Words from the Gospel reading: ‘[Jesus said], ‘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.’ Jesus is
speaking here to his disciples gathered in the upper room on the night of his arrest. But he is telling
his disciples of what is going to happen after he is raised from the dead on the first Easter Day.
We are well into the Easter season now, and, as these great 50 days move on, things are developing.
Ascension Day is this coming Thursday. Jesus goes to his Father and sits on his heavenly throne.
This means that Jesus is judge and lord of all. Resurrection, we see, involves this and it is good
news. If we were left solely to frail human justice and corrupting human authority then, literally,
God help us! In fact Jesus is our judge and Jesus is our Lord.
Also, as the 50 days move on, Pentecost approaches. This is the feast of the coming of the Holy
Spirit. The resurrection of Jesus, we see, also involves the coming of the Spirit. As the refrain in
one of our hymns this morning puts it:
Thank you O my Father
for sending us your Son,
and leaving your Spirit,
till the work on earth is done.
God’s great work, what we call the Paschal mystery, involves the sending of the Spirit, the divine
energy that feeds, enlivens, motivates, guides and teaches us. Thank goodness for Easter!
At the APCM last Sunday Lex shared with us some of her work with children and families in
growing faith. One particular thing she shared is on this card. It reads: Connection and
transformation happen when children and young people engage with rhythms of faith through time,
season, tradition and memory. Obviously it’s true for adults too. I thought immediately of the
Church’s Year; ‘time, season, tradition’. Now, in my 72nd time around the Church Year, something of
what it means is finally beginning to sink in!
Today’s Gospel reading points us towards the Holy Spirit. I read this in preparation for this sermon:
‘The Christian religion owes its existence to the intense conviction of the Apostolic Church that the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit had taken place.’
The Christian community, the Church of Jesus Christ, is not a self-motivating human community. Our energy for all the tasks, duties, and challenges of daily living come to us from a divine source, the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was given to us when we were baptised. The Holy Spirit is also given in
confirmation. The Holy Spirit transforms the bread and wine of the Eucharist into the sacramental
body and blood of Jesus at each Eucharist. This means that we can have confidence in our faith:
God, who send his Holy Spirit, is actually with us.
Our job is to receive what God is giving to us, what God has given to us, what God gives us now,
and will give us in the future. What we are to receive is the life transforming energies, the Lord of
life, the Holy Spirit. It requires that supreme gift, humility. I love the account in the Acts of the
Apostles about the baptism of Lydia. Note the stress on the divine initiative and Lydia’s humility:
The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household
were baptised, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home’.
Humility invites not only others into our hearts and homes but also the Lord. Note the
promise of Jesus in the Gospel reading: ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will
love them, and will come to them and make our home with them.’ The Spirit, opening our hearts, lets
in the supreme gift, the Father and the Son making their home with us. So the Christian community
always prays that lovely, simple prayer: Come, Holy Spirit!
So, ‘The Christian religion owes its existence to the intense conviction of the Apostolic Church that
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit had taken place.’ From the same book I was reading for this sermon: There is one body of believers because there is one Spirit; and ‘all the individual Christians have been made to drink of the same Spirit.’
The Christian community as a whole is Spirit-filled. So is each individual. Christian disciples each
find their motivation, purpose and gifting in the worship and communion of the Church. But as each
eucharist instructs us at the end, ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’. Put another way, ‘Off you
go now, confident in the gifts you have received of divine peace-making and love and serve Jesus
out there in the streets, the homes and the places of work that you uniquely have access to to. Don’t
hold back; get out there! O.K. Maybe have a cup of coffee, but then off you go!
The Father’s gift that he gives each of us in the name of Jesus is super-abundant. I recently heard
this list of Christian virtues, that is gifts of the Holy Spirit, all taken from the New Testament:
attentiveness, blamelessness, clear-mindedness, comfort, compassion, confidence, consideration,
contentment, conviction, discipline, endurance, faithfulness, fellowship, generosity, gentleness,
godliness, goodness, grace, hard-work, harmony, helpfulness, holiness, honesty, honour,
hopefulness, hospitality, humility, integrity, justice, kindness, love, maturity, meekness, mercy,
modesty, mutuality, obedience, patience, peace, perseverance, persistance, purity, respect,
reverence, righteousness, sacrifice, self-control, self-denial, seriousness, service, sincerity,
soundness, strength, submissiveness, sympathy, temperance, thankfulness, trust, truthfulness,
wisdom.
O.K. with that? How did your self-assessment go? Don’t worry, God has promised to give each of
us the gifts we need. God has sent the Holy Spirit. And if you fail, don’t worry! The Holy Spirit, our
Advocate, will prompt you to say sorry, help you hear the word of forgiveness and strengthen you to
get up and carry on.
‘All the individual Christians have been made to drink of the same Spirit.’
Thank you, O my Father
for sending us your Son,
and leaving your Spirit,
till the work on earth is done.
Come Holy, Spirit!
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed, alleluia!
Service: Canon Bill Croft 27th May 2025. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)
Readings: Acts 16.9-15; Revelation 21.10, 22 – 22.5; John 14.23 – 29