It was Pentecost Sunday And a small, but enthusiastic group, had gathered early in the evening to pray as they had done for several years now This time though they were on their own Without a church family around them Alone in the cold and the dark as the sun set in the distance… They had gone to the Bishop Their leader had put on a brave face He was a young man – a relatively new convert to the faith He was not ordained But he claimed to have received his teachings direct from God the Holy Spirit And what better teacher could there be? The Bishop and the other members of the Church they had once belonged to had not understood this Alongside their leader were young women - both of them prophets Who had declared this to be the very end of the age Jesus himself was poised to return to the earth This Pentecost would be their last This was the time of the last, great outpouring of the Spirit of God The group leader and the two prophets claimed to have performed miracles of healing They spoke in tongues And when they laid their hands on others they too spoke in tongues It was a renewal they declared of that which the church had lost since the very first Pentecost And now, here they were, on Pentecost Sunday Looking into the heavens Awaiting the final outpouring of the Spirit in great power And the apocalyptic return of Christ himself to the earth Convinced that both were imminent... Perhaps that story sounds familiar? One of the many groups that have sprung up over the last century with the rise and continued rise of the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches? Or one of the more extreme groups that had a short lived popularity around the turn of the millennium a couple of years ago now? One of the many modern sects or groups meeting in a school hall or community centre down the road? In fact, the group I described flourished around the year 200 Some 1800 years ago It’s leader was a man named Montanus And its most famous convert or adherent was the prominent theologian of the early Church Tertullian; Jesus of course did not return as the Montanists expected And the movement soon petered out and slipped into the oblivium of Church History text books Many are of the belief and opinion that the Pentecostal churches and the Charismatic movement are doing and experiencing something new Including many inside those churches and that movement But as the wise – but melancholy - teacher of Ecclesiastes repeatedly says; There is nothing new under the sun Manifestations of the Holy Spirit The unexplained, the real, the bizarre, the awe inspiring, and the downright silly Have been a part of Christian life and experience ever since the first day of Pentecost; There were the Montanists in the early church And before even them the excesses and goings on in the Corinthian church that so troubled and occupied the apostle Paul There were the Cathari of the Middle Ages The “shakers” in the seventeenth century Spiritual phenomena - people falling to the ground and spontaneously crying out in joy – occurred in some of John Wesley’s meetings And in many other times and places All well before the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements came into existence last century -------------------------------- It’s somewhat paradoxic – and unfortunate That the very thing intended by Jesus and given by him to make his followers one The gift of the Spirit Is the very thing that has been the cause of so much confusion, misunderstanding, and division over the course of the long history of the Church; There are all number of reason for this that I will not explore here today But let us spend our time this morning briefly examining the Scriptures And in particular the passage from Acts 2 – Which tells the story of that first Christian Pentecost And of the giving of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost - or Shavuot - as it is known to the Jewish peoples Was one of the three great pilgrim festivals of the year At the time the NT was written - as today – the Jewish peoples were dispersed across the known world But on these three occasions all who had means to would make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem for the great festivals And so they had come from all number of places on that first Day of Pentecost described in Acts chapter Two People who no longer spoke or even understood the Hebrew language Greeks, Romans, residents of Cappadocia and Asia in what is now Turkey From the Middle East, Persia, and North Africa People separated from one another by that most significant of all barriers The barrier of language Of being unable to communicate verbally Strangers to one another’s words We are told that the Spirit arrived on this day and filled the small group of disciples gathered together Perhaps in the same upper room where they had shared the last supper of Jesus a few weeks earlier And that each were filled with the Spirit; This is a profoundly spiritual event – And it is described using the language of analogy That all biblical writers ultimately resort to in describing the indescribable; The Spirit comes “like” a rushing violent wind But it is not a wind The spirit appears as or like tongues of fire That seemed to hover or rest on each of them; These are outward and visible signs of something profound Each of them, we are told, were filled with the spirit and they began to do something They began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability to do so These were not ecstatic outbursts of unknown languages But languages, words, known to and understood by others who were present and who heard them Importantly – it is not really the disciples speaking in other languages that is the real miracle The miracle is that crowd heard them declaring the wonders of God in their own native language The miracle is that the barrier separating the disciples from the crowds That which would prevent them from communicating the with them at all Is overcome And this is what the Spirit does And this is why it is given The Spirit of God breaks down barriers It reverses the estrangement of the human family – one from another For it takes us and makes us through baptism Living members of the one family Whatever our age, our background, our ethnicity, our social or economic status, our language… As St. Paul says “we were all baptised by that one spirit into one body – That body being the body of Christ – the Church And all of this is the work and doing of the Holy Spirit that has been given to us -------------------------------- The real Pentecostal miracle is Not the outward and visible acts or manifestations of the Spirit It is not the speaking in tongues or the many healings or other dramatic things that occur in the pages of the New Testament itself And reportedly occur still today It is a miracle far less ordinary and every day And one that we – as a consequence – often miss Or take for granted For the miracle of Pentecost is the ongoing miracle of Men and women, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, People of every language, tribe, and ethnic origin throughout the entire world Brought together into the one body, the one fellowship, we call the Church By virtue of the one baptism And given the one earthly – yet spiritual - food to share A single loaf broken into many pieces A single cup from which to drink Despite all that might otherwise divide and separate us One from another The German theologian and Pastor Helmut Thielecke Writes this of an experience he had in the 1960’s at the very height of apartheid in South Africa That perfectly sums up the miracle of Pentecost; “Once in South West Africa I shared the Lord’s Supper with a group of Herero tribesmen. They knew nothing of my city and I knew nothing of their desert home where the deer and antelope play. Neither of us spoke single word of each other’s language. But when I made the sign of the cross with my hand and pronounced the word Jesus their faces lit up. We ate fro ma loaf of bread and shared a single chalice, despite apartheid. They could not show me enough kindness. The offered their children to me and invited me into their poor huts. We were separated by barriers: cultural, geographical, and of language. But we were enclosed by arms not of this world. Then the scales fell from my eyes. Then I understood the miracle of Pentecost. Then I understood the miracle of the Church.” In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |