May I speak of May?

Dear friends,

May was definitely an interesting month. For one thing, here in the UK we celebrated the first royal coronation in 70 years (complete with a street party), and weirdly there were no fewer than three Bank Holidays!

But did you know that we could also join in celebrating World Laughter Day (3^rd May), Star Wars Day (4^th May), International Nurses’ Day (12^th May) or World Turtle Day (25^th May) – not to mention the Eurovision Song Contest on the 13^th May!

There are many special days in May, some more serious than others. And from a Christian perspective, there are two feast days that commemorate important events in the life of the church: Ascension (18^th May) when Jesus left us, and Pentecost (28^th May) when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be with us forever.

The two obviously go together. Jesus had told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would come once he wasn’t with them anymore; as usual they didn’t understand, even though this had also been foretold by the prophets (especially in Joel 2, which Peter quotes on the day of Pentecost).

Sometimes people say that things would be so much easier if Jesus was still here on earth. I’m not sure that is true, at least not the way the world works today: since he wouldn’t be able to be everywhere at the same time, most of us wouldn’t have that much direct interaction with him.

The Holy Spirit, by contrast, is present with each and every follower of Jesus: from New York yuppies to subsistence farmers in Thailand, whether world-famous celebs or ordinary folk like you and me – Jesus is with each and every believer through the Holy Spirit who lives in us. That’s well worth celebrating!

Easter and Pentecost and Everything Else

I originally wrote this just after Easter, whereas it was published (in paper form and on this site) a bit later, half-way between Easter and Pentecost. And those two festivals really sum up what makes Christianity unique.

Christmas isn’t unique in the same way: most religions can tell birth stories of various important people, and without further explanation it’s not obvious how Christmas makes a difference to us today.

On the other hand, it’s fairly obvious even to the casual reader that Easter and Pentecost should make a very powerful and noticeable difference. At Easter, a brutally executed person returns triumphant from the dead; at Pentecost, the faithful followers of this risen Messiah are suddenly filled with the presence of the living God. You can’t just ignore events like that.

It’s easy (and quite common) to hear the Christmas tale and not be impacted: nice story, but what does it have to do with me? But you can’t really look at Jesus dying on a cross and coming back from the dead, and think it has nothing to say to you and your life. And it shouldn’t really be possible to discover that it’s possible to live in close communion with God, to have the Creator actually dwell inside you, and just assume it’s not relevant to you.

Well, it seems a lot of people do know those things and still choose to live as if that wasn’t the case. But they should at least know what they’re rejecting. There are obviously many reasons why people don’t want to follow Jesus – there is often a price to pay in the form of personal sacrifice – but let’s make sure it’s not because of us, the followers of Jesus.

If we live and act as if Jesus’ resurrection was just a religious doctrine and the Holy Spirit just a divine comfort blanket, rather than the world-shaking and life-changing realities they really are, people are not going to be interested in our message. And not only that – we ourselves are missing out on the riches of what Jesus is actually offering!

So let’s not make that mistake. Let’s keep marvelling at the divine love that put Jesus on the cross; let’s keep tapping into the divine power that raised him from the dead; and let’s keep asking the divine presence in us to convict us of sin, guide us into all truth, and transform us into the image of Jesus – all to the glory of God the Father!

Thought for the week: Ephesians 1:17

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. (Ephesians 1:17)

When Annette and I first moved to Albania as part of an OM team, we were all placed with different Albanian families (this was before we knew we would one day get married). The idea was that total immersion was the best way to learn the language and the culture, which is probably true – and it works both ways. Few Albanians knew me as well as the family I lived with for three months!

So it’s quite fascinating to realise that in the Holy Spirit, God himself come to live with us… and it’s not just to help us do better as disciples and witnesses, however important that is. In this verse, Paul prays that God would give us wisdom and revelation through the Holy Spirit, so that we may know God better.

Sometimes people forget (or find it hard to believe) that God wants us to know him. But that was one aspects of the New Covenant that was promised already by the prophet Jeremiah: “they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord” (Jer 31:34, quoted in Hebrews 8:11).

Following Jesus isn’t just about being forgiven and allowed to go to heaven (especially as “heaven” isn’t our final destination anyway): it’s about knowing God. Through Jesus God becomes our Father, and he wants us to know him as such.

But he has to reveal himself to us; we can’t find him ourselves. We can look at creation and conclude that there must be a creator; we can look at the abundance of life on earth and conclude that the creator must be sentient and intelligent; we can look at our own sin and conclude we need a saviour. But we’re not going to actually know the creator and saviour unless he reveals himself to us.

So it’s a good job he has done that. First he revealed himself from a distance to the OT saints, and then he came here in person, to reveal more of who he is and to make it possible for us to know him personally.

And now he comes to us through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit connects us to our heavenly Father and mediates the presence of Jesus in our lives. Only by opening up to the Holy Spirit will we be able to know God better – so at this time, my prayer is that of Paul: that we would be keen to get to know God better through the wisdom and revelation his Spirit desires to give us!

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Here’s Jenny leading us in a song about the Holy Spirit, Living Breath of God: https://youtu.be/RLHOe9CtY00

And this one, Holy Spirit We Welcome You, is a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5_eGsD3gj0

 

 

June: in Sweden and in the Spirit

In my country of birth, Sweden, June is an important month. Both Sweden’s National Day and the summer solstice fall in June, Midsummer’s Eve is celebrated with a giant maypole, silly dances and (for some) a bit too much to drink; and – most important of all: school breaks up!

Here in this country (the UK, if you’re not sure), June is somewhat more ordinary… But from a biblical perspective, it contains another really important festival: Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples of Jesus.

Like a national day, Pentecost is an identity marker, celebrating the birth (and continued existence) of the Christian church.

