to the empowering of the whole Christian Church as God's royal priesthood at work in His world today: 

For even more on this important topic, check out the other 5 videos in this series, and the podcast episodes that go into even more depth:

Scripture Readings: Genesis 11:1–9 | Psalm 104:27-35 | Acts 2:1–21 | John 14:8–17, 25–27

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25-26).
 
What are we trying to build?
 
This past week, our new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, met with the Premiers of Canada’s Provinces and Territories, the First Ministers, to discuss how they can best work together moving forward to build up our country’s unity and resilience… especially amid the recent tensions and turbulence rocking our world right now. Here’s a few takeaways from their meeting, from the Prime Minister’s own website:
 
“First Ministers discussed the federal government’s plan to remove trade barriers and advance major projects of national interest, including by tabling their One Canadian Economy legislation, so Canada can be stronger at home and abroad.
 
First Ministers agreed to work together to accelerate major projects in support of building a strong, resilient, and united Canada…”[1]
 
And to that end, our nations leaders see the pressing need to invest in building up Canada’s capabilities through large-scale “Nation Building” projects: “Nation-building infrastructure and corridors, such as highways, railways, ports, airports, pipelines, nuclear projects, clean and conventional energy projects, and electricity transmission systems, are crucial for driving Canadian productivity growth, energy security, and economic competitiveness.”[2]
 
Time will tell if these projects will produce the big results that many of us are hoping for. But given the challenges and uncertainty Canada is facing, it certainly seems wise to attempt to do what we can to make ourselves stronger, and more united moving forward.
 
That said, it’s also interesting that this is the same kind of story at work in our first reading today from the Book of Genesis: the story of the Tower of Babel.
 
This ancient story takes us way back to the days soon after the great Flood, where the Living God washed His world clean from the extreme violence and bloodshed that we humans had filled the earth with… while sparing one family, Noah and his relatives, so that all of humanity would not be completely wiped out.  
 
But unfortunately, after the Flood, humanity had not learned its lesson. The Scriptures tells us that people were still just as messed up as they were before: prone to pride, injustice, and violence… with so-called ‘great men’ rising themselves up and building cities as monuments for their own glory. And so, in Genesis Chapter 11, we hear that the people had gathered together to build something special: a tower that would rise up to the heavens. Ascending from the earth to the dwellings of the Divine.
 
Genesis 11:4, they said to themselves, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
 
They sought to ascend together… to assert their own greatness, and to make a lasting name for themselves… in order to protect themselves from being scattered. This was humanity’s first ‘Nation Building’ project, seeking to build up their sense of unity.
 
On the surface, this might sound great. I mean, aren’t we supposed to seek unity? Isn’t it better to work together? Well, that all depends on what we are trying to build.
 
Tyrants and totalitarian regimes thrive on unity. Oppressive and unjust social systems, and abusive organizations can do what they do because they have so many people working together to prop them up.
 
And in this case, what the people in Genesis 11 were doing wasn’t good. They were not just building a tower. They were building a rebellion. Actively resisting God’s intentions for His human image-bearers.
 
After all, we humans were created with a clear purpose: to reflect God’s goodness and love out into His creation. Genesis 1:27-28 tells us,
 
“So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
 
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
 
As God’s image-bearers, humans were to represent God’s rule by ordering God’s world God’s way. But as the story goes, we humans chose to try and rule on our own terms… and now, here they were… instead of obeying God’s will to disperse and fill the earth with God’s goodness, they were attempting to bind themselves together in one place… to make a great name for themselves… and to raise themselves from the earth up to heaven as rivals to the Living God.
 
And this all seems a bit ludicrous… doesn’t it…

That is, until we consider the rest of our human history, and think about so many of the kinds of things that we have continued to build:
 
Devastating weapons of war… planet-threatening levels of waste and pollution… political and economic systems that thrive on greed and wickedness… lifting up a few, at the great expense of so many. And think of our most recent attempts to stay connected, through things like social media, which can be used benignly, but has also played a huge role in tearing communities apart, and isolating us from one another. And think about the marvels of artificial intelligence… and how this tool promises, and has already begun to unlock all sorts of wonderful, potentially life-saving achievements… while also eroding human creativity, dignity, and integrity, and threatening to put millions of people out of work.
 
These are the kings of things that we humans keep building. They may seem so promising at times, and may even be intended to lift us up… but so often, the works of our hands can end up turning our hearts and lives away from God’s ways… unlocking the door not to abundant life, but to all sorts of destruction instead.
 
And yet, God created us to reflect His image… to be like Him, and even to be creative like Him. To bring about order, and beauty, and justice in His good world. So the question for us is not if we will create… but what are we trying to create? What are we trying to build? Or better yet, what is the Living God wanting to build in, with, and through us?
 
What does all this have to do with Pentecost?
Well, at Pentecost we get to see what the Living God has been building up to all along.
 
Turning back to the story of the Tower of Babel, we see that God doesn’t simply allow humanity’s rebellious building project to go on unanswered, and so God steps in to keep things from getting out of hand. In an act of both judgment and mercy, the LORD confuses their language… their ability to understand one another… resulting in this once-united uprising being scattered throughout the world. Regardless of our plans, this story reminds us that God’s never going to give up on His plans… which is what the rest of Scripture is all about.
 
The very next story in the Bible after the tower of Babel is about God choosing to work with and build up the family of one human couple, Abraham and Sarah… and through their descendants, God would one day bless all of the scattered families of the earth.
 
Genesis 12:1-3, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
 
God promises to make Abraham’s family great… and to make his name great. Not just for themselves, but so that through them, all the families of the earth will be blessed. The rebels tried to make a tower. God chooses to make a blessed and blessing community.
 
Of course, the story is far from simple. Abraham’s descendants keep on making the same mistakes… trying to build their own identity, and security, and story, instead of faithfully following God’s ways. And eventually, they end up cut off from one another by civil war, and then Jerusalem, the Holy City is conquered, and its people, the Jews, were scattered… by who? By the Babylonians… an Empire built in the land of Babel! God’s people end up right back where they started, and now it seems like everything that God had been building towards had come to a tragic and terrible end.
 
But the Good News is, God was not done with His world, or with His chosen people… and so He does something no one expected… and steps into the story in a brand new way.
 
While God’s people were facing the terrible realities of Exile, they had also been offered a word of hope: the prophets of God pointed forward to a time when God would send the Chosen One, the Messiah, to restart God’s good Kingdom on earth, return God’s scattered people, and finally set the world right.  
 
And the Good News is, the Messiah has come! Not as some great military or political leader, but as Jesus of Nazareth… God’s own divine Son, who took on our human existence. Who is Himself the eternal Word of God, who was then made flesh and dwelt among us… breaking down the great barriers and rebellious towers we had built up between ourselves and God, and between one another.
 
The towers of our guilt and sin… all the self-centered and self-destructive choices we keep on making. The towers of our fear and enmity… the prejudices, and divisions we keep on creating. The towers of our pride… insisting on living our own way, no matter the cost.
 
Jesus took all these on, and He tore them down when He died on the cross, and rose again. Now, instead of building our lives around trying to handle our own sin and guilt, Jesus made the way for us to truly receive forgiveness… and to extend it to others.
 
Instead of being trapped by our fears and enmity, Jesus made the way for us to be embraced by His saving love, and to begin living in peace.

