Sermon preached on Sunday 12th April

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By Peter Evans

 

Readings

Acts 2.14a, 22–32

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd:
‘Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him:

‘“I saw the Lord always before me.
    Because he is at my right hand,
    I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    you will not let your holy one see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence.”

‘Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.​

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Gospel Reading

John 20.19-end

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, 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’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’
Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’

But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’

Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’

Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

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SERMON

Do you suffer from blank paper syndrome?

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It’s where you have blank piece of paper in front of you and you don’t know what to write or draw, and you spend ages looking at the paper, pen in hand, and doing nothing. Even though you have some sort of vague idea.

It’s particularly true in technical drawing because often we just don’t know where to start at all. A huge A0 piece of paper, and a lingering pencil.

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But sometimes we just have to start. Otherwise the time just disappears along the line of increasing entropy.

This is why we have races, with starting guns. It would be like something out of Monty Python if we had a 100m race, with a bunch of people at the start line, and the starter says “when you’re ready”, and “in your own time” and “in any direction”. Some people would just stand there, shooting the breeze.

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So races are controlled. With an objective and a set direction. Horse races use gates that spring open, F1 has traffic lights, athletics uses a starting pistol. I’m sure some races use a klaxon or hooter as well. Some races even use a flag to start.

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It’s what sets us going.

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And in life, all sorts of things start us on journeys, or events, or new phases of life.

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A count down for a rocket launch. Wedding vows at the start of married life. Being invested as a scout or a guide. Being ordained into the ministry. Cleared for take off. All these things start us off on a journey.

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But what does all this have to do with the readings. On first glance, they don’t even seem connected. One is the story of doubting Thomas, and the other is Peter getting heavy with a bit of theology for his Jewish audience.

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But we had them read with the gospel first and Acts second, because they are connected, and that’s the order in which things happen.

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So the gospel story is a story about doubting Thomas, and it finishes with a testimony to Jesus. But it also contains a couple of very, very important lines.

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In verses 21 and 22, Jesus says ‘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.’

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Although the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost does not happen for a few weeks, here we have the risen Son of God breathing on the disciples and speaking the Holy Spirit into them. Something to equip them for the six week wait to Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit will be fully poured out. This breathing is the giving of spiritual life.

And it has happened once before, in Genesis 2:7, the second account of creation.

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“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

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There’s a few things to unpick from this verse. Firstly the Hebrew word for man is Adam. And it’s also a play on words, as the Hebrew word for ground is Adamah. Literally, our creator God took Adam from out of the ground.

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But it’s what happens next that is really important. God breathes on Adam or the man, or the bit of ground and brings him to life. Breath of life are the words that are used. And in that context, “breath” can also mean “spirit”. God breathed the spirit of life into Adam.

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And that is what we have happening in John chapter 20. The risen Son of God is breathing spiritual life into the disciples when He speaks the Holy Spirit into them.

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We know with hindsight that this verse is the preparation for Pentecost, which will happen in six weeks’ time, when, as we now know, the Holy Spirit will be poured out. Jesus’ act of breathing on the disciples will keep them reassured as they wait for God’s plan to unfold, as at this stage they don’t know what it will involve or how long that will be.

But unfold it does. Chapter 2 of Acts is all about Pentecost, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit onto those waiting disciples. And this being the Church of England, we’ll be looking at that in six weeks’ time when the church’s calendar gets there.

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But I mention this now because the reading above from Acts 2 only makes sense in the context of Pentecost. In the context of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

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In this reading, Peter has just been filled with the Holy Spirit. And the events of the morning have made a huge impact on the crowds gathering for the Feast of Weeks.

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And so Peter stands up to explain to the crowds. First of all, he quotes from the prophet Joel about the pouring out of God’s Spirit – again, come back in six weeks’ time for more on that one.

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And then in the reading we have just heard, Peter gives his theological justification. We’re not going to go into that in detail – it’s quite tortuous and very much aimed at a Jewish audience. And actually – we get it. We are only here today because we understand that Jesus is the Messiah.

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But this explanation by Peter is something exceptional. It is the first Holy Spirit powered sermon ever given. Now, I need to qualify that. Jesus spoke a lot and Jesus was spirit filled. And, in the Old Testament, people were led and guided by God’s spirit to do and say certain things, the prophets, for example. But this is the first sermon where that barrier between God and humankind has been broken down, where sin can be truly forgiven, instead of only atoned for by sacrifice.

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Peter is powered by the Holy Spirit. And it says later in chapter 2 that Peter spoke for a long time and used lots of arguments. And yet, but the end of the day, 3000 people had become Christians. Peter’s arguments might be heavy going to us, but they did the job.

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We talked earlier about how things get started - races, projects, marriages etc.

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Well, Peter’s sermon is the sermon that started the church. This is day one. Where it all started. This is where God has fired the starting gun. The disciples have been through their blank piece of paper period when they didn’t know what to do, and now the Holy Spirit has come and the church has been born.

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But where does that leave us today?

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Let me try and answer in a roundabout way. One of my favourite albums is from what can be politely described as the olden days. Well, 1974 at least. It’s Pink Floyd’s Dark side of the Moon and the third track is called Time. Some of you I’m sure will be familiar.

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Here are just a couple of lines from the song.

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“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.”

And later on.

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”

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These words still speak into our society today. Maybe many of us have wondered how the years have gone by so quickly. And at times been acutely aware of the time we have wasted. For me it was far too long spent on computer games, and that was in the early 1980s! It might be the same for some today, or getting absorbed into doom scrolling, or a thousand and one other metaverse enticements that steal time away.

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But Peter and the other disciples did not miss the starting gun. They were up and ready and running when the Holy Spirit came.

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And this got me thinking – how do we respond? Have we got past our blank piece of paper moment, if we ever had one, and worked out what it is that God would like us to do?

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Now, one of the great things about this church is that everybody is involved in some way. And if not perhaps right now, then we almost certainly will have been in the past. It’s why there is such a good feeling of community here. We all serve in some way.

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But the early church was built by people driven with a real sense of purpose. The Holy Spirit had come and filled them with that sense of direction, of the overwhelming need to tell people about Jesus. They had that sense of calling.

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Now, I know from own experience that it’s possible to serve without being called. In fact, if my time is anything to go by, then that’s the usual way. The things that I’ve done over the years, I’ve done mainly because I’ve seen a need, think I can make a go of it, and stepped in, or let my arm be twisted. It’s what we all do. And nothing wrong in that at all.

But the early church were working with a real sense of purpose. Their starting gun had been fired, they were excited, spirit filled and on a mission. The Misio Dei, the mission of God.

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And that’s as we need to be.

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Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, said that He came not to be served, but to serve. And in His life he sets us an example to follow. Not only did Jesus serve with humility, for example, when He washed the disciples’ feet, He also served with a sense of purpose and mission that is hard even for us to get our heads around. Serving which led Him to die on a cross and then be raised from the dead. Serving which caused Him to breathe the life of the Holy Spirit into the disciples in the upper room.

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And so sometimes for us, God will also call us to serve – He will lay a calling on our hearts. To serve in a particular way, with a sense of purpose.

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This is how the disciples were at Pentecost. Literally fired up to take the Good News out into the world. That message of forgiveness and love.

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No matter who we are, how old or young, or whatever our circumstances in life, God can and does call us. So let’s be sure that we are ready. 

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My prayer is this – that we seek out God’s calling – that are hearts are open to His will for our lives.

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To become a church that is filled with the Spirit and engaged with God’s mission. A church that has heard the starting gun and is excited about where that will take us.

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Amen