We rarely have the opportunity to share the excellent sermons delivered in our churches. Here is one exception, Peter Morrell’s sermon from yesterday. Feel free to share this further among our people.
Sunday 29 May 2022 Easter 7 Calpe (CW)
Acts 16.16-34 Psalm 97 Revelation 22.12-14,16-17,20-21 John 17.20-26
“Holy Father, I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
So began the famous prayer by Jesus, God the Son, to God the Father, that brought the Last Supper to an end. Jesus was praying that not just the unlettered fishermen, their unlettered companions and the tax collector, but all his disciples should be equipped to share with the world the Good News that he had proclaimed.
Some twelve hours later, Jesus, God the Son, was hanging on a cross on Calvary. Three days after that, the tomb where his body had been laid was found empty and Jesus was with ten remaining disciples in an upper room in Jeruslaem.1 Forty days after that, in Galilee, his by now restored twelve disciples were with Jesus on top of a mountain, when, before he left them and ascended to God the Father, he said to them:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”2
So, what had happened between the Passover, when Jesus had shared his last meal with the eleven and forty-four days later, when he bade his disciples a final farewell, that had equipped them for the enormous commission, enormous both in scope and in importance, with which he charged them of establishing across the world what we have come to call Christianity? And when I say “across the world”, let us not forget that the Apostle Thomas took Christianity to South India; and within five hundred or so years after that, with no internet to assist, Christianity had spread to lands as far apart as Ireland and China.3
So, to ask the question again, what had happened between Passover, the first Maundy Thursday, and Ascension Day, last Thursday, to equip the eleven for their awesome task? The answer is, not much! True, John’s Gospel recounts the occasion on the first Easter Day, when Jesus appeared to all of them, except Thomas, in the locked house in Jerusalem and, I quote; “breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’…”,4 but the real moment of their inspiration, as described in Luke’s Gospel, happened next Sunday, ten days after Ascension Day – the feast that Christians call Pentecost.
You may have heard me preach before, that Pentecost is the hinge of the Church’s year. From Advent Sunday, when we anticipate the coming of the Messiah, through Christmas, when we celebrate his birth, through the season of Epiphany, when we remember the disclosure of his arrival and his nature, through Lent, when we recall his mission, through Good Friday and Easter, when we remember his sacrifice for us and his Resurrection to Ascension Day, the Church focusses our attention on Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. But, on Pentecost, the Church shifts our focus from Jesus onto the disciples; onto you and me and the commission with which Jesus charged us on that first Ascension Day.
When Jesus was amongst us, from the moment of their calling on the shore of Lake Galilee and from the tax booth, the attention, the loyalty and the love of the eleven disciples, who were faithful to Jesus, was focussed upon Jesus, their leader. But, fifty days after Passover, on Pentecost, which in its Greek manifestation pentekoste, means ‘fiftieth’ and refers to the Jewish Feast of Weeks, celebrated on the fiftieth day after Passover5 – on Pentecost, when the eleven and Mary, Jesus’ mother, and other supporters were in an upper room in Jerusalem, as Jesus had promised during the Last Supper, and as we heard in last week’s Gospel,
“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.”6
As with the eleven, so with you and with me. Next Sunday, Pentecost, the Church turns our attention away from the birth, mission, death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus onto ourselves, his disciples, charged, as were the eleven, “with [making] disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that [he has] commanded [us].”2
And when we doubt our ability to do so, let us remember the prayer that Jesus, God the Son, offered to God the Father during the Last Supper, when, as we heard this morning, he asked,
…not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word – that’s you and me – that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
With such divine assistance, how can we dare doubt our ability to do as Jesus commanded us?
Amen.
1John 20.19-23
2Matthew 28.18-20
3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China (accessed 060519)
4John 20.22
5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost (accessed 060519)
6John 14.26
You must be logged in to post a comment.