Instead of lifting ourselves up in pride, Jesus made the way for us to walk humbly with the One who loves us graciously, and created us to reflect His goodness out into His world.
 
Jesus did all this, not by lifting Himself up, but by making Himself low. As St. Paul puts in in Philippians Chapter 2:
 
“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
 
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
 
The Good News is that, we don’t need to build any towers to raise ourselves up… because the Living God Himself can raise us up along with Jesus. He is the way that we can ascend. He is the source of our true unity. He is the One through whom God will reconcile the whole world to Himself, and make everything new.
 
And St. Paul’s point in this passage, is that God wants to make us like Jesus! He wants us to have our minds, and our hearts, and our lives remade by Him. He wants us to embrace Christ’s way, and share in the good work of His Kingdom. But how can we possibly do all this?
 
We humans… we Christians have so often, made such a mess of things. We too have kept on making all the same mistakes as those who have come before us. How can we… how can people like you and I actually become more like Jesus, and meaningfully share in His work in the world?
 
This is where we turn to Pentecost.
 
Right before His death, our Lord Jesus promised that His Father in heaven would soon send His disciples the Holy Spirit, filling them with His own Divine presence and power, so that they could share in His life, and to take part in the New Creation that the Living God was making possible.
 
John 14:25-26, “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

The Spirit was being given to help Christ’s followers continue to share in His story. To bind us together, and to our Saviour. To work within us, to make us more and more like our Lord. And to empowers us to live Christ’s way in the world… working through us to do more than we could ever imagine doing on our own… to be God’s hands and feet as He lifts up and draws His shattered world back to Himself in love.
 
What does the Spirit build? Not a tower… not even an institution… but a new community. He builds the Church! A family made up of people from every corner of creation, in order to bring the blessed Good News of Jesus Christ to everyone!
 
And this is what we see happening in Acts Chapter 2: God’s Spirit creating the Church… the community of Jesus Christ here on earth, serving His good Kingdom.
 
Now there’s so much going on in this passage from Acts that will have to wait for another day. (If you’re wanting to dig a bit deeper, check out our St. Luke’s blog entry for today with some links to some more resources).

But a big part of what is going on at Pentecost is a reversal of what happened in Genesis 11: when God’s Holy Spirit is poured out on His people at Pentecost, He is undoing the divisions brought on at Babel, and is now re-uniting those who were once scattered around what God has done for the world in His Son, Jesus Christ… turning our whole story around, so we can share in His New Life together.
 
The Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples, with a rushing wind and flames of fire… and God’s own holy presence and power dwells among them… empowering them to speaking in languages they did not understand before… and to boldly to preach the Gospel… the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord… first of all, to Jewish pilgrims… those whose ancestors have been scattered by the Babylonian Exile… telling them all of God’s mighty works through Jesus the Messiah, who was killed, and has been raised again to New Life.
 
This Good News invites them to repent… to turn around and believe what God has done for them in Jesus… and to be baptized into the New Creation God is making because of what Christ did at the cross.

And Pentecost itself is just the beginning! Thousands respond that first day to this Good News, and begin to form a community we now call the Church… the worldwide family of believers that God is building up… a re-created people shaped by the forgiveness, generous love, and humble, self-giving service we have seen in Jesus Christ… seeking to live His way through the power of His Spirit at work among us.
 
Beginning with Jesus Christ, and then His first disciples, this family grew… embracing once-scattered peoples first from Jerusalem, then to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world.
 
At Pentecost, we see how God is building His Church, uniting us by the Spirit to Jesus His Son, in order to draw His whole world back together, to Himself, and to one another. And now we are bound together with our brothers and sisters from every corner of creation… and every people and nation… united by the saving love of God, given to us through Jesus Christ, God’s Son, and empowered to share in His New Life even now, through His Holy Spirit.

This doesn’t mean that we Christians haven’t returned to building our own rebellious towers at times. We certainly have. The Church is not yet perfect, and it still has a long way to go.
 
But God’s Spirit is at work in us. And He can create something truly beautiful, and blessed through us… teaching us to live faithfully to Jesus Christ, and to share His goodness and love with all those around us.
 
The question for you and I today is this: How will we here in Gondola Point respond to the Good News of what God has done for us all in Jesus Christ?
 
Will we keep on building up our own towers? Trying to create our own sense of security, and purpose, and hope based on what we can create?
 
Or, with the Holy Spirit’s help, will we draw near to Jesus, our great Saviour King, and take up our part in the New Creation that He is building to bless everyone? Amen.


[1] “First Ministers’ statement on building a strong Canadian economy and advancing major projects”, June 2, 2025, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2025/06/02/first-ministers-statement-building-strong-canadian-economy-and-advancing-major-projects

 
[2] Ibid.
​​

​​And for an even deeper conversation, here is a link to their Podcast episode exploring the story of Pentecost:

​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 37:1–14 | Psalm 104:24-35 | Acts 2:1–21 | John 15:26-16:15

Happy Pentecost.
 
Today we celebrate one of the most significant moments in the story of the Church… when the disciples of the Risen Lord Jesus, gathered together in uncertainty and expectation, suddenly received the gift of the Holy Spirit of God… filling them up with His life-giving presence and power.
 
In many ways, Pentecost celebrates a brand new beginning. The beginning of the Church… the creation of this one, world-wide community of those bound to Christ Jesus, and bound to one another in Him.
 
But Pentecost also marks another beginning: the beginning of the end… of the completion of God’s New Creation, begun in the Risen Christ Himself, and spreading all throughout the world through the lives of His faithful people… from Jerusalem, to Gondola Point, and beyond.
 
And while this new beginning started two thousand years ago… we don’t simply celebrate Pentecost as an irrelevant event from the distant, dusty past… but as an invitation to take part in the Living God’s ongoing work here and now, and everywhere… making all things new, and bringing His beloved world to it’s proper destination… to the blessed end that His power alone can bring about.
 
Above all, we celebrate Pentecost today because it brings to light the world-changing implications of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord… the results of who He is and what He has done for us, and for our world. Pentecost points out the true purpose of the Church, and the power that is at work in and through God’s people… two thousand years ago, and even today.
 
The story of Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit is about God’s rescuing love, putting our broken world back together… beginning with those who have come to believe the Good News of Jesus… but this story does not begin in that famous upper room encounter we heard about in our reading from Acts. It is a story that has been unfolding all throughout the Holy Scriptures… a story of hope passed down through generations… hopes based on the promises of the Living God to His covenant people, through the words of His holy prophets… hopes that, despite how truly hopeless things may seem, they can trust the Living God to stay true to His word, and to ultimately bring them to life.
 
We heard part of the story of Pentecost in our first reading from the Old Testament today, when we heard the words of the prophet Ezekiel, and the vision that he was given of the valley of dry bones… a vision offered to Israel at a time when the fate of God’s chosen people seemed hopelessly lost.
 
As we might recall, Ezekiel had this vision after being carried off into exile in Babylon… after Jerusalem and the Southern Kingdom of Judah had been conquered by their enemies… which in this case was a tragic consequence of turning away from the Living God, and seeking a path for themselves that seemed best, but ultimately led to death.
 
And so, at this point in the story, Ezekiel and his fellow Judaeans had lost everything… their land, their freedom, their future… their sense of connection to the Living God, and to one another.

