Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39
It doesn’t get better than this. Christmas is great. Holy Week and Easter are special. But Pentecost is the crescendo of the Christian year. Let’s party.
Hang on, we might say, have you seen the news? Unless you’re a fan of Arsenal or Hull (and I am neither) there’s not that much to cheer about. National debt rising, domestic politics in permacrisis, global politics becoming more menacing by the day. Isn’t celebration, well, a little tin-eared?
But the Christian calendar invites us to see the world and its progress (or otherwise) through a very different lens. In its feasts and seasons it orientates us afresh on the saving work of God revealed in Jesus Christ. It invites us to circle back and make his story our focus and our reason for praise. Whether you are just discovering the gift of the Christian liturgical year for the first time, or if you have lived with it for many years – and here at the Cathedral we have been observing it for over 1000 years – I want to suggest it tells us a story of God coming among his people in life-transforming ways
In Advent we recalled the longing of God’s people for God to come among them.
At Christmas we celebrated God’s coming into the world in Jesus Christ – bringing dignity to every human life.
In Epiphany we saw God’s glory revealed to the world in the face of Jesus Christ – opening up the possibility of transformation to us all.
In Lent we followed Jesus Christ on his way to Jerusalem and the cross, and found in that journey the key to his joy and ours.
In Holy Week and Good Friday we recalled the sacrificial death of Jesus, and knew for ourselves the power of his forgiveness, his love and his grace.
At Easter we celebrated his bursting from the tomb, his life more powerful than death, offering us hope that will never fail.
At the Ascension we praised God for Jesus’ reign in glory and his prayers for us and the whole Church.
But his story – and our story - does not end there. For just as he promised his disciples in the Upper Room, Jesus does not leave his Church simply to remember what he did. ‘I will not leave you orphaned’, he said, ‘I will come to you.’ Indeed, he comes afresh by the Spirit - the gift of the Father out of love for the world.
But how does he come? Well, he came as he did that day of Pentecost in the hubbub of the Jerusalem. How he comes among us today, well let us consider Jesus’ prophetic words in our gospel reading, words delivered at a moment of high drama in the Feast of Tabernacles.
First, by the Spirit Christ comes to all. ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me’, Jesus says. The gift of the Spirit is not just for the spiritual elite, nor just for those high net-worth individuals who look down on ‘lower-value human capital’ as one business leader described colleagues this week. The Spirit is for all who recognise that on their own they are not complete, that their good desires can only be met in the one who is Goodness himself.
Second, by the Spirit Christ comes to bring life. ‘Let the one who believes in me drink’, Jesus says, and offers the picture of ‘streams of living water.’ This is the work of the Spirit, not to bring religion or guilt or a nagging sense of not being good enough, but to bring the bubbling, flowing, healing life and love of God.
If I’ve learned one thing about prayer over recent years, it has been to sit still, shut up and listen for the bubbling of the life of God which is the Spirit’s work. It is rarely showy so takes some noticing, but is all the more real for it.
Third, by the Spirit Christ comes to stay. ‘Out of the believer’s heart’, Jesus says to the crowd. The Spirit is not a visitor, who comes on particular people at particular times, as was the case in the time of the kings and the prophets. The Spirit takes up residence in our being, bringing the presence of Christ within us and among us, animating us from within.
‘Having believed’, the apostle Paul says to the Christians in Ephesus, ‘you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit’ (Eph 2:13). We sell the Holy Spirit short when we think that he comes and goes, like phone reception on the East Coast Mainline. By the Holy Spirit Christ is forever present with us, even when we turn our backs and live like he isn’t looking. But Christ will never leave us nor forsake us, not now, not ever.
By the Spirit Christ comes to all. By the Spirit Christ comes to bring life. By the Spirit Christ comes to stay.
And let us note that this is a gift not for random individuals but for the diverse, catholic Church of God, people of every tribe and tongue, called together to live and tell the story of Jesus Christ, that all who call on his name might be saved. Today, the Feast of Pentecost, we can celebrate the gift of the Spirit to the whole Church, a gift not simply to warm our hearts but fire our lives in the service of the One who comes to us.
So this morning, as we come to the Lord’s table, let us pray afresh for the Spirit to work among us, that by the Spirit gifts of bread and wine will become for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, offered for all, offered to bring life and offered to bring us forever into the love and grace of God.
It doesn’t get better than this. Not because life is easy or the world is predictable but because there was and is no better gift than the Holy Spirit, the one who brings the inestimable love of God to flow through our hearts and into a thirsty world. Amen.