Promise of the Father

Acts 2.1-21

2When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

¹⁴But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o”clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ¹⁷‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. ¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. ¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. ²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. ²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Sermon

Promise of the Father

On Ascension Day we read from Acts chapter 1 how the Risen Lord told the disciples “wait for the promise of the Father…you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence”. Now on this Feast of Pentecost we read in Acts 2 how the promise was fulfilled and “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”.

The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that all Christians need their own pentecostal experience if they are to be incorporated into Christ and the Church, as effective witnesses, in spirit filled lives, words, and deeds. Baptism in water plus Baptism in the Holy Spirit; presented to the priest at the font and to the bishop at confirmation.

Christian testimony and Christian history proves how time and time again the potential given in the sacraments needs to be realized in later personal experience. Let me illustrate this from the stories of those who are about to thank God for in the Anglican calendar over the next three days.

Tomorrow, 24^th May

In 1738 something happened to two Anglican priest brothers, John and Charles Wesley-to John on 24^th May and to Charles soon afterwards. What was formerly their faith and ministry suddenly became intimate and alive by the power of the Holy Spirit. They found a new zeal for the gospel and a new boldness in proclaiming it. The words on their lips and the song in their souls began to reach an every increasing circle of converts not previously reached by the church. The Methodist Evangelical Revival was underway.

As boys they had been rescued when their home at the rectory at Epworth in Lincolnshire caught fire one night so that in adult life John spoke of himself and his brothers as “brands plucked from the burning to send England alight with the fire of the gospel”.

Tuesday, 25^th May

We commemorate the Venerable Bede, monk of Jarrow. He lived out his Christian life there, never travelling further than York. As well as living the monastic life with devotion and fidelity he devoted himself to communicating the gospel through study and writing producing commentaries on the books of the bible and the most complete history of Christian England from its beginnings to his own day. He died peacefully in 735 the name of the Holy Spirit the last spoken by his lips. He said to a disciple helping him with a translation of John’s gospel “Take my head between thy hands and raise me”. He was placed on the floor of his cell and began to chant the Gloria. As he spoke the words “and to the Holy Ghost” he died.

Wednesday, 26^th May

Augustine was prior of a monastery in Rome before Pope Gregory the Great sent him to re-evangelise the English in 596 as leader of a group of 40 monks. They landed in Kent in the summer of 597 and founded his monastery at Canterbury where he was to die on this day in 604. It is the Venerable Bede who is the main source of our information. He tells us that hearing of the fierceness of the savages who lived in these islands in those days they nearly never got here. They asked Rome to recall them but Gregory told them that with the help of the Holy Spirit they would be able to fulfil the good work they were being sent to undertake”. So they arrived singing and “furnished with divine virtue, bearing a silver cross for a banner, they carried the image of their Lord and Saviour painted on a board”. So it was that the celtic church was bound into the catholic church and the Church of England, centred on the archbishops in York and London, with their suffragans, was founded pretty much as we still know it today.

On this Feast of Pentecost 2010 we thank God for past blessings in our land, like these and for the gift of the Holy Spirit, who made them possible. We pray for a new Pentecost for ourselves and for the Church amid the challenges of today and the future. May tongues of fire, combining burning love of God and neighbour, fill us all with gospel zeal. May we become recipients and the Father’s promise and be filled with his power from on high.