Sadly, we don’t have to think too hard to recall people in our own day and age who are facing very similar situations: whole communities completely destroyed… families ripped apart by war… hopes and dreams for the future that once seemed so promising going up in smoke.
 
And even in our own corner of the world, there are, of course, those who are experiencing this same sense of hopelessness in their own personal ways: maybe through a sudden loss of health… or loved ones… or through the ending of a familiar and comforting way of life.
 
And we can think of Church communities facing hard decisions these days about how to move forward… how to carry on Christ’s mission in their changing neighbourhoods… and perhaps considering having to close their doors.
 
When we face these kinds of painful, and heartbreaking situations, it can certainly feel like the end. And yet, throughout the centuries, the Living God has continued to breathe new life into even the bleakest circumstances, bringing healing and help and hope even to the hopeless.

And this is exactly what He did for those in Exile along with Ezekiel: God Himself promised to bring life to His people again, beyond all their expectations. Even though on their own, they may have had no more hope of turning around their situation than dry bones do of getting up and walking about, the same God who brought all creation into being, and who would one day raise Jesus Christ from the dead, can indeed bring life and hope to His people again. Ezekiel 34:11-14,
 
“Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,’ says the Lord.”
 
And as the Lord promised, He stayed true to His word: despite all expectations, the exiled people of Judah were eventually able to return to Jerusalem, and begin rebuilding their lives. The loving-kindness of the Living God had rescued them from their hopelessness, and given them a new beginning.  
 
But a new beginning to what end? What was supposed to come next? What was the purpose of God raising His devastated people to new life? Was it just so that they could keep going about their own business? To fall back into the same old self-destructive ways? Or did God have something more in store? Something more for them, and for those around them too?
 
Remember how in His message to Ezekiel, God promised to put His own Spirit within His people… to share His own holy life with them. To not simply have them go back to how things were before, but to draw them together to Him, and to each other in holy love… which of course, is no simple thing.
 
And right after he receives his vision of the valley of dry bones, God gives to Ezekiel another message of hope… about how God will heal the broken divisions within God’s family, which at that time seemed completely  insurmountable.
 
Long before they were carried away into Exile, Israel had torn itself apart in civil war. During the reign of King David’s grandson, the Northern tribes of Israel revolted against Judah, and split away… setting up their own rival kingdom, and for centuries the two kingdoms lived side by side in deep tension… and sometimes even warring against each other. God’s people had gone from being one family set apart to love God and each other, to becoming enemies.
 
That is, until the Assyrian Empire showed up on the scene and conquered the Northern tribes, leading its people away into the far regions of the East, never to return. They were completely lost to one another… swept away beyond the hope of reconciliation.
 
Again, it’s kind of easy to see parallels of this story at work in our world today: communities that were once united now seeming to be fracturing beyond all hope of restoration… so many of our neighbours eagerly aligning themselves with divisive and even hate-fueled cultural and political agendas. It seems harder and harder to imagine how our communities and society could ever be brought back together again. But this is precisely the hope that the whole story of Pentecost holds out for us: the hope of a brand new beginning heading towards the blessed end of God’s reconciling love.
 
Right after his vision of the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel is given another message from the Lord: the prophet is to take two separate sticks, and join them into one… symbolically showing the exiles in Babylon what the Lord has in store for His divided people. Ezekiel 37:15-23,
 
“The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the Israelites associated with it’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with it’;  and join them together into one stick, so that they may become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not show us what you mean by these?’ say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am about to take the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with it; and I will put the stick of Judah upon it, and make them one stick, in order that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
 
What a picture of hope! Not only would the Living God restore the exiles of Judah from their hopeless situation, but God would also bring back all of their estranged and exiled fellow Israelites to be by their side again.
​
God promised here to reconcile His shattered people… gathering all who had been scattered, and reuniting them in His hand… repairing all those long centuries of divisions, and bitter enmity, and making them one… together again under the reign of one King.
 
And this is the hope-filled story of Pentecost that we find at work in our reading today from Acts Chapter 2: here we see the Living God starting to fulfill His promises to bring His people back together again, filled with His life-giving Spirit, and living God’s way under the reign of Jesus, the Risen King.
 
Here in Acts, we are told that devout Jews from every nation had gathered in Jerusalem… for one of their ancient annual festivals, celebrating the first fruits of the harvest by offering them back to the LORD. God’s covenant people, scattered throughout the Mediterranean world, had all made a pilgrimage to worship the LORD, and had no idea of what God had in store for them.
 
At just the right moment, God’s Holy Spirit is given to Jesus’ followers… to the disciples who had already been given the Good News, and the mission to share it with the whole world… but who had also been told to wait in Jerusalem until they had received this power from on high.
 
And then it happened: with a rush of wind, and the appearance of fire descending on each of them, these ordinary people were given something they could never create on their own: God’s own life-giving presence within them… filling them with His holy love… the very same love which filled and flowed through Jesus Christ our Lord.
 
And what does this Spirit do? He empowers the disciples to speak in languages they never knew before… He helps them to overcome all the barriers of culture, and communication, so they could connect with their fellow Jews from all over, who had been cut off from them before.
 
Think about that for a moment. The first thing that the Holy Spirit does in the lives of Jesus’ disciples is to begin reconciling God’s scattered people… bring together again this fractured community by the Good News of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord… the Promised Saviour King that Israel’s prophets had spoken of centuries before, who reigns now at God the Father’s right hand.
 
But as great as this new beginning is for the Jews gathered in Jerusalem that day, God’s Holy Spirit doesn’t stop there… as we know, that was just the beginning! The story of Acts is all about how this Good News of God’s Saviour King Jesus is going out to all the world… beginning from Jerusalem, and spreading into Judea, Samaria, and beyond. In the last few weeks, we heard the story of how the Good News of Jesus was shared with the Ethiopian eunuch, and with the Roman Officer, Cornelius, and his family… and as this same story goes on, we know that this Good News has travelled to the very ends of the earth, inviting absolutely everyone to place their trust in Jesus, and share in the new life of His Kingdom… a new life made possible by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit  within us.
 
This is Good News for our world today: that despite all the divisions and devastation we see around us… despite all the losses and lingering doubts… we know this is precisely the soil in which the Spirit of God brings about New Creation… breathing new life into even our dry bones, and filling us with God’s holy, reconciling love.
 
And this same Holy Spirit is still active in our world, working through the lives of those who trust and follow Jesus, the Risen King, serving as His hands and feet together, not to destroy, but to make all things new… leading His people towards the blessed end of God’s eternal Kingdom… and giving us all our own part to play in sharing this Good News with everyone.
 
As the prophet Joel proclaimed:
 
‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
 
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (Acts 2:17-21).
 
What are the ways that we need the Holy Spirit to be at work in our lives today? What new beginnings do you and I need Him to bring about in and through us?
 
Maybe we need a renewal of hope for God’s world? Reassurance that the Living God will not abandon His creation, but will bring it new life, just as Christ rose from the grave.
 
Maybe we need the Holy Spirit’s gift of conviction? Inviting us to turn around… to repent of our sinful, and selfish ways, and to find God’s forgiveness and freedom offered to us in Jesus, our Saviour King?
 
Maybe we need reconciliation? Finding ourselves torn apart inside… or cut off from those around us.
 
