The Holy Spirit

At Whitsuntide in the North of England many churches still organise processions through their towns to celebrate Pentecost which is said to be when the Holy Spirit first affected men and women. Going back over fifty years when I first took part the numbers of churches and the numbers of participants was great. The annual procession had a route of about two and a half miles. Many people who lived along the route would bring out chairs to sit on as the procession slowly wound past.

Today, where the processions still take place there are fewer churches taking part because many have closed and their buildings have either gone or been put to a new use. The numbers attending church have also dropped off andf so today's processions, rather than promote Pentecost, show how poorlly attended and supported today's churches are.

The occasion that was the cause of the celebrations still remains an important date in the Christian Calendar. It was a time when the apostles had recovered from the death of Jesus through his resurrection and had said their farewells at his acension. Now was the time to take an important and dramatic step forward in the name of their friend. Now was the time that they had to begin their own ministry to follow that of Jesus. It was marked by a remarkable event, the coming of the Holy Spirit.

As the apostles were speaking to the people who included many from far off parts the crowd realised they were hearing the message in their own language. Additionally they saw tongues of flame resting on the apostles as a visual sign. Even today we cannot explain these truly remakable events. Yet it all marked the moment when the early church took on a very special power that has remained ever since.

Churches today look back to this time as the point when the Holy Spirit first occurred. Yet this is not the case if you are to read other earlier stories. When Jesus promised the Holy Spirit this is what he said: ""Nevertheless I assure you that it is in your interest that I am leaving you. If I do not go, the advocate will not come, whereas if I go, I will send him to you.....................when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak only what he hears; and he will make known to you what is to come."

I personally believe that there was always such a thing as the Holy Spirit and that at Pentecost it came in abundance to mark the day and send the church on its way. The idea of speaking in tongues is older than Pentecost. You can find an Old Testament story of King Saul experiencing ecstatic utterance. Go back to Genesis Chapter one and read in verse 2: "the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water."

So the Holy Spirit has always been with us. At Pentecost it manifested itself in a very dramatic fashion to convince all present that it was the new force to reckon with. Since that day the Holy Spirit has strengthened Christians worlwide and made them able to do remarkable things that would not have happened out of their own strength. From time to time people have witnessed the Holy Spirit at work and can testify to its presence and strength. The Holy Spirit is literally the power of the church. This is why some authorities hate Christianity and try to suppress or eradicate it. They know that there is something so remarkable about Christianity that makes it capable of resisting them and undermining their efforts to retain great power.

Ultimately, the church that follows the Holy Spirit is invincible. But although this is true we see so many fail in their mission. I think it is probably because they copied Peter, who, when he looked down and saw the water he was walking on suddenly lost faith and began to sink. Yet the power is here for us if we wish to win for God. The days are coming when the United Kingdom will see a new "church" that depends not upon buildings but on the Holy Spirit. Our old ways of clinging to buildings for security will be discredited as the Spirit reminds us we are here to win men and women for Christ, not spend money on already crumbling buildings.

Pentecost Thoughts

At Amlwch Methodist Church today we had Rod Simpson as our preacher. Rod was talking about the need for the church and everything that was done for God to be revitalised by the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament lesson was Ezekiel 37, the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. It struck me that everything that was said in today's service made me think of one subject - resurrection.

The vision of the dry bones suddenly coming to life had very obvious resurrection thoughts in and behind it. It was as if we were being challenged to dream that even very dry bones could still experience resurrection. Of course the story is about the rebirth of Israel. Often in the Old Testament there is this longing of the Jews to return to the way things were in their heyday. Yet I felt, as I heard the time honoured words, that this was something we keep on hearing in our present experience.

So often we hear people wishing we could go back to what they thought were days of great value. It is a very current thought among some Muslim communities. Some countries have returned to the old values as they see them and it has not worked out as expected. You cannot turn the clock back and expect people to live as if their recent experience has never happened. It is an indelible mark they continue to wear and so there is no going back to a "golden age".

The Jews dreamed of a Messiah coming to save them and return to the golden age when David was king. This could never have happened. Is it any wonder they had problems in seeing Jesus as the promised Messiah? All of us think back to good old days and dream that if they came back to us we would be in clover. Not a chance. We have to be a resurrection community which looks forward to the possibilities if we could be born again.

What new things would we do if we were given a second chance? What could we put right if given a second chance? To go back to how thing were would be to put on a straight jacket and accept old values as best. But to leap into the future with a chance to improve what we had done wrong would be truly liberating. At the end of the second World War in the United Kingdom there was a new fresh wind blowing. New values came in with the "Welfare State" and all it meant. It is history now but at the time it was a resurrection of the nation so that a new world could be ushered in. That was the right way of thinking in those days and we should look for an emulation of this renaissance today.

To open our eyes and ears to what God might be calling for today is to be attentive to our calling as a resurrected community. So many simply want to fill our church pews and seats again. But what matters is not filling churches but the salvation of humankind. We need to be attentive to the needs of those to whom we would take the gospel of Jesus. There is a need to apply our thinking to the needs of others in order to bring about a revolution in Christianity. Revolution means turning around and this means to we Christians a march forward to the position in which people find themselves. Just as John Wesley, Isaac Watts and other field preachers went out to the people we must devise missions that amount to the same approach but with the 21st century in mind.

If you wish to win over the "Man in the street" go into the street because that is where he is. He will not come to church so the church must go to him. Go into any one of our historic village churches and city cathedrals and you will see nothing but history. Take the church to the people and you will see today. Where else would you expect the sheep Jesus told us about to be? The beautiful historic buildings with architectural charm are all well and good but they are irrelevant to the call to change from fishermen to shepherds. It is the church community that God is calling to feed sheep. Their buildings are just incidental to the work itself. When this penny drops we shall see a new revolution and revival in Christianity, but not before it occurs.