Good morning, St Mark’s, would you pray with me?
Gracious God, by the power of your Spirit, as we open your Word may we see the living Word, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.
I wonder if you were asked to rate yourself as a person, what would you take into account?
We might start off with some positives – kindness, helping people, doing our bit, that sort of thing
But we don’t like to go too far, do we?
Even when we’re good at something, we don’t want to come across as big-headed
On top of that, we may be aware of the darker parts of ourselves, perhaps some of what we confessed earlier
We may feel shame about something we’ve done, repeatedly overwhelmed by temptation or not strong enough to turn away from damaging choices.
We may also have the judgments of others – recent or current - ringing in our ears, telling us we’re not worthy, we’ve failed, we’re a let-down
Or perhaps we just want to belong, to be loved, to be valued and we don’t want to seem like we’re blowing our own trumpets because no one likes people like that, do they?
And many of us struggle to take a compliment, don’t we?
Oh, it was nothing, I had lots of help, it wasn’t such a big deal
Jesus receives the most extraordinary affirmation in our Gospel passage – having been baptized and while he’s praying afterwards, the Holy Spirit is seen descending on him and the voice of the Father declares:
‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
Of course, we hear this account from the other side of Easter – we’ve probably heard before that Jesus is the Son of God so it’s lost some of its impact
But imagine being there that day and hearing that – because since we have this account, that means people must have seen and heard
It would be mind-blowing wouldn’t it?
This must be someone special for God’s Spirit to come upon him like this and to have those words spoken over him from heaven.
It’s a unique event for a unique person
It couldn’t happen to someone like you or me, could it?
Could it?
Perhaps it could
Because just three years or so later, we come to our Acts passage and encounter new believers in Samaria
They’ve been baptized but the disciples in Jerusalem have identified that they’ve not yet received the Holy Spirit
What seemed like a unique event has… become an expectation for everyone?
And, although there’s no voice from heaven, we do know that since Acts chapter 2 –
Since Pentecost when Jesus’ closest friends first receive the Spirit –
Peter has been teaching people that after repentance and baptism, believers:
‘…will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.’
Peter, himself filled with the Spirit, has the very clear view that all believers are being called by God to himself
And the Spirit coming upon them is the seal, the sign that they have reached him.
They are his
And so, of course, those who’ve received the Spirit see the need to travel to Samaria – and for 1st century Jews, Samaritans were very far off, spiritually if not geographically - to lay on hands and pray
Frustratingly what happens is described –
It’s not even described really, is it?
‘…they received the Holy Spirit.’
That’s all we get…
When the Holy Spirit enters a person, he takes up residence, it’s not a flying visit.
God is now in them
And it’s the same today – if we’ve received the Spirit, then God is now in us
The medieval Christian mystic Julian of Norwich paints a deeply moving picture of this in her writings.
God, she says,
‘…made man’s soul to be his own city and his dwelling-place…and once man had fallen into sorrow and pain he was not fit to serve that noble purpose, and therefore our kind Father would prepareno other place for himself but sit upon the earth waiting for mankind…untilk the time when , through his grace, his beloved Son had bought back his city’
That’s us
The death and resurrection of Jesus makes it possible for God to live in us, by his Spirit
We may not feel we’re good enough, but in Christ, the truth is we are
So what does that mean for us?
I think from our Acts passage we can draw three things.
The first is that God is calling us to himself
That - however unworthy we may feel - in the eyes of Father and through the grace if Jesus Christ, we are, as Genesis reminds us made, in God’s image, to be good
And that means that God the Holy Spirit sees each of us as his dwelling place
The heart of each one of us is where he longs to abide
He waits patiently for us to be ready for him to come in and there is none at whose door he doesn’t knock
We see this in our Old Testament reading where God calls his own from north, south, east and west
Even Samaritans - whose praise has been wrong-facing for centuries and whose worship is rejected by the orthodox
There is no one in whom he would prefer not to dwell, whatever we have done, said, thought, felt
We need to lay aside once and for all our feelings of inadequacy, of not being good enough, of failure.