Whatever we are facing today, Pentecost reminds us that even when things seem to be at their darkest, the Living God Himself is still with His people, and His power at work in us can do infinitely more than we could ask or imagine. Pentecost calls us to hold onto and share the Good News that God’s rescuing, and life-giving love in Jesus Christ is making all things new, and bringing about God’s New beginning for His broken but beloved creation.  
 
And so, may the Holy Spirit of God fill us today with the faith, and love, and hope we need to take part in this new beginning He has in store for our world, through Jesus Christ the Risen Lord. Amen.

​And for an even deeper conversation, here is their four-part Podcast series discussing the Holy Spirit:

​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Acts 2:1–21 | Psalm 104:24–35 | 1 Corinthians 12:3–13 | John 20:19–23

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)
 
Happy Pentecost.
 
Here we are, fifty days after Easter, celebrating one of the central festivals of the Christian faith. Today we rejoice in God’s gracious gift of the Holy Spirit… His personal presence and power, poured out onto His people… enabling us to do far more than we could ever imagine.
 
Many people consider Pentecost to be the birthday of the Church: the defining moment when the new community of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord first came into being… the beginning of a whole new era… God’s new creation coming to life in the middle of the old creation... dramatically upending history, and opening up a new way forward.
 
But what exactly is the point of Pentecost?

What was it God intended to accomplish by pouring out His Holy Spirit on His people? What is this “new creation” supposed to look like? What is the Church being empowered to do? Or maybe it’s better to say, what are we being empowered to become?
 
Just like the Ascension, which we explored last week, the story of Pentecost is not an isolated episode… a strange story that stands alone. Pentecost is a part of the whole arc of God’s great story, which finds its center in Jesus Christ… in what He has done, and in what He is still doing today.
 
Last week we spoke about how when Christ Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father in Heaven, His eternal reign as King of all Creation had begun. And just before He ascended, as Jesus told them that He was returning to His Father, He promised them He would soon send them the ultimate helper and gift: the Spirit of God. Christ  commanded them to wait in Jerusalem until this all came about. There was so much for them to do, but they couldn’t do it on their own. To truly be His witnesses in the world they needed God’s own power at work in them.

And today, on Pentecost, we heard that this is exactly what happened. Acts 2:1-4, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
 
God’s Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, and filled them with His holy presence… just like God’s holy presence and glory had filled the Tabernacle and Temple long ago. But unlike the Tabernacle or the Temple, the centre of the Church Jesus Christ the Risen Lord would not be bound to a building.
 
It would be the new community itself where God’s holy presence would dwell… the people of Jesus were now to be the “place” on earth where all the world could encounter the Living God. We Christians are to be the sacred sign of the Life of Heaven at work in the world… spreading out from Jerusalem to the farthest corners of Creation.
 
But is this really the story of the people who claim the name of Jesus today? Does the world around you and I catch a glimpse of the life of the Living God when they encounter us?
 
It’s not an easy question to answer.
 
We know there are many Christians living faithfully today, who through big and small ways are making known the New Creation that God is bringing about. Their work may not make the headlines these days, but the seeds of the Kingdom are still being faithfully planted, tended, and watered… and will produce the harvest the Lord is bringing about through their labours.
 
But we also know that there are many today who use the name of Christ as a weapon… a tool to try to build up their own kingdom, or tear down those who oppose them. For many of our neighbours today, “Christians” are simply one of the various factions fighting over control of our society… using “spiritual” language to get their own way in the world.  
 
And we know that these devastating temptations to bind the Christian faith to this or that cultural movement or political party are nothing new. They’ve been forces pulling at the Church for centuries… almost from the start. All throughout our history, Christians have also followed the ways of the world… tearing down and lashing out at anyone we see as enemies. And even seeing it as God’s plan somehow to use His power to push and keep them down.
 
You might think I’m being a bit extreme. But I’m not. Tragically, I’m not. There are lots of those who, like us, claim to follow the ways of Jesus today, who truly see themselves at war… and they’re on all sides of the divides that are tearing our society apart. Those who think the “Christian” thing to do is to tear down all who stand in their way.
 
Is this what the Living God had in mind when He created the Christian Church? When He poured out His Holy Spirit, His personal presence and power, onto the people of Jesus? Is this what we are to celebrate at Pentecost?
 
Or is there something more?

Thankfully, the actual story of Pentecost found in the Scriptures paints us a very different picture about what this New Creation Community of the people of Jesus is to look like… the kind of power that is still at work in it, and how we are to take part in it today.
 
In a word: Pentecost is about Peace. God’s peace breaking out into our warring world.
 
That first Pentecost we read about today, Jerusalem was a city divided. Jewish pilgrims who had been scattered across the Mediterranean world, had gathered in the Holy City for one of the sacred festivals of their faith. Coming together, even despite their cultural and linguistic differences, bound to each other only by their devotion to the Living God.
 
But when the Holy Spirit of God shows up, suddenly, these scattered Israelites were being brought together in a whole new way: by the Good News of the Messiah, Jesus the Risen Lord, which they could somehow all hear in their own languages.
 
We know how hard it can be to understand… to draw near to and share our hearts with people from other cultures. It’s not impossible, by any means! But still, there are lots of barriers. I mean, just consider how hard it can be for people from different generations of the same culture, even the same family to truly understand one another.
 
Imagine that day, when suddenly strangers from so many different nations, so many different ways of life, were suddenly in an instant all on the same level? All spoken to in the language of their heart, with no need for translation? All suddenly equally invited to take part in this new thing that God was doing?
 
That first Pentecost, suddenly, all sorts of divisions were overcome. God’s scattered people were able to truly come together… they were reconciled, setting aside the differences of language, culture, and distance that so often keep us apart… invited together to believe the Good News of Jesus, and to let it change their life.
 
From the very start, the Church has been a community of reconciliation… of those who were scattered being reunited… a broken body being renewed.
 
God’s Holy Spirit’s first action that first Pentecost was to bring God’s people back together.
 
Again, when we look around at the Christian Church today, true unity is hard to see. The strong temptations to cut ourselves off from each other… to divide up the Body of Christ for all sorts of reasons, have also been a constant danger for centuries. Our own Anglican tradition is no stranger to these tragic divisions. Even though we often try to hold to the Via Media, the “middle-way”, we too can easily let ourselves become estranged from our sisters and brothers in Christ… ignoring, competing with, or even fighting against each other, all the while thinking we’re doing God’s work, and faithfully following His ways.
 
Again, thanks be to God, Pentecost points us to the work of the Holy Spirit in overcoming these deadly divisions, and how He intentionally uses our differences to bring God’s blessings to life! In St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle makes this claim: 1 Corinthians 12:4-7,
 
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
 
Right here we find, not an argument for conformity, but a vision of the one true God working with variety. With real differences, but all aimed towards a common, good purpose. St. Paul goes on to describe all sorts of ways that the one Holy Spirit empowers God’s people, not so that they can be independent, but so that they can depend on and be blessed by their brothers and sisters in Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13,
 
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
 
Racial, class, economic, and social divides… all broken down by the one Spirit of God. All believers are equally invited and empowered to share in God’s new community. One might be a hand, another a foot. Yet another an eye or an arm… yet all belong together. All have a true part to play. All suffer when one is cut off. Such is the Spirit’s work in the Church, drawing us together, with all our differences still intact, to show the world what the reconciling love of the Living God really looks like.
 
