Day of Pentecost – Whit Sunday Year A 31.5.20
Lectionary Readings
Numbers 11 v24-30 Seventy leaders are chosen to help Moses.
Acts 2 v1-21 The coming of the Holy Spirit.
John 20 v19-23 Jesus appears to his disciples.
‘A breath of fresh air’
An expression we use to suggest that someone has made a positive difference to our lives.
I think we can describe Jesus as ‘a breath of fresh air’; for his inclusive ministry, his radical interpretation of the scriptures, his vision of God’s kingdom and his challenge to the guardians of the Jewish faith, failing in their mission to be ‘a means of blessing’.
In the passage from the Book of Numbers, Moses is fed up with the moaning of the Hebrew people. The LORD suggests that Moses selects seventy leaders to share his ministry. Moses gathers them into the sacred tent. (some tent!)
The Spirit comes upon them, and also upon two others outside the tent.
(Funny that, the way the Spirit disregards human confines.)
When Moses is alerted to the fact that the Spirit has ‘strayed’ into the community, Moses replies “I wish the LORD would give his Spirit to all his people”
(Let them taste what being a prophet is like, then perhaps they will quit moaning at me.) (?)
Anyway, his wish came true, because of God’s love for us.
(and not because God moved to satisfy the self-centred wishes of a disgruntled prophet).
By the time of the Transfiguration (Luke 9 v28-36), Moses is back on script, of one mind with God about God’s plan for the salvation of his people. (His people = every last one of us.)
In the passage from John’s gospel there are echoes of God breathing life into the first human being,(Genesis 2 v7) and new life into the exiles of Ezekiel’s time (Ezekiel 37 v14).
Here Jesus is breathing new life into his disciples; transforming them from a frightened, guilt-ridden, and despondent group into bold and fearless witnesses to all that God has done through his life, death and resurrection.
As Edwin Hatch (1835-89) wrote in his hymn: (please read as a prayer)
Breathe on me, Breath of God;
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what thou dost love,
and do what thou wouldst do.
And in more modern times, Daniel Iverson wrote:
Spirit of the living God,
Fall afresh on me.
Spirit of the living God,
Fall afresh on me.
Break me, melt me,
mould me, fill me.
Spirit of the living God,
Fall afresh on me.
In the well known passage from Acts, we read of the impact the outpouring of God’s spirit had upon the disciples and the crowd. Visitors in the crowd were hearing, (for the first time in their own language), the good news of God’s new initiative, revealed by Jesus, to reconcile earth and heaven, by overcoming the forces of darkness and death and enfolding us in His love.
‘Thy Kingdom Come’ a worldwide prayer movement that invites Christians to pray for others (from Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost), is yet another expression of God’s love – reaching out to those in need of ‘a breath of fresh air’ in their lives.
Thanks to Mike Peck for submitting these reflections