Pentecost A

Acts 21.1-21 / Psalm 104.26-36 / 1 Cor 12.1-13 / John 20.19-23

Archbishop Emeritus Phillip Aspinall

The setting of the incident in today’s gospel reading tells us quite a bit about what’s going on.

It was evening. So presumably it was either already dark or darkness was falling and it soon would be. The timing begins to set the scene. The ancient Jews counted a day, not as we do from midnight through until midnight. For the Jews one day ended and a new one began at sunset

It’s either just before or just after sunset. In either case we’re talking about the end of a day. The end of a period. The end of an era, if you like.

It’s evening, but it’s evening ‘on the first day of the week. So the timing of the story is carefully balanced between an ending and a beginning. We’re on a threshold here. An old era is ending and a new era is beginning. The timing evokes an air of expectation.

The disciples are meeting in a house, but they’ve locked the doors because they’re frightened.

Just a couple of days ago all their dreams and hopes had come crashing down. They had placed so much hope in Jesus. A week ago when he came into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, the crowds had roared and cheered, and the disciples were in high spirits. Perhaps they’d hoped that Jesus was now going to bring about the kingdom that he’d been speaking and teaching about. They had such high hopes.

But as the week unfolded, it didn’t turn out the way they’d expected. Bit by bit their hopes and dreams had been pulled apart. One of them betrayed Jesus. Another denied that he’d ever known him. None of them could stay awake to pray with him when he most needed them. They’d seen him mocked and tortured and spat on. And then cruelly killed as one of the scum of the earth. Though it’s doubtful that any of them were actually left at that point, though perhaps John was there with the women. They’d basically all deserted him and fled.

So here they are gathered together, behind locked doors, frightened and dispirited.

Then, how we’re not told, but they experience Jesus among them, alive and speaking to them.

He shows them his hands and his side. The marks of the wounds are still there. He was crucified and killed. That was all real.

But now, the crucified one is there among them and he says ‘Peace be with you.’

The text says ‘Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.’

And why wouldn’t they. When it had looked to them like violence and hatred and destruction and murder had crushed and taken away everything they’d hoped for, when it felt like they’d lost everything, now it begins to hit them that that’s not true. He was alive and among them and speaking to them. What they’d been convinced was the end turns out not to be. Of course they rejoiced. The tables had been turned upside down and their dead hopes were alive again.

Jesus speaks again: ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’

Now this is an absolutely fundamental moment in John’s gospel. It’s the moment that the Church is created. ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you.’

The disciples, huddled together in fear behind those locked doors, are being sent out into the world. It’s a risky business. It’s a dangerous business. They’re being sent just as the Father sent Jesus. They will be vulnerable like he was. They will probably attract enemies like he did. What happened to him could happen to them.

But Jesus sends them, as he was sent. They’re sent to do what he did, to teach what he taught, to live as he had lived, to forgive as he forgave.

In short, they are to be his presence in the world. And to underline that fact the text says Jesus ‘breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

When I read that I immediately think of the story in the gospel  of Mark (ch 2) where Jesus says to the paralysed man ‘Your sins are forgiven’ and immediately some of the scribes get on their high horses and say ‘who is this who believes he has authority to forgive sins. Only God alone has the authority to forgive sins. This is blasphemy.’ And Jesus responds by saying ‘so that you know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ and then he speaks to the paralysed man ‘I say to you stand up, take up your mat and go to your home.’ And he does. They were all amazed.

But that authority which Jesus had to forgive sins, he now gives to his disciples. As the Father sent me, so I send you… Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they are retained.’ And he breathes on them. He breathes the Holy Spirit into them. He fills them with the same motive force with which he himself was filled. The presence and power of God is within them.

This brings us to the heart of the celebration of Pentecost.

This is a new way of experiencing and knowing God. It’s different to the transcendent God of the Old Testament, whose glory and power are so great that no human being can look upon God and live, who said to Moses ‘”you cannot see my face; for noone shall see me and live.” … “See there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.’ (Ex 33.20-23). It’s not like that now.

This new way of experiencing and knowing God is different to the incarnate God of the New Testament whose face human beings are invited to gaze upon and in seeing him find life (John 3.15). St Paul said we can see ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor 4.6). It’s even different to that.

This new way of experiencing and knowing God is about (again in St Paul’s words) ‘seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, [all of us] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit’ (2 Cor 3.18).

This is to do with the presence and power of God, breathed into us and at work within us, transforming us into the image of Christ.

This process of transformation takes place through a kind of inner conversation, a conversation that takes place behind closed doors, in private, when we have locked ourselves away in fear.

The Spirit is present in that inner voice stirring up compassion and moving us to care. The Spirit is there in the urge we feel to name and face the truth. It’s the Spirit who compels us to bear the cost of sacrifices so that others might have life, and freedom and love. The Spirit is the power at work in those moments when we somehow find the courage to overcome fear and act with integrity. It’s the Spirit, behind closed doors, behind the various defences we set up to protect ourselves from whatever it is that we think might do us harm. The Spirit is as close to us as our very breath, gently leading, patiently teaching, graciously shaping us into the image of Christ, from one degree of glory to another.

This is powerful stuff. It’s the story of our birth, if you like. This passage tells us where we came from and who we are and what we are to do.

Those first apostles were sent by Jesus and given power and authority by him to continue his work in the world. In turn they sent others and empowered them. And right down through the centuries that’s happened time and time again, in every generation, and here we are taking our place in that line of people who are sent and empowered.

You and I, today, are the healing, forgiving, reconciling presence of Christ in the world. We are sent by him, just as he was sent by the Father. We are authorised by him to forgive, just as he had authority from the Father. And we are being transformed into his image by the Spirit.

It is an amazing thing. It can be a scary thing. Like the first ones who were sent, we can feel a bit vulnerable and exposed. But with them we also know that even when the world does its worst, as it did to Jesus, the life that was present in him cannot be stopped. It erupts again and again because it is nothing less than the power and life of the living God. It is alive it you and me and it is shaping us to be the presence of Christ with those whom we meet.

So with those first ones sent let us rejoice that Christ is risen, that he is alive in us by his Spirit, and that through us he is continuing his work of forgiveness in the world. And let us be a bit bold in claiming that authority and power in our lives so that those who meet us might also meet Christ and discover healing and freedom and power in their own lives.

Amen.