This is, of course, something that neither the first Christians, or disciples like you and I today can do on our own! Even the most sincere efforts we humans make to be truly united end up in trouble. To become one, we need God’s own power to break down the walls that we have build up between us. Only when our attempts at reconciliation flow from Him will they gain ground.

But as important as Christian unity is (and I believe it REALLY IS important!), this is only the beginning of the heavenly peace, the New Creation that Pentecost has opened up. For the people God’s Spirit had gathered together in reconciling love, were soon to be sent out and scattered among the nations to share God’s love with everyone.  
 
As we heard last week, right before Jesus ascended into heaven, Acts 1:8 tells us that Jesus gave His followers a promise and a mission. He said to them “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
 
The Holy Spirit was going to empower them to be Christ’s witnesses, His messengers and heralds, sharing the Good News of God’s reconciling love through Jesus Christ. Not just with their own people, but with their neighbours, and strangers, friends and foes alike… with everyone.
 
Jesus sent them out into the world. Not just to their fellow Jews, but to all nations. To those who already believed in the Living God, and also to those who do not! To those who have very different commitments, and convictions… very different ways of life, to share the Good News with them too! Inviting them to believe in Jesus, the Risen Lord and become His people too.
 
The same promise and mission of peace was told in our Gospel reading today, which tells of the Risen Christ’s first encounter with His disciples . after His resurrection:
 
John 20:19-22, “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ ”
 
Now in many ways, the Gospel of John presents the story of Jesus differently from Matthew, Mark, and Luke… but that doesn’t mean the same Spirit is not at work in and through it! For John, the giving of the Spirit happens on Easter, but the overall message is the same: Jesus, the Risen Lord brings the personal presence and power of the Living God to His people, so that they can be sent out and share with others… what they themselves have received.
 
And what is that? Here, Jesus says it’s His peace. The peace of God’s love… reconciling sinners to the Living God through what Jesus Himself accomplished… once and for all making peace between Heaven and earth through His blood on cross… sacrificing Himself in order to save His enemies… to bring true life to the very ones  who brought about His death.
 
We Christians have often tried to use the powers of the world… violence, coercion, force, to bring about our vison of Christ’s Kingdom, but this only contributes to tearing apart the New Creation God Spirit is bringing about. The Spirit of God is given to us to draw us all together in the love of Christ.
 
Christ gives us His peace at Pentecost, and this is the seed from which God’s New Creation is grown: Peace with God, peace with one another, and peace to share with everyone.
 
But to do that… to become a people truly shaped by Christ’s peace today, we must also become a people shaped by forgiveness. The forgiveness of God, of one another, and forgiveness shared with everyone.
 
In our Gospel reading, St. John tells us the Risen Christ tied His peace directly to practicing forgiveness: Jesus “breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
 
The forgiveness of sins, like the fiery glory of God, was another way that the Church of Jesus was like a new Tabernacle and Temple, for that was where God’s people would go to be reconciled to Him, and to their neighbours. But instead of bringing sacrifices to the Christian community to be forgiven, Jesus had already sacrificed His Holy life on the cross to bring them forgiveness.

Yet the Church community was now to be the place where this forgiveness could be encountered… could be made known, and experienced. Where the freedom from guilt, and shame, and broken relationships would become a lived reality.
 
Overcoming the barriers that divide people today is impossible without forgiveness. There is just too much hurt, too many wounds, and guilt, and shame, and fears on all sides to move forward without God’s forgiveness at the core.
 
And if we read through St. Peter’s Pentecost sermon, we’ll find that forgiveness is at its core too. From the first breath, the Church has been calling us all to believe the Good News that Jesus is the Risen Lord… and that He has given His life to rescue and reconcile world to God. That everyone, that all of us, must turn around and embrace this gift of forgiveness… not only for ourselves, but for each other, so that Christ’s peace may reign in us, and the world come to know to power of God’s saving love.
 
So how can we faithfully respond to the message of Pentecost? What are we being asked to do? Or to let the Spirit of God do in and through us?
 
We’re called to believe, repent, and forgive.
 
We need to believe the Good News of Jesus the Risen Lord. To take this truth to heart, and let it be the foundation of our lives. To entrust ourselves wholeheartedly to the arms of our loving Saviour, and cling to Him always.
 
We need to repent… to turn away from those old sins and temptations that kept us in the dark, tearing ourselves and each other apart. We need to step back from of our self-centered divisiveness… and let God’s love lead the way.
 
And we need to forgive… to share what we have ourselves received from Jesus: to look at those who have hurt us, and who might even seem to be our enemies, in the light of the cross of Christ. To recognize one another as those Christ loves and has died to save… just like you and I.
 
Of course, we can do none of these things on our own. We need the gift of God’s Holy Spirit… His presence and power at work in us to believe, repent, and forgive.
 
And this is the promise of Pentecost: that God really has poured out His Holy Spirit, and is at work even now in the lives of His people… doing what we can’t do on our own: making us into the place where the blessed life of the Living God is truly known here on earth, and where the peace of Christ in His beloved Creation has already begun to reign. Happy Pentecost everyone! Amen. 

Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit of God to dwell with us in power, filling us with His Holy presence, and preparing us to live as His people in the world, faithfully following Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. 

​The story of Pentecost can be found in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2, and it is an integral part of the story of what the Living God has done, and is still doing today.

To learn more about how Pentecost fits into this wider story, check out this grat video from the Bible Project exploring the first half of the Book of Acts:

​Our service of Morning Prayer, Bulletin, and Sermon this week can be found here:

And our Songs for this week can be found here:

Scripture Readings: Acts 2:1–21 | Psalm 104:24–35 | Romans 8:14–17 | John 14:8–17, 25–27

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” (Romans 8:14).
 
Happy Pentecost! The day we Christians celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit of God onto the first disciples of Jesus, filling them with God’s own personal presence and power. Last week, we reflected on the Ascension of the Risen Jesus, and the hope that comes from knowing that He’s the one on the throne of both heaven and earth, reigning even now as the eternal King of Kings. Today, we’re going to explore the power of God at guiding His people: it’s source, it’s character, and it’s intended purposes… all of which invite us to reflect on Pentecost and see this surprising power at work in St. Peter, and his fellow Apostles… fishermen, tax collectors and nobodies, turned into ambassadors of the Kingdom of God.
 
But before we turn straight to Acts Chapter 2, it might help us to remember that Pentecost was first of all an ancient Jewish festival, deeply rooted in the story of the Living God’s rescue of Israel, in order for them to become a people transformed by His holy love.

Pentecost, which derives its name from the Greek word for ‘fiftieth’, was celebrated by the Israelites giving back to the LORD the first-fruits of their harvests… sort of like a more explicitly religious Thanksgiving. But it was also much more than a festival marking the start of the harvest: it marked the beginning of Israel’s new life as God’s family, as they entered into God’s covenant, and received His holy Law to guide them.
 
Speaking about the story of Exodus, the Anglican Bishop and scholar, N.T. Wright, reminds us that, “50 days after Passover, they came to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the law. Pentecost, the fiftieth day, isn’t (in other words) just about the ‘first fruits’, the sheaf which says the harvest has begun. It’s about God giving to his redeemed people the way of life by which they must now carry out his purposes.”[1] In other words, Pentecost marked how God gave Israel a whole new way to live in the world… one which would help them remember the LORD who had rescued, and sustains them by His power, and that He desires to dwell among them in fellowship and peace.
After all, much of the Law given at Sinai was working out the guidelines for how the holy God of all would graciously live among His chosen children: there were laws given for how to build the Tabernacle, the sacred tent where God let His divine presence and glory reside in the midst of the people… laws for the priests to offer sacrifices of atonement, and bring God’s mercy and forgiveness to the people when they sinned, and turned back to Him… and laws for how Israelites were to live with one another, and those around them… pursuing justice and mercy, and so to make known the character of their LORD.  These laws laid out for Israel what it meant to share in God’s own life: how to be His faithful people, and follow in His holy ways.
 
And centuries after Sinai, on the first Pentecost after Jesus rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven the Living God was at it again: offering a whole new way of life shaped by His ongoing presence and power, and made possible, and available through the victory of the Risen Christ. N.T. Wright goes on to say: “When the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai, Moses went up the mountain, and then came down again with the law. Here, Jesus has gone up into heaven in the ascension, and—so Luke wants us to understand—he is now coming down again, not with a written law carved on tablets of stone, but with the dynamic energy of the law, designed to be written on human hearts.”[2]
 
That ‘dynamic energy’ or power is God Himself pouring out His own Spirit into His people… dwelling with them not just through the Tabernacle, or its replacement, the Temple, but dwelling in their very lives. As St. Paul would later put it in 1 Corinthians 6:19, the very bodies of believers were now the “temple of the Holy Spirit”, the place where God’s eternal power and glory has chosen to take up space.  
 
What had before been only a foretaste, a foreshadowing of God’s full plan for His people was finally taking form: because of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, and in His resurrection, every barrier between us and the Living God was coming down. Jesus had made a way for God and humanity to live in harmony… for us to finally share in His full fellowship. To share His peace. This is the purpose behind the power of God given at Pentecost: the reunion and reconciliation of all things in Jesus Christ. God’s new Creation coming to life through His Holy Spirit at work in us. Or as the scholar Craig Keener puts it, we see what Pentecost is all about when “God’s people live in unity, sacrificing for one another’s needs and living in such a faithful way that the world around gets a foretaste of the future kingdom.”[3]
 
This is why, in order to describe the surprising ability of the Apostles to suddenly speak in languages they had never before understood, St. Peter can point to the words of the prophet Joel, who spoke of the coming Day of the LORD, depicted with vivid, world-shattering signs, proclaiming that God’s good Kingdom was arriving, and was now changing everything. What was happening in Jerusalem that day, St. Peter proclaimed, was nothing less then the end of the world breaking into the middle of history: God’s glorious future, His New Creation where heaven and earth are again at one, has now begun in Jesus, the Risen Lord, and through His Holy Spirit this New Creation has already started to re-create us, His people… starting off by reuniting the scattered people of Israel, cut off from each other by their differences in language and culture, but now suddenly they’re all equally able to hear the Good News and believe.
 
As the rest of St. Peter’s message goes on to say, the Spirit of God was at work in them that day to help Israel, and eventually the wider world, to respond to God’s gift of rescuing love through the resurrection of Jesus… to repent, turn around and turn back to God, believe in Christ, and be baptized into a whole new way of life… as God’s new family… not separated by race, or culture, or language, but equally invited to live God’s way in the world as children led, no longer by fear, but by God’s own life-giving Spirit.
 
This would be the character of the power of God the Spirit gives us: not fear-driven, slavish devotion, or the ability to endlessly pursue our own self-centred desires… but the power of the unbreakable bond between our Divine Parent and a child who Jesus shows us is loved even more than life itself.
 
This is how St. Paul speaks of God’s power at work in us in our reading today from his letter to the Christian Church in Rome: God’s Spirit connects us to our Heavenly Father, in the bonds of faith and love. Romans 8:15-17 “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:15-17)
 
Wait a minute. “if we suffer with him”??? Why does Paul insert the “s” word here? I mean, if God is our loving Father, and the Holy Spirit is His own presence and power dwelling inside of us His children… why must we suffer? Shouldn’t God’s power keep us from suffering?
 
Well, Paul says it all in verse 17: we don’t suffer because God doesn’t care about us… or because His power is not strong enough to stop the forces of darkness. Remember, we’re talking about the One who already conquered the grave… who in His death on the cross defeated death for us, trampled the devil, and shattered the chains of sin and shame that held us tight.
 
Then why do we suffer? Paul says, we Christians are to share in Christ’s sufferings, so that we’ll share in His glory… the glory of the One who gave His life to save us all.
 
In other words, if we are to share in the genuine life of God through His Spirit… if we are to walk in the ways of His holy love, that means bearing with our broken world… it means suffering along with others, and for the sake of others, just like Jesus does, so that His New Creation can bear fruit in us through the Holy Spirit… so that God’s joy, peace, generosity, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,  patience, and love at work in us can help to heal His hurting world… which is often a painful process.
 
I appreciate how the scholar Charles Bartow talks about what it means to suffer with Christ: “The suffering Paul speaks of in this text does not have to do with suffering in silence in the face of injustice instead of combating it… It is not a matter of putting up with the immorality of imposed poverty, or the neglect or abuse of the earth and of those who inhabit it either.”[4] Rather, it means staying true to the way of Jesus, to our Heavenly Father’s calling on our lives, even when that means our lives get harder as a result. It means following God’s Spirit even as He lead us into the dark, because that is where the light of Jesus Christ is needed the most.
 
As I thought about the power of God at work in His children today… drawing them into a whole new way of life, and helping them stay true, even when that might very well mean suffering, a little French village called Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon came to mind.
 
In his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, the author Malcolm Gladwell sets the scene for us nicely: “Le Chambon is one of a dozen villages on the Vivrarais Plateau, a mountainous region not far from the Italian and Swiss borders in south-central France. The winters are snowy and harsh. The area is remote, and the closest large towns are well down the mountain, miles away. The region is heavily agricultural, with farms tucked away in and around piney woods. For several centuries, Le Chambon had been home to a variety of dissident Protestant sects, chief among them the Huguenots. The local Huguenot pastor was a man named André Trocmé. He was a pacifist. On the Sunday after France fell to the Germans, Trocmé preached a sermon at the Protestant temple of Le Chambon. ‘Loving, forgiving, and doing good to our adversaries is our duty,” he said. “Yet we must do this without giving up, and without being cowardly. We shall resist whenever our adversaries demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the Gospel. We shall do so without fear, but also without pride and without hate.”[5]
 
Inspiring words. But much more than that, these words were backed up by faithful action. Not long afterwards, desperate refugees, many of them Jewish, began arriving at Le Chambon, and the people did everything in their power to shelter them, to provide for them, to help them find safety… in short, to save them… putting themselves and their village in danger, time and again, in order to care for the strangers at their door, who they knew Christ the Lord had called them to love.

These were just ordinary people. Farmers, homemakers, tradesmen, regular folk, but their lives had been shaped by the Gospel of Jesus in such a way, that they were ready to do what was called for without hesitation… ready even to suffer with Jesus for the sake of their neighbours, and as a result over 3,000 Jews were rescued from the Holocaust.
 
This is what the power of God poured out at Pentecost looks like: preparing ordinary people… like the villagers of Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon… like St. Peter, the unlearned fishermen turned Apostle and Martyr… preparing people like you and I to live as God’s people… as loyal subjects of Jesus Christ, the Risen King of Kings… who Himself is the source of this power working in us through His Spirit at work in us.  
 
Again, it’s not about us, and our own capabilities… it’s God’s gracious gift… ‘His power working in us, which can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.’ Craig Keener puts this nicely: “The first disciples Jesus recruited in Luke were hardly the models of power we would expect when they began following him... The entire point of Pentecost is that God will accomplish his purposes through us, not because we are powerful in ourselves, but because he will show his power through us.”[6]
 
The Living God Himself is the source of our ability to believe… to stay true to Jesus and even to suffer with Him as we walk in His ways. It is the Living God’s own inner life, His character that the Spirit is drawing us into: filling us with His joy, peace, patience, self-control, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness, and holy love… so that we can take part in the purpose of His power: God’s new Creation… the reconciliation of all things in Jesus Christ, so that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved… safe in the arms of our Heavenly Father.
 
In short, Pentecost is all about sharing in the New Life of the Living God. Holy Spirit, come and share this life with us. Amen.
 
​

[1] Tom Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2008), 21.

[2] Tom Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2008), 22.

[3] Craig S. Keener, “Day of Pentecost, Years A, B, C,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Volume One (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 527.

[4] Charles L. Bartow, “Day of Pentecost, Year C,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Volume Two, ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 90.

[5] Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (New York, NY: Back Bay Books, 2013), 264.

[6] Craig S. Keener, “Day of Pentecost, Years A, B, C,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Volume One (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 527–528.

Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit of God to dwell with us in power, filling us with His Holy presence, and preparing us to live as His people in the world, faithfully following Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. 

To explore what it means for God's presence to dwell with us, check out this short video by the Bible Project called the Temple. And to learn a bit more about the Holy Spirit, check out this video on the same theme:

Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 37:1–14 | Psalm 104:24–37 | Acts 2:1–21 | John 15:26–27, 16:4b–15

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
John 16:13-14.
 
One of the joys of moving somewhere new is that you get to experience each season of the year with a renewed sense of adventure. What will winter feel like here? How hot will it be in August? What will the leaves look like in the Fall? What’s going to grow here come Spring?
 
This is our first Spring in our new house, and so far it’s been a great adventure… especially as the weather’s warmed up, and our yard’s begun to bloom. We’re practicing ‘No Mow May’, where people delay cutting the grass in their yards until June begins, to give the bees and other pollinators something to sustain themselves after the long wait of winter. We thought we’d just see dandelions having a field day, so to speak, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the variety of flowers… of new and unexpected life that has sprung up all around us.
 
Wide patches of white Canadian violets, and wild-strawberries… all sorts of scattered Johnny jump-ups, forget-me-nots, and daffodils, and not to mention the host of others whose names we don’t yet know, and whose shapes are unfamiliar. Together, along with the dandelions of course, they make a beautiful but unexpected garden… a blessing, both to us, and hopefully to the bees… and a reminder that new life often comes as a surprise.    
 
Today the Church celebrates the holy day of Pentecost, which for thousands of years had been an ancient festival for Israel, but which had been given new life and meaning for those who trust in Jesus Christ, as this was the day God’s Holy Spirit was poured out into our lives. As we heard in our reading from Acts Chapter 2, at Pentecost, God was fulfilling His promise, made through the prophets long ago, to fill up His people… old and young, women and men, slaves and free… with His own Divine presence and power… so they could all together take their part in His great mission to bring salvation to our world. To reconcile and rescue us, to restore us in His righteousness… to share His life of holy love with all who will call on His name.
 
At Pentecost, the Spirit of God at work in the life of Jesus… from His birth and baptism, all throughout His faithful life, in his trials, suffering, and death, and in His rising from the dead… this same Spirit was given to us, to Christians… in order to fill, empower, and lead ordinary people like you and I. To bring God’s New Life in Jesus Christ to birth in and through believers… guiding us deeper into lives shaped by the truth of God’s Good News.
 
All this and more is packed into the meaning of Pentecost. It’s an unexpected, easy to misunderstand part of our story, one we might just be tempted to skip on past as soon as possible. But to do so cuts us off from seeing how God’s Spirit’s at work even today; bringing new life and power, and hope, both to and through His people.
 
Before our reading today taken from the book of Acts, the entire Christian movement could have fit inside this room (that is, St. Luke’s Church). Maybe not with COVID-19 social distancing measures in place, but in Acts 1:15 we’re told there were only about 120 believers at this point. Picture that for a second. All those who had come to believe in Jesus Christ, the Risen and Reigning King of heaven and earth… who were also called to share the Good News of Jesus with all the world… they could all fit inside these walls… with all the world outside their doors. Talk about a daunting, seemingly impossible task. How could a group of 120 ordinary men and women even start to take their message and share it in a meaningful way? Especially as they were still at risk of being arrested by the very same people who had arrested and crucified our Lord?  All they had to go on was the promise Christ had given them: that He would send them an Advocate, Someone to take their side who would fill them with God’s power, and truly lead them on. In the mean-time, they were to wait, to trust the LORD, and seek His will. Which we’re told they did, gathered all together in constant prayer.
 
Throughout the centuries, this is what God’s people have been called to do: to gather together, to trust in the LORD, to wait, and to pray… not because there is nothing else to do, but in order to be prepared, ready to take our part when God’s unexpected, powerful New Life breaks through, even when it seems like the time for hope is over. When it seems like there’s no way forward, and that the end has come.
 
 This was the kind of situation faced by the people of Judah when Jerusalem was conquered, and they were taken off into Exile. They had seen their entire homeland, their whole way of life, overthrown and ruined by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar. Though the prophets of YHWH, the LORD, had long been warning that this would be the result if the kingdoms of Israel and Judah continued on in their unfaithfulness, God’s people had not turned back to Him, and so they lost everything. They were as good as dead. At least, that’s how they saw things: “Our bones are dried up,” they said “our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Yet the Living God was far from done with His beloved people. Despite their fears and failures, God would not abandon them, and as the vision of the prophet Ezekiel makes plain, God’s life-giving Spirit is full of powerful surprises.  
 
Our reading today from Ezekiel 37 stands out as one of the most striking images of hope in the entire Bible, pointing us towards God’s faithfulness even beyond death… which would come fully to light in the resurrection of Jesus. Though the people had given up, God Himself would have the final say. The Old Testament scholar, John Goldingay, sums up God’s response like this. “They feel like a people who are dead and buried. OK, says God, I shall open your graves and bring you back to life… When the people of God seems to be finished, it’s not finished.”[1] Just as in the vision the dry and scattered bones were gathered together, and the Wind, the Breath, the Spirit of God restored the bones to full life, God promised to gather His people again, restore them to their homeland, and put His own Spirit within them, so they might truly live… that is, so that their lives might fully share in God’s own life… taking their part in His life-giving holy love for our world.    
           
Back in the book of Acts, at Pentecost, over 500 years later, God’s promise through Ezekiel was bearing surprising fruit. Those 120 believers, waiting and praying together, found themselves caught up in God’s New Life breaking out, both for Israel, and for all nations.

“[S]uddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” In an instant, waiting gives way to God’s Spirit filling Christ’s followers, enabling them to speak in tongues they did not know before. This would no doubt be a blessed, unforgettable experience, one which would strengthen their faith, and draw them closer to God and each other, even if it only involved the 120 gathered together. But of course, the whole point was God’s Spirit was moving in their midst to empower them to share the Good News of Jesus with the world! And that is exactly what happened… which is why we’re here today.
 
