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Day of Pentecost - Whitsunday
                              May 23, 2010  The Rev. Bill Van Oss                               
              Readings                  

About a week ago, I received a couple of troubling emails. The first came under the subject: “ Jesus Christ Re-arrives!!” The message read: “The purpose of this message is to explain Jesus Christ of God Yahweh and The Holy Spirit are now here on Earth. Mankind was given two-thousand years to prepare for this moment and now it’s your turn to explain what you and your people prepared. Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit have done Their Part; Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit are here. If your church did not prepare for Us despite having more than Two-thousand years to prepare, contact your superiors to see if they prepared for Us.” The second email from “Jesus Christ [jesus@3jesus.com]” with the subject: “Emergency Message from The Lord” said “Greetings from the Lamb: I have been tasked with assembling an emergency elect on behalf of God Yahweh for the Government of Abraham. The elect must be twenty-four able-bodied adults for the 2010 term. I require the names, emails, and telephone numbers of these twenty-four church leaders emailed to jesus@3jesus.com immediately. Failure to follow this instruction shall have spiritual consequences. Buenas Suerte, Jesus Christ P.S. Also, I am upset with you about this last Millennium Birthday at the year two-thousand. Were you not aware I’d come back to you?”

“Jesus Christ re-arrives.” “Were you not aware I’d come back to you?” Well, the theological issues in these emails are too numerous to mention, but there is one issue that applies directly to the Feast we celebrate today, Pentecost. That’s the issue of feeling abandoned, orphaned, if you will. The reading from Acts described the Jewish festival of Pentecost. The Jewish festival took place 50 days after Passover, and it was one of three obligatory pilgrimage festivals for devout Jews. This meant that Jews from the east, west, north and south traveled to Jerusalem and set up camps all over town. Barbara Brown Taylor says: “Walking through Jerusalem would be like taking a trip around the world with Arabic singing over here, and Libyan laughter over there, and, wafting over it all, the smell of Egyptian food cooking over an open fire.” “There’s only one group missing,” says Taylor, “A small band of orphaned disciples who are not walking the streets at all, but huddled together behind locked doors for fear of their enemies. For all practical purposes, they and their movement are dead – leaderless, powerless, visionless – the sole survivors of a catastrophe that has robbed them of their future. The world has become a frightening place for them and they have barricaded themselves against it, believing that their own safety lay in sticking together, locking their doors, and keeping everyone else out.”
Things had not gone as the disciples had hoped. The Messiah had not come to form a powerful army to crush their oppressors. The Messiah had come and given His life to save them. But he had Risen from the dead. And he had appeared to them for 40 days before ascending up to heaven, and now they were alone and afraid and huddled together as the whole world was gathering outside their doors. And then, God sent the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, as wind and flame to fill them with courage and strength. They were not abandoned. They were not orphaned. God had simply taken a different form, instead of bodily form like they knew in Jesus, God was now a Spiritual form, and instead of being a person who stood outside them, God would now fill them, fill their minds and hearts so they could go out and tell the whole world “about God’s deeds of power;” of the life-saving, life changing love and mercy of God.

Jesus commissioned them by breathing on them. He reminded them that just as God’s breath filled Adam and Eve in the beginning at creation, so God’s breath filled them now, and they went out to bring the Spirit into the world.

The emails that I received, under the titles of “Jesus Christ re-arrived” and “were you not aware that I’d come back to you?” are misguided. Misguided because Jesus never left, He stayed with the first disciples and He stays with us in the form of the Holy Spirit, who lives within us. Who comes to us at baptism, when we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever. The Spirit also lives within us in God’s word as we make the stories of Sacred Scripture our stories, and the Spirit comes to us in sacrament, in bread and wine made the body and blood of Christ, in the laying of hands, in blessing and anointing, in private prayer. We are filled with Holy Spirit and we are called, like those first disciples, to take it out, to carry the Spirit with us from this place and tell everyone we meet about the life-changing love and mercy of God. God’s not going to re-arrive, God’s already here, God’s in you and me.

Let us pray, Almighty God, at the feast of Pentecost you sent your Holy Spirit to the disciples, filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel; send us out in the power of the same Spirit to witness to your redeeming love and draw all people to you: through Jesus Christ out Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.