Sermon at All Saints’ Parish Church, Winterslow - 6th Sunday in Easter – Sunday 25 May 2025
Acts 16:9-15; Revelation 21:10, 22-27, 22:1-5;
John 14:23-29
May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit and may these words be those of you, Lord, and may they be a
blessing to all who listen and hear them.
None of our readings this
morning is all that easy to understand unless we acknowledge and accept the
concept of a spirituality beyond what we would normally see or experience. It requires a perfect belief in the fundamentals
of Christianity – the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Creator of all things
and our Saviour and the acknowledgement of the Holy Spirit now with us.
On Sunday 8th June we
shall celebrate Pentecost when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit down
to the disciples and we will be given the opportunity to renew that Spirit
within us. In today’s gospel reading from John, Jesus is foretelling that
moment and reminding his disciples that he will remain with them in person for
only a short limited period and that they should remember what he has told them
and what they have seen and witnessed during his ministry. These words are ones
which equally apply to us today –
“Those who love me will keep my
word, and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make out home
with them. Whoever does not love me does
not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the
Father who sent me”
This is one of the clearest
passages in the whole of the Bible indicating that Jesus and the Father are
one. Jesus then goes on to say “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who the
Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all
that I have said to you.”
We have this reading this week
to prepare us for Pentecost and remind us of the importance of receiving the
Holy Spirit – to act as our advocate – a term which as a lawyer I am most
familiar with, meaning somebody to act and intercede on our behalf with a
higher authority – and to remind us of all Jesus’s teachings.
Our gospel reading goes on to
relate Jesus’s final message of Peace.
Jesus knows that the disciples will be upset at His leaving them on the
Day of Ascension but asks them not to be troubled, not to be afraid. Whilst he may be leaving them from their
sight, the Holy Spirit will be sent to them.
The disciples would have been
acquainted with the Spirit of God being made available to certain individuals
in the Old Testament for certain specific tasks – e.g. Moses to lead the
Hebrews out of Egypt, Elijah and Daniel as special prophets at times of difficulty
and exile for the Hebrew people. Now the
Holy Spirit was going to be made available for all who believed and accepted
Jesus in order to carry out the good work and ministry and proclaim the Good
News to all the world. As we approach
Pentecost in a couple of weeks’ time, let us reflect upon Jesus’s words in this
passage – “I do not give to you as the world gives, my peace I give to you”.
We can be comforted, at times of
great difficulty and upheaval, such as we seem to be seeing in our world today,
that Jesus remains with us through the power of the Holy Spirit and that
despite all the things which might seem to conspire against us, we can be
assured of the Peace which, as described by Paul, passes all understanding.
Our first reading this morning
describes a vision which came to Paul after the Holy Spirit had come to the
disciples and apostles. In this vision we are told he saw a man telling him to
go to Macedonia. Convinced that he was being called to preach the Good News to
the people of that territory he did this, arriving at Philippi, a leading city
of the province and, we are told, a Roman Colony.
Paul and his followers were not
entirely sure what they were to do so went to a place renowned for being a
place of prayer and spoke to a number of women gathered there including Lydia,
a worshipper and dealer in cloth.
We read that the Holy Spirit
opened the heart of Lydia and that she eagerly listened to what Paul had to say
resulting in her and her household being baptised.
Our Second Reading, from
Revelation contains another vision – this time of a new city of Jerusalem
coming down from heaven. There is a beautiful description of the city and of
the river of the water of life flowing from it producing on either side of it the
Tree of Life.
I am reminded of that beautiful
window in one of our Clarendon Churches – West Grimstead – and if you haven’t
seen that window depicting the Tree of Life you must do so – a real treat. The
vision of Jerusalem in Revelation is a vision of Utopia. Everything is
beautiful and wholesome. The city provides its own light, not requiring the
reflective light of Sun or Moon. It’s a vision of a New Heaven and a New Earth
– something which we can all aspire to.
For me, the message form all of
these readings today is that we need to acknowledge and accept that all things
come from God and that we can only achieve what he wants us to achieve through
a belief in his word and Holy Spirit.
For many this is a difficult
concept but for those who truly believe, they look upon the world differently
to the non-believer. We cannot always
know precisely what God is asking us to do or who might be influenced by our
own ministry, just as Paul didn’t know that he was being called to Macedonia to
convert Lydia, but it does remind us that God does have a purpose for all of us
and, as for the prophets of the Old Testament, we have the Holy Spirit to
assist and guide us.
In preparing recent sermons, I
have been struck by the number of times in scripture the proclamation of the
Good News of Jesus Christ our Saviour has been given to people who seem less
appropriate – shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors and so on. For me this is so heartening – it suggests
that so long as we accept Christ and the Holy Spirit we are always going to be
well equipped for mission.
In coming weeks, as we reflect
upon the Ascension and Pentecost, let us think about how we can, individually
lead other people to Jesus and can ensure, through the Holy Spirit, that we
recall and keep Christ’s words.
Let us pray the prayer of St.
Theresa of Avila:
Christ has no body but
yours,
No hands,
no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are
the eyes with which he looks
Compassion
on this world,
Yours are
the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are
the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are
the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are
the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has
no body now but yours,
No hands,
no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are
the eyes with which he looks
compassion
on this world.
Christ has
no body now on earth but yours.
Amen
MFB/217/21052025
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