After the Exile, Israelites and Jews were scattered all through the ancient world; living among all sorts of communities, speaking all sorts of languages, far from their homeland, but holding onto God’s promise to restore them. Many would come on the holy festivals, like Passover, and Pentecost, to worship at the rebuilt Temple of God in Jerusalem. And suddenly, this multitude of pilgrims, gathered in their homeland once again, heard this small group of believers sharing the Good News of God in their own scattered languages... reaching out to each of them in ways they could clearly understand. And though our reading today doesn’t let us hear the whole story of Pentecost, Act 2:41 tells us the message was received: “So those who welcomed [Peter’s] message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.”
 
From 120 to over 3,000… a surprising new community made up of Jews from Galilee, Jerusalem, and all over the ancient world… and this was just the beginning, the first-fruits of God’s rescue mission to reach out to all people with the Good News of Jesus… so that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21). The book of Acts recounts how this community grows, gathering together Jews and Gentiles, and spreads throughout the world. And over the centuries, it’s still growing! The Good News of Jesus is still reaching out and transforming our world today, renewing lives, restoring hope, and reconciling us with God and each other… bringing God’s New Life to birth even here in Gondola Point.
​
You and I are part of the evidence of God’s faithfulness and power, gathered together in worship, prayer, and holy love in Jesus’ name, thousands of years after the Spirit was given at Pentecost, and part of a worldwide family, the Church, with billions of sisters and brothers!
 
I don’t know if any of the 120 believers who had got up that Pentecost morning could have possibly imagined what God’s Holy Spirit was about to begin through them, but you and I have plenty of reasons to hold onto hope in what God is up to. Not because there are no challenges ahead, or failures behind us. Not because we have it all figured out, or have all the needed expertise. No, our hope is that the Living God we’ve come to know in Jesus Christ, loves to draw ordinary people like us into His own surprising story of worldwide salvation, through His Holy Spirit at work in us.
 
The Anglican priest and theologian John Stott sums up how indispensable the Holy Spirit is for the life of the Church with a particularly forceful point: “Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead.”[2] The Holy Spirit isn’t an extra, optional part of the Christian faith. The Spirit is God’s own life giving presence and power among us, and out in our world… drawing us into the resurrection life of Jesus our Lord, and working through us in surprising ways to share His saving love with all.  
 
Here at St. Luke’s, may God’s Holy Spirit come powerfully among us. May He share God’s hope with us when we are feeling broken, lost, and alone. May He draw us deeper in our devotion to Jesus, helping us seek His face in prayer, and follow in His ways. May the Holy Spirit convict and challenge us when we need it, leading us back to the truth, and restoring us in God’s mercy. And may He open our hearts to be ready and able to take our part in Christ’s mission, to share the New Life of God… even in ways that might be full of beautiful surprises. Amen.


[1] John Goldingay, Lamentations and Ezekiel for Everyone, Old Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 184.

[2] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church & the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 60.

Today we celebrate the coming of God's Holy Spirit at Pentecost, filling the Church with God's presence and power to share in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord.

On this sacred day, and in the days to come I invite your prayers for our Parish of Gondola Point:
​That the Holy Spirit would guide us in our life together as His Church, and as we discern how best to share in God's loving care in our community.

For those of us unsure of what the Spirit is all about, here is a great video from the Bible Project to help us explore how the Holy Scriptures speak about the Holy Spirit of God.

​Our service of Morning Prayer, Bulletin, and Sermon this week can be found here:

​​And our Songs for this week can be found here:

(Image source[2]).
 
Represented among that crowd were people from all parts of the known world, and though religiously Jewish, these pilgrims would have had many significant cultural differences from one another, including their languages. Yet as they gathered together in Jerusalem, God’s Spirit filled up St. Peter and the other disciples in such a way that all were able to hear and understand, despite their differences. The Lord was at work uniting those who had gathered by the Good News of Jesus, making one a divided people by reaching out to all. As the same scholar points out, this was no accident or random event: “God is dramatically signaling that his promises to Abraham” (that through his family, Israel, all the families of the world would be blessed. See Genesis 12:1-4) “are being fulfilled, and the whole human race is going to be addressed with the good news of what has happened in and through Jesus.”[3] This is in line with what St. Paul would one day proclaim in his letter to the Corinthian Christians: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:12-13).
 
We go on to hear how St. Peter begins to unpack the real significance of this surprising moment: Claiming that Israel’s Lord, Yahweh, the Living God, was now fulfilling the promises made through the prophets long ago, pouring out His own Spirit upon us humans, so that we all might be rescued… saved to share in God’s divine life through Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. “This work of God is wonderfully inclusive,” this same scholar writes, “because there is no category of people which is left out… But it is wonderfully focused, because it happens to all ‘who call on the name of the Lord’”.[4] This Good News, this message is meant for everyone… for every-one. Rich and poor... women and men… slaves and masters… everyone. No distinctions hold, all are invited: “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).
 
And just like how centuries earlier, when God had given Israel the Law at Mt. Sinai, calling them into a new way of life aligned with His holy love, God was now pouring out His Holy Spirit, inviting all to call on Him and be saved, while also calling them (and us too!) into a radically different form of life: forgiven, united, inspired, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to reflect into and share the goodness and holy love of God with this broken world, which the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose again to save.
 
Pentecost is sometimes referred to as the birthday of the Church, for it was then that God created this new community shaped by and for His Good News. And right from its birth, from its very first moment, we hear something vital about who we are, and who we are meant to be: the Living God created us in Christ by the Holy Spirit… for everyone. Filled with the same Holy Spirit, and set apart as His holy people, the Church gathers together in order to share God’s holy love... with our world. We are not the only ones God is working to gather in… we’re simply the first fruits of the Lord’s worldwide harvest.
 
This means that Pentecost is not simply something strange and wonderful that happened once long ago, it is a pivotal event that tells us contemporary disciples of Jesus Christ something absolutely vital about the shape of our own lives, both when we’re together and when we’re apart: we have been gathered together into one family by the Living God, saved by God’s Son Jesus Christ, and filled with God’s Holy Spirit to share in God’s great rescue mission… as the Spirit equips each one of us individually “for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7).   
 
It will be wonderful when we can gather together again at St. Luke’s Church, and I am looking forward to that day with eager expectation. But that cannot really be our primary focus or goal. Yes, we look forward to that day… but let us also be urgently looking into how the Living God is calling us to take our part in what He is doing today, and let us be prayerfully listening to where His Spirit may be leading us, as individuals and also as a Parish in the days to come. We have all been drawn together here in Gondola Point, as part of the one Church of God… drawn together from all the nations and peoples of the earth… to be filled, and nourished, equipped, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, and to be sent back out into the world as living signs and messengers of God’s ongoing, rescuing work in the world… so that everyone might call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.
 
May this Pentecost-shaped mission transform our hopes and actions as a Parish. May the Holy Spirit fill us with all we need to do God’s will, and may He work in us to share the Good News of Jesus Christ through all we do. Amen. Alleluia.
__________________

[1] Wright, N.T. (2008). Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (p. 21). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

[2] Wright, N.T. (2008). Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (p. 27). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

[3] Wright, N.T. (2008). Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (p. 29). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
 

[4] Wright, N.T. (2008). Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (p. 34). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.