Collect

God, who at this time taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit:  grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;  through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  

Amen

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A reading from The Acts of the Apostles (2. 1-21):

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs - in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’

All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’  But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.

‘No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”’

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

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Psalm 104 (24 – 35b):

1. O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

2. Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.

3. There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

4. These all look to you to give them their food in due season;

5. when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

6. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.

7. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.

8. May the glory of the Lord endure for ever; may the Lord rejoice in his works –

9. who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.

10. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

11. May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

12. Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.

 35b.    Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:  world without end.  Amen

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A reading from St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (12. 3b-13):

No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

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The Gospel

Listen to the Gospel of Christ according to St John (20. 19-23):

It was evening on the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews.  Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’

After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  

Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’

When he had said this, he 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.’

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

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Reflection - AE

Well, what a great, dramatic spectacle the events around Pentecost must have been.

 

Imagine being in Jerusalem on that day, hearing that great, powerful roar of the flames.

 

Hearing the excitement in people’s voices.

 

Hearing the words of the disciples in your very own language, wherever you had come from, so that you clearly received directly the Word of God, through the Spirit, to fill your own heart with joy and push away any fear of strangeness.

 

Certainly the Holy Spirit took centre stage, and fulfilled Christ’s promise to send his Spirit to the disciples and all his followers.

 

But this was not actually the Spirit’s first appearance.

 

It has been there, sometimes just in the background, all along.

 

When the Trinity were together even before Creation, some imagine them as three dancing so closely they appeared to be one, the Spirit was there, possibly what held them all together.

 

At Creation, some translations of Genesis tell us that it was the Spirit that swept over the waters.

 

All through the Old Testament the Spirit put in appearances from time to time, it was often with Moses, and God sent his Spirit onto people from each tribe while the people of Israel were in the wilderness, that they could prophesy.

 

On Good Friday, as Jesus hung on the cross, enduring mortal pain and death, and not seeking refuge in his divinity and the Father, you might say it was the Spirit who was there beside him, who held on, who pulled him through death to the resurrection.

 

And now, here it is taking centre stage.

 

During the first act, the Old Testament, the Father was the main character.

 

The second act, vital but brief, Jesus was the brilliant, dazzling star.

 

And now, the third act, still running, leading up to a finale we still can’t predict, it’s the turn of the Spirit.

 

Certainly a dazzling, starry entrance, and from time to time people still witness that dazzle, that amazement and perplexity and astonishment at what might be happening as the Spirit makes itself known on a very personal level.

 

That is wonderful, and blinding moments of clarity have often marked the start of great, impactful ministries - look as St Paul.

 

But it is not everyone’s experience, and its not the only way the Spirit works.

 

Paul himself mentions a variety of gifts - prophesy, speaking in tongues, even sometimes healing, all of which are often shared with quite a bit of fanfare, maybe up on a stage or a very public platform, and sometimes justified by telling of a transformative experience of the Spirit, a moving, sincere testimony.

 

And that’s great, where its genuine.

 

The news of the Spirit’s presence is good news for everyone, and needs to be shared.

 

But sometimes awareness of the Spirit’s presence is not something that comes with a lightening flash.

 

It’s something that somewhere, maybe buried very deep, is there in each of us.  We are all made in the image of God, we all have a conscience, and we’re told we should look for God’s likeness in every face.

 

Sometimes that is quite a challenge and really difficult.

 

But there are lots of good people, just quietly going about being kind, maybe consciously as christians,  maybe not so sure but who’ve always known that prayer is helpful and God is out there somewhere.

 

Those moments of prayer are the reminders we need that the Spirit is with us.

 

The listening of quiet prayer, the listening to other people’s prayers, or stories, or fears, is every bit as precious as the big fanfare.

 

The Spirit is with us all, all the time, and can make itself known in as much variety as there is variety of people.

 

The prayer we can all share is for the gift of listening, so that we hear it, both in others’ voices, and sitting just beside us.

 

Amen

 

Post-Communion Prayer

Faithful God, who fulfilled the promises of Easter by sending us your Holy Spirit and opening to every race and nation the way of life eternal:  open our lips by your Spirit, that every tongue may tell of your glory;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen