Sermon for Easter 7 2020 – 24 May 2020

FIRST READING Acts 1. 6-14

GOSPEL READING JOHN 17.1-11

Nathan Jones is maybe not a name you have heard of, (pause) unless you are interested in football. And the fortunes of Stoke City. Jones became the Manager of Stoke at the start of 2019. He had joined in from Luton Town which he led successfully led to promotion to the Third tier and when he left Luton they were on course for promotion to the Second tier which duly occurred. He moved to Stoke, a much bigger club, viewed as a rising star in the firmament of football management. But things did not go well and he was relieved of his duties within a year.

What is the connection between a football manager and this ten day period between Ascension Day and Pentecost?

This morning I’d like us to reflect on this time between these two of the four major Christian festivals, and hopefully to deepen our appreciation of just how important it is for our journey of faith.

To reflect on how the gift of the Holy Spirit impacts the lives of some sportspeople

How the Holy Spirit can sustain us too.

To allow the significance of the Ascension and Pentecost to truly seep into our lives.

For it is these two events that have resulted in the gift of the Church.

So significant are they for St. Luke,that he recognised that his Gospel had only told half the story – quite literally – with the Acts of the Apostles being the second half.

To return to Nathan Jones, he has been is a committed Christian for many years. Reflecting on his time with Stoke, he says “I had to look for a lot of answers, from God and within myself.” He still believes he is being guided by a higher force and that his “Christianity enables me to be honest, have an equilibrium and be a manager they may not like, but respect.”

In a world which is exceptionally performance orientated there are a number of footballers who have found their Christian faith has given them the bedrock of unconditional love that provides some equilibrium and comfort.

You will not be surprised that I made a connection with what Jones had said and today’s Collect:

“Leave us not comfortless, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us”

or as the Prayer Book says:

“send your Holy Ghost to comfort us and exalt us to the same place where our Saviour Christ is gone before.”

The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, the One who brings the peace of God that passeth all understanding.

You will note that I said Ascension Day and Pentecost are the third and fourth of the year’s major religious festivals.  It is fair to say, that for many, they have been downgraded when viewed alongside Christmas and Easter.

Ascension Day is probably the most neglected of the major festivals – this year our own Zoom service on Thursday was attended by over 20 people. Usually we are lucky to get 15. But really, if the true significance of the Festival is properly appreciated, we should be getting many more.

For Thomas Cranmer, author of the Prayer Book, Ascension Day was to be observed with special honour alongside Christmas, Easter and next Sunday’s Pentecost. Cranmer’s collect for today is based on an antiphon that was sung at Vespers on Ascension

“O King of Glory, Lord of Hosts, do not leave us orphans…“

There is a sense of pathos and separation after the Ascension. Perhaps not as deep as that period between Good Friday and Easter morning, but once again Jesus has left his disciples. All this is described by Luke at the very beginning of Acts, with Jesus telling them not to leave Jerusalem and they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit “not many days from now.”

Inevitably this was another deeply uncertain period for the Disciples, for the Virgin Mary and the brothers of Jesus who included James, not James the Apostle, but Jesus’s brother who is believed to be the author of the Epistle of St. James and would become a leader of the early church in Jerusalem.

The Book of Acts and the Gospel of St. Luke are of equal length and cover the length of what was a traditional Jewish scroll. And the fact that Ascension comes right at the beginning of the second volume so to speak, underlines how important it is. This is when the mission of God to reconcile his people pivots from Jesus’ earthly mission to the work of the Holy Spirit.

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

This is the trajectory of the growth of the early Church – as that well known theologian Buzz Lightyear might have said: from Jerusalem to infinity and beyond.”

To return to today’s Collect, two genuine theologians (Barbee and Zahl) put it like this:

“And not only shall the Spirit of God provide that comfort so needed within the vale of tears that is life but the Spirit will “exalt us” ultimately yonder, over Jordan, over the river of death, to the place where Christ has gone before.

The themes of the Collect are absence, solitude, accompaniment, and passage to the Kingdom of Light – right through to the end, and beyond “the end.”

Nathan Jones has been sustained by the Spirit during this period in the “vale of tears.”

The accomplishment of the work of the Holy Spirit in giving witnesses to the ends of the earth means the Spirit is there for all who wish to access, it –provided they are aware of the gift.

Another football manager, Jürgen Klopp, the ebullient manager of Liverpool who sit at the top of the Premier League by the huge margin of  25 points once told a newspaper “to be a believer but not to want to talk about it – I do not know how it would work.” Klopp has been very open about the impact of his upbringing in a Lutheran home and how his lust for life derives from his faith. It also gives him a sense of security.

Klopp says:  “there is nothing so important to me that I cannot bear to lose it and that is why I find I have no reason to fear.”

Klopp’s faith has been liberating. For us, our prayer should be that our faith is liberating for us too.

This week, as we prepare to celebrate Pentecost next Sunday, let us reflect on the works of the Spirit.

How do we do this?

We can best do this by having a regular pattern of Daily Prayer.

If lockdown permits you to take twenty minutes out of your day, please join us for one of our three daily services – please contact one of the clergy if you would like further details –

–  because it is prayer that allows us, to use words from the Ascension Day Collect, to “also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with Him to continually dwell.”

And that is what sustains us and Nathan Jones and Jürgen Klopp, being liberated by our faith to narrow the gap between Heaven and Earth.

Fr. Peter Wolton