We need to acknowledge that Christ has redeemed all of humanity, including you and me, once and for all
This is so important because, secondly, God can call us and call us but if we're not listening, if we put up barriers, he respects the free will he's given us
This is something I know personally
For years and years, when I went to church, I felt what I can only describe as a stirring in me, a tide of emotion
But I damped it down, again and again, put up barriers all over the place, put my fingers in my ears and determined to keep control of myself
I even negotiated with God, telling him I could believe in him but couldn't accept Jesus as divine
One morning, when I had to go to church, I even informed him that I would only say a creed which didn't mention Christ being God
So…when I got there and found it didn't…I noted it…and was curious…and said it
And that opened a gate
I felt a physical change which I now recognise as the Spirit bursting into my heart
I was overcome by the clearest sense of God telling me I'd come home
‘I've been calling you for years’ he said ‘and now you're here where you belong’
Jesus talks about us abiding in him and him abiding in us, doesn’t he - it was only later that I discovered that passage in the Gospel of John but it perfectly described what had happened to me
All of which is to encourage you to search yourselves
You may have received the Spirit into your heart years ago or never known his presence
But in either case I know the barriers were and are of my own making, not the Spirit’s - is it the same for you?
It used to be that I’d worked out my own way of thinking based on other people's narratives that I’d heard
I didn't want to get emotional and be what I’d been brought up to think of a happy clappy Christian
I’ve learnt since that there were also things in my past that needed healing
I’m probably not alone in that – am I?
And now - well I know that when I walk by when someone's in need, when I speak my arrogance or frustration into a situation which needs God's love, when I choose short-term comforts over the long-term comfort God offers, when I’m hurting and afraid and try to protect myself…
Those things can act like spiritual cotton wool blocking my ears so I can pretend I don’t hear the Spirit’s voice in me
Is that something you recognise in your own way?
Do you need to respond to the promoting of the Spirit, for the first time or the hundred and first time?
Thirdly, let's consider for a moment the role of the church community
The Spirit enters the Samaritan believers through the willing participation of those who have already received him
Church community matters so much when it comes to the work of God
That day when I let the Spirit in, God subtly rammed it home to me by having the choir sing ‘Knock and the door will be opened unto you, seek and you shall find’ as I sat there and surrendered my hard heart
It was through the ongoing prayer of the Jerusalem Church that Peter and John came to be sent to Samaria
As someone reminded me the other day, it’s a privilege to be in someone else's story
Imagine being, like peter and John, part of the story of the Spirit entering someone’s heart
Whether or not that’s already been part of experience this is something we should crave – as individuals and as a community
Who can we be praying for, behind the scenes or side by side?
How can the message of our Isaiah reading –
That God has created all humanity, formed us, redeemed us, called us by name
That we belong to him, that he is with us and protecting us because we’re so precious, honoured, loved that he’s ransomed us he has ran
How can we take that message to the lost all around us?
If we’re created for God’s glory, if our souls were made to be God’s dwelling place then this should drive us at every turn
Turning back for a moment to Christ’s baptism, when the Spirit entered him –
You may be aware that this is right at the start of his ministry
For him, receiving the Spirit wasn’t about the moment, about enjoying this experience, extraordinary as it must have been
It was about equipping him for mission, to do God’s work in the world.
And it’s the same for us
When we’re filled with the Spirit, it’s not so that we can get an extra boost, a powerful shot of love to build us up – that’s the bonus, not the purpose
There are thousands of people here in Farnborough who God is calling to himself, whose souls were created as his dwelling place, who he longs to fill with his Spirit
And he’s calling us to help, to be present, to be Christ’s hands and feet and mouth and heart right here, right now, through the indwelling of the Spirit
As we close, I’d love to invite you to pray
Holy Spirit, we thank you that you work by coming to us, by dwelling in us, by giving us your life
Where we’ve put up barriers, we ask you to break through them
And fill this community of St Mark’s with your grace and power so that we may bring you glory.
Amen