In the Name of the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Very, very occasionally I will head off somewhere on a train, and as I look around the platform, it doesn’t take too long to see that there is a difference between how adults and children wait for its arrival.
As you stand watching you will see a variety of people, some heading to or from work, going shopping, or heading to another destination, and more often than not they look bored! They may be reading an actual newspapers, or most often these days using some sort of device to keep themselves occupied. No-one seems to be talking to anyone else, or if they are, it’s rare and most likely only because they are travelling with family, friends, or perhaps someone they work with, but invariably they will already know the person, it’s the concept of waiting at its worst.
By contrast, I had the opportunity to see a video posted to YouTube of a little girl called Madeline. It’s such a sweet video, and I wish I could show it you this morning, as it would probably mean I could slice my sermon in half as Madeline’s face and reactions would say everything that needs to be said today on this feast of Pentecost.
Instead I will try to describe it to you, in this short video, Madeline, for her third birthday, asked her parents if she could ride on the train and the video shows her waiting at the platform as the train arrives. But Madeline is not like those bored adults. She is waiting for the train in the very best spirit of waiting.
Her eyes are virtually popping out of her head. She’s jigging up and down with excitement, ‘Here it comes’ she says ‘here it comes’... ‘Look how close it is to us’ she says ‘Oh my goodness’. Her mouth wide open when the train finally rolls into the station.
She is full of awe and wonder, and her enthusiasm not only makes you smile, but draws you effortlessly into the array of emotions she is feeling. It’s absolutely adorable, and its no wonder its racked up over 12 million hits!
These first moments, experiences in anyone’s life are precious, and they become etched into our memories as significant events in our life, but as we grow older we sometimes forget how amazing these things were, and it can sometimes be the same in our faith.
We all remember celebrating the resurrection, but we sometimes forget the preciousness of the following 40 days where Jesus spent time with his disciples, teaching, training, appearing to them.
There’s a wonderful passage at the end of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in which he recounts how Jesus appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. Paul continues,
“Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain.” 1 cor 15:6-9
Paul knew that he wasn’t worthy of the gift Christ had given to him, the gift of transformation and restoration, and because he received and accepted this, he, in his own way mirrored the awe of Madeline, and became all the more resolved to be the best he could and to share the good news as far as possible.
At the end of the forty days, Jesus ascended to the Throne of Heaven taking our humanity with him into the very heart of who God was and who God continues to be to this very day.
But we also remember that when he left, he told his disciples... to wait.
I don’t know how those apostles waited. We don’t know whether they even understood what they were waiting for. But on the Day of Pentecost, St Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles, that:
‘suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.’
Why? Well tongues have a purpose, they can be used for good or harm as we are all very much aware, but on this day, it was most definitely for good. They received the Holy Spirit and were then were blown forth into the world, beginning in Jerusalem, which was busy for the Pentecost Festival, originally a Jewish festival to celebrate the harvest, and these tongues, this gift, this boldness, this power in the disciples, was given to them with a specific purpose.
It was given so that by the end of that day a total of 3,000 people from all over the known world at that time had heard the gospel, the good news in their own language, and as a result, gave their lives to Christ and this young Christian faith.
These new converts heralded the establishment of the Church worldwide on that day in Jerusalem, the time of waiting was now over.
We don’t know whether they had really understood what they had been waiting for. Luke tells us of how they returned to Jerusalem worshipping him with great Joy, and they stayed there in the temple praising God and waiting for the gift they would receive at Pentecost. But what Luke doesn’t tell us is how they waited.
It is likely that their waiting was filled with trepidation, how long do we wait, what will happen next, given the rollercoaster they had been on since Maundy Thursday, there would no doubt be a range of emotions.
However, if they had understood what was about to happen, I think they would have been waiting in eager anticipation, just like Madeline and with wonder and expectation, the opposite of how many adults tend to wait.
As we gather today, I wonder how you felt this morning, was it filled with duty, or was it with expectation of how we would be challenged to live our lives fully? You see coming to church and sitting on a pew is not the equivalent of sitting around in a holy waiting room, waiting for our number to be called, while reading the service book, listening to the music, and waiting for us to be taken to the Kingdom away from this world so that the excitement can begin.
We are not here waiting to die, because we are charged with living the resurrection life as an Easter people. Those who follow a Messiah who died and then rose to life in this world and in that very act, we need to realise that it’s not all about what happens in heaven, the action is down here on Earth.
The adventure that God calls us to, continues right here, right now, as we come into Church to be filled up and re-fuelled.
This in turn enables us to live the resurrection life right here, right now. In the midst of this old, wounded and broken world...
…we are re-fuelled and ready to go, so that when we leave here we can go back into the world each week and take his Kingdom with us!
So today ask yourself, are you waiting like Madeline or those other adults?
Has our waiting become passive, bored and disconnected, or are we there eager and ready to take up the challenges ahead of us, eager like Paul and all the apostles to go out and share the love and grace that we have each received, to share Christ with Littleborough?
The Hebrew word for ‘waiting’ gives us our clue as to how we should wait for God’s action in our life. The Hebrew word is Chavva which means ‘to bind together, to expect, gather and wait’.
But as Christ sent them to wait, there was a sense in which he was wanting them, and us, to be active in this anticipation.
As we wait, we weave or bind the threads of our lives, into God’s thread, our individual and collective stories into the story of what God is doing.
When we pray our prayers with expectation of answer, and an ‘abiding’ in God, we weave our very selves into the Spirit who is around us, and, by God’s grace, in us.
All of this calls us to Chavva – to watch and wait expectantly and as we do we come to worship and pray.
We need to be expectant, and ask for God to be involved in our lives. Whether that is asking for help for ourselves, others, or perhaps those who we have never, or will never meet.
To remind us that we are family, and we all have our own unique skills and gifts which we can use in our own lives as well as others, and that we need to continually be asking for Him to guide and forgive us.
Finally, we need to always remember that at the heart of all of our prayer is that great and dangerous prayer of trust – Your Will be done.
As we wait in expectation, we continue to bind the threads of our lives, into the great tapestry with all who believe in the amazing grace and love of God.
This could be through our prayer, devotion or sustenance through the sacraments, but these must also be accompanied by our actions as we go out into a world which needs to know God for itself.
All of this is part the great gift of Pentecost, that as the Holy Spirit descended upon the church with power from on high, the offering of this gift wasn’t intended just for those who immediately received, but that it must be passed from person to person until the whole world has heard the good news.
The day of Pentecost reminds us that the story of Christ with us in the flesh has ended, but, as with all endings there is a new beginning because:
If Bethlehem meant ......God With Us.
Calvary meant .......God For Us.
and then Pentecost .... means God In Us, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
As we leave this hallowed place, it is up to each of us how we will use the gifts that we have received, will we continue to weave our story into his story, our threads into his cords of love, not bored, and not distracting ourselves with other things - the equivalent of sticking the headphones in our ears at the train station.
I believe he want us to be like Madeline with that pure wonder and awe. Always eager to see the things of God, excited and wide eyed in prayer, and action, full of expectation as we wait and open ourselves to the wonders that are around us each and every day.
Amen.
