Pentecost - Year A

Acts 2.1-21; 1Corinthians 12.3b-13; John 20.19-23

Great soaring Spirit,
sweeping in uncharted flight
beyond the bounds of time and space.
God’s breath of love,
you fill the outflung galaxies,
and move through earth’s long centuries
with aching, mending, dancing grace.

Great eagle Spirit,
crying from the tallest crags
to all discarded, all distressed,
glad gusting love,
come, scatter trivialities,
and raise envisioned ministries
to hear and honour earth’s oppressed.

Great nesting Spirit,
sheltering with mighty wings
your chattering, demanding brood,
deep, restless love,
come, stir us, show us how to fly,
till, heading for tomorrow’s sky
we soar together, God-renewed.

That hymn by Brian Wren offers a fresh way of imagining, thinking about, perhaps even feeling, God the Holy Spirit. Today is the feast of Pentecost, the feast which above all others, celebrates the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that came upon the waiting disciples in wind and flame. That hymn speaks of God the Holy Spirit, in a new tongue, in the renewal of tired metaphors; imagining the Spirit as a great bird – soaring, crying, nesting – across time and space.

The short Gospel passage from John that we just heard leads us from Easter to Pentecost, from the Risen Christ to the Spirit. In it, Jesus says four things that are as true for us as they were for the first disciples. It’s a passage we’ve already heard in the season of Easter: we are, we are told after all, on the evening of the day of resurrection, the first day of the week. The first day marks the day on which, in Genesis, creation began, and now it is the day of resurrection, the day when the new creation is seen and met in the Risen Christ. And just as, in Genesis, God spoke the word to a formless world of chaos and darkness, so now the Resurrected Christ comes and speaks a word to a group of disciples huddling in fear behind doors tight shut: Peace be with you. This is the gift of new creation, the gift that brings into life a new community: Peace. And then Christ shows them his hands and his side – this peace is offered on the far side of suffering and death; it knows them and has overcome them. And so, now that the disciples have seen his wounds, Jesus says again: Peace be with you. We begin our journey in and with that first word, that gift of peace, the gift that has overcome all that assails us and makes us fearful.

And secondly and immediately Jesus says, As the Father has sent me, so I send you. The gift of peace is not something to hug close to ourselves; not a gift to make us safe. It’s a gift that sends us out; it’s a gift to enable more courageous, more joyful, more connected living; a gift to enable that new creation we have met in Christ; a gift that overcomes our fears, I send you, says Jesus.

And then thirdly, as he breathes on them, Jesus says, Receive the Holy Spirit. Here is the moment that links this passage to Pentecost, to the events we hear in the Book of Acts. The drama of wind and flame, of people hearing good news in every imaginable language, is here compressed into a breath, and a single phrase: Receive the Holy Spirit. The word for Spirit in both Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) also means ‘breath’; it is the word used in Genesis when God breathes life into Adam, the first human. To receive the Spirit, the breath, is to be given new life; life that lifts us out of lethargy and into action. This is the Spirit’s most basic task, to bring life to the world, to connect and reform our shattered and fearful selves and communities. But alongside life, come the gifts of the Spirit: comfort, courage, inspiration, joy. Our tongues are loosed into praise. Receive the Holy Spirit.

And finally, and fourthly, Jesus says, If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ Forgive. This is the heart of the work of the Spirit. In John’s Gospel, forgiveness is not mentioned until this moment. At this moment of handing over, Christ handing over to the church, to us, his work, his mission, forgiveness is placed centrally. This is how the work of the Holy Spirit, the new creation, the kingdom happens; in acts of forgiveness small and large that create a new and different future. Forgiveness is what we both crave and fear; we, and the world, cannot forgive ourselves. Forgiveness comes from the large heart of God, enacted in the world by a community that lives in God’s Spirit. At Pentecost, this morning, God creates a people whose purpose is to live out forgiveness, to live out the generosity of starting afresh.

At Pentecost we are asked to imagine coming together, behind closed doors, in a fearful huddle. And we hear four things that reshape us:
Peace be with you, the gift that reshapes us.
I send you, because the gift is not for us alone.
Receive the Holy Spirit, so that you have the power to go beyond what we thought possible.
and Forgive, give life a new chance.

Next Saturday morning, with our Diocese we will welcome Bishop Dagmar. That will be a Pentecostal moment too: a moment of new possibility; new gift and energy; the gift of fresh eyes and vision. We will welcome Bishop Dagmar, but it is about all of us too, the whole Diocese coming together to receive this new gift, the good news spoken in fresh tongues; to take us out of our fears into new life, new possibility. And to be renewed in the work of the Spirit of Christ, the work of forgiveness in our tired, aching world. Amen.