Like the solstice, it indicates that the times they are a-changin’: Jesus fulfilled the old covenant and inaugurated the new covenant where the Spirit is available to everyone.

Like Midsummer’s Eve, at Pentecost the first disciples were accused of being drunk when they were filled with the Spirit, because their behaviour and speech seemed so odd.

Like the beginning of school holidays, Pentecost brings freedom to live godly lives: free from slavery to sin, free from the burden of trying to be good enough to merit salvation, free to be what God created us to be.

AT Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the followers of Jesus. He comes to transform us into people who joyfully live and die for the Kingdom of God, rather for ourselves.

This will sometimes make us seem odd, out of step with current trends and sensibilities – but that is as it should. Through baptism we have pledged allegiance to Jesus the risen King, and will therefore endeavour, empowered by the indwelling Spirit of God, to live lives that please him, come what may.

 

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Church!

Hopefully you’re aware that we recently celebrated Pentecost – yes, we sometimes hide it away under the title Whitsunday, but biblically it’s Pentecost, and it’s actually a very important festival: it marks the birth of the Christian church!

Pentecost marks the coming of the Holy Spirit on the entire people of God – not just on select priests, prophets and kings, but on everyone: young and old, male and female, rich and poor, 1^st or 21^st century. This is one of the most extraordinary, breath-taking aspects of the Christian faith!

And why has God given us the Spirit? Here’s the reason Jesus himself gives us: the Spirit will provide power for us to be his witnesses (Acts 1:8). The church – and that means all his followers, every single one of us! – is in the world to witness to Jesus’ victory, his atoning death and his triumphant resurrection. If you feel inadequate to this task, no problem; God knows we could never do it on our own, that’s why he gives us his Holy Spirit!

The existence of the church is actually a very strong argument for the truth of gospel. If the Good News about the resurrection wasn’t true, why would the first disciples have risked the wrath of the authorities by proclaiming that they had crucified the Messiah, but that God had overruled their stupid mistake and raised him to life again? You only risk your life and your reputation for something you’re absolutely convinced is true!

Those first disciples went on to gain thousands of converts through their proclamation. No wonder, really: the message of forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus is great news! Maybe even too good to be true… but they were still convinced that it was indeed true.

How could all those thousands of new believers be so sure that the apostles were right, rather than the Sanhedrin? Only through the testimony of the Holy Spirit! First they saw evidence of the life-transforming power of God in the first believers, which confirmed the spoken message; then they received the same Spirit themselves, and his internal testimony confirmed the truth of what they’d seen and heard in others.

Don’t ignore Pentecost; don’t ignore the Holy Spirit. If you are a follower of Jesus, the above should be true of you as well: the Holy Spirit is yours by right – but are you making room for him to work in your life?

If you feel your faith isn’t strong enough to withstand pressure, if you are scared to talk about Jesus with your friends, if God is more of an abstract concept than a living presence in your every-day life, maybe you need a Holy Spirit top-up?

High-Tech and the Holy Spirit

I originally wrote this for our church bulletin the Monday after we had a projection-free Sunday… and my office phone had just decided to stop working as well. So I was trying cables, crawling around on the floor under my desk, sending a number of technical emails, and ordering a new set of video extenders – very high-tech, since one of them has to be placed on top of the ceiling-mounted projector …

Technology certainly has its pros and cons! Still, most of the time it’s just there, and we use it without a second thought, forgetting that things we today take for granted (like colour television, telephones, fridges) were once innovations that most people managed without. I remember reading about a Baptist church where the membership was once fiercely opposed to the introduction of electric light!

Of course we managed to worship without the projector – it would have been embarrassing otherwise! It’s only a tool, and tools should remain just that; they are definitely useful (I’m sure it helps some people concentrate better during the sermon), but not essential to our services.

The only thing that is essential whenever we meet together is the presence of God through his Spirit. If the Holy Spirit isn’t involved in our worship and our teaching, no amount of technology can make up for his absence. In fact, if the Spirit of God is absent, all church gatherings are pointless…

But thankfully, God has promised to be present through his Spirit when we meet in the name of Jesus. He will take our singing and turn it into worship; he will take the sermon and speak to people’s hearts; he will take our weak faith and turn it into world-changing conviction. Without the Spirit, we would only be a small religious interest group – with the Spirit, we are the Church, the unstoppable people of the living God!

(Belated) Pentecost Post

This year, the first Sunday in June was Pentecost: the third most important festival in the Christian year, but one that receives much less public attention than Christmas and Easter – at least I have never noticed any Pentecost crackers anywhere…

But make no mistake: the church depends just as much on Pentecost as on the other two for its existence. Pentecost is the celebration of the Holy Spirit coming to the followers of Jesus, in accordance with promises given in the Old Testament, and without the Holy Spirit there would be no church.

Jesus told his followers to preach the Good News everywhere; but he also promised persecution and opposition. The Holy Spirit gave them – and us – the necessary courage to go out and preach the gospel. Without the Spirit, we Christians wouldn’t spread the gospel.

Jesus told his followers to be perfect, like the Father is perfect. This would be absolutely impossible in our own strength; but with the Spirit living in us, we will be enabled to live lives pleasing to God. Without the Spirit, we Christians wouldn’t be any different from the rest of the world.

Jesus told his followers that he couldn’t teach them everything; they weren’t ready yet. Instead the Holy Spirit would guide them into the full truth, and so he did; and we have that further teaching in the New Testament. Without the Spirit, we Christians wouldn’t know the truth about Jesus.

But the most important aspect of the Spirit is this: he connects us to the Father, and is the guarantee of our future redemption. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have been given the Spirit as a down-payment; don’t ignore this amazing power residing in you!