A Pentecost thought

This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday for the Christian church. Throughout the world Christians will gather to celebrate the ‘birth’ of the church on that first Pentecost some 2,000 years ago. That particular day was a day of very special happenings:

‘Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.’ Acts 2:2,3

It was truly a day of signs and wonders. Of course we are a church that is big on signs and wonders. On any given Sunday as I am out the front, people give me a variety of signs and I am usually left wondering. Sorry about that.

Events like that first Pentecost are very special and I have been fortunate to experience a couple of times not unlike those events. Please note that I say a couple of times; and that is in more than 25 years of a Christian journey. Does that mean we only get to experience the work of the Spirit of God on the occasional blue moon Sunday? Let me introduce you to another Pentecost experience of the disciples that happened several weeks earlier.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” John 20:19-23

Here was a quieter, gentler experience of the coming of the Holy Spirit and I believe that we can learn more from this passage than the more well known Acts version. Most of my spiritual heroes were touched by the Holy Spirit in a way more like John than Acts.

John Wesley’s ‘conversion’ occurred just over 271 years ago on May 24 1738:

‘Before I could raise my usual question (concerning this change that God works in the heart through faith in Christ) the Holy Spirit performed His miracle, and I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone for salvation..’

James Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, was born in the Yorkshire mill town of Barnsley in 1824 and from a young age was convinced of God’s hand upon his life. Hudson Taylor recalled his holy ground experience on the 2nd of December 1849:

‘Never shall I forget’, he wrote, ‘The feeling that came over me then. Words can never describe it. I felt I was in the presence of God, entering into the covenant with the Almighty. I felt as though I wished to withdraw my promise, but could not. Something seemed to say “Your prayer is answered, your conditions are accepted”. And from that time the conviction never left me that I was called to China.’

So many look for the grand show but more often than not God works quietly yet profoundly in the lives of those who seek to know and love him more. The Catholic French mystic Jeanne Guyon (1648-1717), frustrated in her efforts to find God’s blessing was told by a priest, ‘Why do you seek without what is within?’

. We are all created in the image of God – ‘imago Dei’. Perhaps our challenge in these crazy times is to simply be still long enough to feel the breath of God upon us and hear Jesus’ word for us?
Cheers - John

Never, ever, give up!!

The writer of the Book of Hebrews says:

‘Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the convictions of things not seen.’ Hebrews 11:1

Good isn’t it? I am glad that God chose people who could put such meaningful summaries together in the Bible. In a former life I used to have a large picture on a wall in my office, facing my desk. The picture had a somewhat bemused, large long necked bird – eyes almost popping out of its head – as a large monkey had both hands squeezing tight around its scrawny neck, clearly strangling it to death. Beneath was the caption which is my simplified version of Hebrews 11:

‘Never ever give up!’

Funny thing faith; it is best experienced in the midst of trauma or confusion. We get some good pictures of Jesus’ faith when all appear to be going well with him personally but others are a little confused. As a kid he was surprised that mum and dad were concerned about him when he was lost one time. He was a bit surprised that they didn’t know where to find him and said words along the line of, ‘didn’t you know I’d be about my Father’s business?’ Stuff didn’t faze him all that much. He was having a nap on the boat one night while all hell was breaking loose around him and again couldn’t quite see what all the fuss was about.

It is good to know that someone has a sense of control and certainty when everything around you is falling.

Of course Jesus knew many moments in his life that we would have cause to call a crisis of faith. At the very beginning of his ministry he was sent into the wilderness and there tested for forty days by the Devil. There were moments throughout his ministry where he was challenged by friend, family and enemies and of course at the end of his ministry we witness betrayal, injustice, brutality and death.

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith this past week or so. Sometimes you just have to keep doing the stuff even when nothing much is happening. Faith is about remembering that we serve an ‘audience of one’ and as I was reminded last night; we may not know the future, but we do know the one who holds the future. Faith is less about dreaming great dreams and more about just getting up every day and giving it another go, secure in the knowledge that we don’t walk the road alone, even if it seems quite lonely out there!

Coming back to Jesus – As I like to do – what were some key faith points that might help us out as we walk the road?

‘It is written.’ Jesus knew his Bible and when the enemy tried to knock him off the path he responded by ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone.”’ Lots of people will contort the words of God to suit their short term goals. We need to be Biblically literate enough not to be scared off by people who are in fact much more afraid than we are. We need to know what is written.

‘I have prayed for you Simon..’ As the whole darned plan seemed to be unravelling in front of the disciples, Jesus gave a word of prophecy and a word of eternal hope. My translation? ‘Simon, you’re really going to stuff up and when you do you will be so down on yourself that giving up will seem your best option. But I have prayed for you.’ Prayer – for him or for others – kept Jesus focused. The news gets better! Paul assures us that: ‘Who is it to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.’ Jesus still prays for us!

‘Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.’ At the point of abandonment and apparent defeat, Jesus had every reason to retreat inwards and begin the pity party. Instead, at the height of his pain and desolation he turned outward rather than in. As the cross of Christ is open and reaching out to all people, everywhere; so the crucified Christ reminds us that in the midst of our pain and loss, there is yet hope.

‘Never ever give up!’

Cheers - John

A couple of gum trees

Veronica and I spent a good part of Monday enjoying some time out on a River Cat trip to Sydney and then we had a wander around the Rocks, Opera House and Botanical Gardens. The day happened to be our wedding anniversary and seeing as how we honeymooned in Sydney we kind of retraced a few of our steps. Now, it has to be admitted then when we married the Opera House had not yet been opened; but it was well into construction! We could see what its finished shape would be.

NorthWest Uniting Church’s official photographer took a picture that had three iconic symbols of Sydney framed. In the forgeround two red gum trees, then the OPera House and a backdrop of the Harbour Bridge.

The two Eucalypts are said to be the oldest trees remaining in the Sydney CBD, possible dating back before white settlement. At the very least they were there when sailing ships and row boats were the only vessels seen on the harbour.

The big coat hanger in the background connected the city to its northern suburb just over 70 years ago and of course the Opera House is a relatively new arrival on the landscape.

If only those two trees could talk; what a story they could tell.

As I consider these three icons from three different periods in Sydney’s history I think about our journey here in the North West of Sydney and wonder what kind of story we could tell. As long as the traffic is kind to me I always enjoy seeing those great pylons as I approach the harbour bridge, and I enjoy the trip across the harbour, while at the same time preparing myself for the drama just moments way as I enter the city and try to park the car. The Opera House is now seen as one the world’s great buildings and we are privileged to have it sitting at the entrance to Sydney much as the Statue of Liberty dominates New Yorks harbour entrance.

Up until last Monday I had never taken any notice of those two gum trees; yet now they are of more significance to me than the two man-made attractions in the above picture. They make me consider again the words in Psalm 1:

'They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do they prosper.’ Psalm 1:3

To have stood where they have for so many years those two trees must have a life source not immediately visible to the human eye. They have been battered by many hundreds of storms and slowly seen many of their mates disappear in the name of ‘progress’. Despite the pollution of a modern city, to my untrained eye they still looked strong and appear to have many years left in them. As tall as they stand, to grow so high, they have had to sink their roots to depths that we cannot imagine. The key to their health is found in what you cannot see rather than what is presented to us.

It is my hope and desire that we can be a people that grow deep. So much of life today is about what we can see. The latest ‘reality’ show is something to do with looking 10 years younger. I have told the story before of the time when I went with a family to view their deceased father before the funeral service. The classic line for me was when a daughter said ‘Doesn’t he look well?’ Now, the Funeral Directors had done a top job, but one thing this dear man was not, was well! He was dead!!

Many years ago now I was inspired to go deeper in my new faith by these words: ‘I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe’ Ephesians 1:17-19.

I pray that we can be a people who go deep and can therefore leave an inheritance for many, many years to come.