Can any of you remember being born? No, I don't think any of us can. But can you remember your last birthday celebration – that might be a bit easier.
Today, we give thanks and celebrate the birthday of the church. Not this church of St Ursula's but the very beginning of there being any church at all. We can't remember it ourselves because we weren't there, but we can read about it in the Bible and we can celebrate it, which is what we do every Pentecost.
The church was born because of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Before the Spirit came, there were some disciples and followers of Jesus, but after the Spirit comes this group becomes a new community, and grows bigger and bigger and eventually becomes the church all across the world as it is today, made up of people from lots of different countries.
At many different points in the Bible, we hear that the Spirit brings new life and growth. Right at the beginning of creation the Spirit moves over the waters and creates life. The Spirit comes upon Mary after the angel announces that she will bear a son who will be called Jesus. The Spirit leads to his birth; a new beginning for the world. And today we celebrate the Spirit coming upon the first disciples and the beginnings, the birth, of the church.
So let's imagine it. The friends of Jesus are all together in one place. How many people do you think were there? Perhaps you might think it's just the 12 disciples. But earlier Luke has mentioned a much bigger group of people worshipping God, and that there were around 120 of them (Luke 1: 12-15). Show card with group. This group included Jesus' mother, Mary, and other women who had supported Jesus. It's on this group, men and women, that God pours out his Spirit. This is what God had promised through the prophet Joel. "I will pour out my Spirit on old and young, men and women alike."
What is the Holy Spirit? Or rather who is the Spirit? The Spirit is God himself, God's presence with them, within them and among them. Jesus had promised his friends that God would send this gift, and that they should wait for it, and Pentecost is the day the Spirit comes.
We're told the Spirit is like a rushing wind and like fire. I couldn't find a suitable picture for wind, but here is a flame for fire. (card with group and flame). Notice it doesn't say the Spirit is wind or fire, but like it. Luke is trying to describe something which is very hard to put into words. Something dramatic, full of life and energy, warmth and power. And it comes on them all when they are together as a group. Yet it also comes upon each individual; we're told a tongue of flame rests on each one of them. Each one of them receives the Spirit (men and women alike) but this Spirit also draws them together. That's something important for us to remember: God gives his Spirit to everyone who trust in Jesus, each one of us, but the Spirit is also at work in the whole group of us together.
We are told that those first followers of Jesus are all 'filled' with the Spirit. So, we have heard about wind and fire, but thinking about being filled with the Spirit might make us think of water, another picture of the Spirit in the Bible. The Spirit fills us like living water. This is the first time the Holy Spirit fills the followers of Jesus, but it is not the last. We are told in the Bible that we need to be filled with the Spirit not just once but again and again; to go on being filled with the Spirit. One famous preacher once said: 'Why do I need to be filled again and again with the Spirit? Because I leak!' He compared himself to a leaky bucket, as other writers have also done. (card of leaky bucket). We need to be filled with the Spirit again and again, because we are damaged and imperfect and we leak.
What do these first followers of Jesus do with this Spirit? Or rather, what does the Spirit do with them? The Spirit gives them joy and courage and sends them out (card of Spirit sending out). After Jesus rose from the dead, they had been scared and kept inside behind locked doors. Now they are full of confidence. They don't huddle behind locked doors, they move out of the house into the street and tell the good news about Jesus to others, in many different languages, that all the people can understand.
Now there were a very large number of people in Jerusalem that day (card of many people), because they had come for the Jewish Festival of Weeks, a time to give thanks for the harvest. Jewish believers had come to Jerusalem from many, many different places, and we heard a long list of all those places in our first reading. At this time, these were all Jews living in different countries, but this points ahead to when people from many different nations (Jews and non-Jews) will believe in Jesus. Indeed, this is what the church, born at Pentecost, is to grow into: a community 'from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages' as it says in the book of Revelation.
So, the Spirit fills the disciples with life and energy and sends them out to tell others the good news about Jesus.
What happens then? Peter, in fact, gives a long sermon. We heard a little bit of that sermon in our reading, when Peter tells the people that the Spirit being poured out is a fulfilment of what the prophet Joel said: 'In those days I will pour out my Spirit on all people ... old and young ... men and women.' Peter then goes on later in his sermon to talk about Jesus and his death and resurrection. He is the Lord and Messiah. The main point of Peter's sermon is to tell the people they should believe in Jesus and receive the Spirit, and this is all the work of God the Father.
It's important to remember that we can't talk about the Spirit without talking about Jesus, (the Son) and the Father. (card of Father, Son, Spirit diagram). Can you see these arrows in different directions? The Spirit points us to Jesus, and Jesus promises the Spirit. The Father sends his Son, Jesus, into the world and Jesus shows us what the Father is like. The Spirit is sent by the Father, and the Spirit leads us into a deeper relationship with the Father and helps us pray, Abba Father.
In our gospel reading, we heard Jesus talk about the Father and the Spirit; he tells his disciples that when they have seen him they have seen the Father, and that he will send them another Helper, the 'Spirit of truth'. He promises that the Spirit will be with them and in them. The Spirit will teach us and guide us, that we might know Jesus and God the Father more deeply. The Spirit doesn't just teach us about Jesus and about God, the Father; the Spirit helps us to meet Jesus and the Father, and be drawn into their love. And we'll hear more about that next Sunday, on Trinity Sunday.
So, today we celebrate the birthday of the church and we rejoice that we a part of the church, a people from many different nationalities, drawn by the Spirit to worship God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I'd like the children to come out and help me. Stand in semi-circle holding up flags of different countries. The church is made up of people from every tribe, language, people and nation. That's what the church is and it all begins at Pentecost. We see a glimpse of that in our fellowship here at St Ursula's, as we are people from many different countries, cultures and languages. At the centre of the church is the Spirit who is within us and among us (child holds up card with group and flame). The Spirit is given to each one of us (holds up the card with one man and woman with flame), and works in us in our life together.
The Spirit leads us to a deeper relationship with God the Father and with Jesus (child shows Father, Jesus, Spirit card), and sends us out to tell others the good news of Jesus through what we say and what we do (child shows Spirit sending card). And you can see there is room for more to join us.
So let us pray for the Spirit to be at work in our fellowship here at St Ursula's. We pray that we will be filled with the Spirit, not just once, but again and again and again day by day, as we leak! (child shows leaky bucket).
Let us pray: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people, and kindle within us the fire of your love. Amen
Revd Helen Marshall
'To those in the church today who regard the Spirit as an exotic phenomenon of mainly interior and purely personal significance, the story of the Spirit's descent at Pentecost offers a rebuke. Luke goes to great pains to insist that this outpouring of the Spirit is anything but interior. Everything is by wind and fire, loud talk, buzzing conversation and public debate. The Spirit is the power which enables the church to "go public" with its good news, attract a crowd, and...have something to say worth hearing.' (Will Willimon).