Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Descent_Of_The_Holy_Spirit.png
If we read the news headlines
and ask, what is the most dominant feeling in the world today, we might well
answer: fear. In Ukraine and Russia, Syria, China, Iran, Sudan, for example.
Fear seems to be running the world. Conflict, death, injustice and horrors of
many kinds seem to be calling the shots of international politics.
Today’s gospel reading starts
out in a world like that. The disciples are afraid, and the doors in that upper
room are locked. With good reason. Their little group, led by Jesus, has been
branded a subversive movement. Already their leader has been captured and
executed. They themselves ran away and are now in hiding, fearful that the
authorities will come and get them in their turn. Listening out for voices in
the streets, footsteps on the stairs.
And into that locked room, that
fearful group, comes Jesus. And he says “peace be with you” and shows them his
hands and his side. He shows them that he really is the man who died – the man
they deserted and left to die. And – they rejoice.
That doesn’t seem to be a
natural response. Guilt and fear would perhaps be more natural, if someone you
had abandoned to his death suddenly appeared in front of you. But that is not
how the disciples respond to Jesus. Guilt and fear vanish, instantly. Joy and
peace take their place.
Simply by appearing Jesus casts
out all guilt and fear. Beyond death, Jesus has been raised to life in God who
is entirely alive. There is no fear or death or guilt in God. So in the
presence of Jesus fear and death and guilt simply vanish. Those terrible powers
that had seemed to be running the world disappear like mist before a sunrise.
Beyond death, Jesus is able to
come back to the disciples showing unambiguously what God is like. His comes to
them as the risen victim, breathing forgiveness, showing that the power behind
the universe is not fear, not death, not guilt, but love.
And he comes with the gift of
God himself, the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who brings forgiveness,
joy and peace. The Spirit who is given to the disciples exactly where they need
to experience healing and forgiveness themselves. They have failed; they have
run away, denied Jesus, been afraid, they are full of guilt. In the gift of the
Holy Spirit they receive forgiveness, which empowers them to be forgiving. They
receive peace and joy, which drive out all fear.
And they are sent. “As the
Father has sent me, so I send you”. The Spirit brings forgiveness, joy and peace,
but these are not static things. They are a movement. They are the movement of
God, who is love, into the world he has created. And the Holy Spirit catches
the disciples up into that movement and makes them his instruments to bring
God’s love to the world.
That mission, that sending,
which began in the upper room, continues in the Church today. Fifty days after
that Easter evening we arrive at the feast of Pentecost, the scene in our
reading from Acts this morning. The disciples are still meeting in the upper
room, that same upper room where they had met for the last supper and where
Jesus had appeared to them, but they are no longer afraid. They are praying,
watching and waiting.
And the Holy Spirit bursts into
that little room in wind and flame. The disciples begin to praise God in every
language under heaven. And crowds come running to see what is going on.
Thousands see and hear and believe. Suddenly everything is public and out in
the open. The little secret church in that closed room has been launched into
the world.
And it is a church that unites
in one body all the diversity of language and culture in the world. It is truly
catholic, universal, because the Holy Spirit is restoring all things in Christ,
creating a new humanity. Humanity alive with joy, not fear; humanity forgiven
and reconciled, not guilty; humanity transformed by love into love.
That is what the mission of the
Church is. Mission means “sending”, and it comes from God. Jesus sends the
Church as the Father sent Jesus, in the power of the Spirit.
The mission of the church is
God’s mission, not ours; we don’t devise it ourselves, but we take part in it. To
do that we have to look at the world God is sending us to so that we can pray
and think about what its needs are, and how we are to carry out God’s mission
in the time and place in which God calls us.
That is why we have a mission
action plan, and today we launch a new plan for the next few years of our life
as God’s church in this place. This has been the fruit of much prayer and
thought on the part of all our members and I hope everyone can feel that our
Mission Action Plan truly belongs to all of us, and that we can all take part.
There is much in our plan that
is very practical, realistic and down to earth. It’s not about having heavenly
ideas that are no earthly use! Mission is the movement of God’s love into the
world, but love needs to be made visible. It isn’t just a nice idea. We are
bodily creatures and love needs to be expressed in bodily ways, whether it be
through singing for care homes, or visiting the sick, or feeding the homeless,
or using our time, talents and money for the good of others.
Jesus in his earthly life was
the bodily expression of God’s love in the world. Now he has ascended into
heaven and entrusts that same mission to his Church, which is now his body in
the world. His mission of love has found us and saved us, and now sends us to
spread his love.
The risen Jesus meets us behind
the locked doors of our fear to give us his peace and set us free. He meets us
where we have failed to give us his forgiveness and enable us to be forgiving.
He who died comes to us from God, who is entirely alive, and simply love. He
gives us the Holy Spirit, so that we too may live with God’s life. He sends us,
making us part of God’s movement of love in the world.
God is remaking us and remaking
the world, through the mission of his Church. In practical ways, yes, with the
resources God has given us, yes, but empowered by his Spirit all things are
possible. Christ is risen. The Holy Spirit has been given to us. Fear does not
rule the world; love does. And by joining in with God’s mission we seek to make
that a reality in the lives of the people among whom we live.
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