Acts 2.1-21 or Ezekiel 37.1-14; Psalm 104.26-36, 37b (or 26 -
end); Romans 8.22-27; John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15
God, who as at this time taught the hearts of your faithful
people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: grant us
by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things and
evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of
Christ Jesus our Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
PENTECOST was awaited impatiently as my sister, brother and I
became conscious of the church's year, though not for exalted
reasons. We loved hearing the exotic names of the national groups
who had gathered in Jerusalem that day being annually mangled by
the hapless parishioner whose turn it was to read the account in
Acts 2.1-21. Now, I match the first century CE map against a modern
atlas, and substitute for those names Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey,
Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Libya - places of warfare,
displacement, torture, loss, grief, humiliation, refugee camps and
economic ruin, where Christians of many nations and tribes have
suffered in their tens of thousands.
In that sharpened light, it becomes clear that the struggle
alluded to in all three of Sunday's readings, between the
sufferings and uncertainties of their historical settings and the
rich promise of the gift of the Spirit, has had to be taken
seriously in every age that has read them since. They are always
words for the present; and they offer no easy consolations.
The Spirit, Peter tells the noisy crowd in Jerusalem, will
release the power of prophecy as one of their own prophets had
foretold; but not before the frightening signs announcing Christ's
return (Acts 2.17-18; Joel 2.28-32). In places where Ezekiel
37.1-14 is chosen as the first reading, the prophet is heard urging
a people without hope to believe that, like dry bones returning to
life, they will receive God's spirit, and flourish as a nation once
again. Paul assures the Roman Christians that the Spirit will
intercede for those who have put their faith in Christ and help
them to pray; but they must face their weakness and the seeming
insubstantiality of their hope (Romans 8.22-27). Jesus wants his
followers to trust the Spirit who will be their advocate, but
reminds them that the Spirit pleads on behalf of those who have
first faced persecution by the world, before their accusers are
themselves convicted (John 16.4b-11).
Then, as now, the option of renouncing Jesus, and returning to
practices that assured identity with the majority, rather than
living in conspicuous difference, must have been an ever-present
possibility. The astonishing thing is that it was not widely
chosen. Stephen, James the brother of John, Peter, and Paul (Acts
7.54-60; John 21.18-19; Acts 12.1-2; Acts 20.22-25) represent the
many who faced torture and death. Their modern counterparts speak
through people like the Iraqi Chaldean priest, who recently told a
Radio 4 interviewer that,after kidnap and constant fear of
execution, he was back in his church and determined to stay, though
many had fled.
Searching among all this testimony reveals one uniting feature:
the hope of the resurrection as the guarantee that God always keeps
promises. The Spirit comes, as Jesus assured the disciples it
would. The Spirit stays, while we wait for the redemption that is
God's unchanging will for the world. In all of this, the
world matters. It is not something to be suffered and endured but
ultimately disregarded. On the contrary, it has central importance
as the place where we keep on growing towards the unseen future for
which we hope. It is the place where we learn to pray (Romans
8.26-27), and where we learn what it is like to live in God, by
listening to the Spirit who is part of the constant, and constantly
active and communicating, life of God (John 16. 12-15).
That realisation came upon Charles Wesley on the day of
Pentecost in 1738. Three days later on 24 May, his brother John
"went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street" and heard
Luther's Preface to Romans. As the reader came to Luther's
description of God's conversion of the heart through faith in
Christ, Wesley felt his own heart "strangely warmed". A deep sense
of salvation followed, and a longing to pray, even when joy was not
always part of this. For Charles, the response to the power of
God's love was invariably song. The final verse of "Spirit of
faith, come down" makes a fitting addition to the prayers we make
both for ourselves and for those keeping this feast in harsher
conditions, and sometimes according to different calendars:
Inspire the living faith
(which whosoe'er receive,
the witness in themselves they have
and consciously believe),
the faith that conquers all,
and doth the mountain move,
and saves whoe'er on Jesus call,
and perfects them in love.