Happy Pentecost!
This is, as you know, the celebration of the birth of the church; a celebration of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And although 2,000 years have passed from that time to this, we share many similarities with the early Church.
Like the first Christians so blessed and changed by Pentecost that they could speak Christ in new languages and to new cultures, we too are learning new ways to communicate the Gospel, using new words and images to preach Christ and him crucified, risen and on the loose redeeming with love and grace in our world.
It is for this reason, I think that we are profoundly blessed to be Anglican Christians on mission in this moment. It’s exciting, if not easy. And when we speak about mission, what we are actually speaking about is God’s mission. This is what we listen and discern for. The early Christians were very conscious of that fact. It’s always been the only path for the holy church of God: past, present, and future.
In those days when they were searching for God’s will after the Resurrection, they knew this: their lives were altered – but charged with the power of God and ready to be put to new use in God’s renewed, redeemed, and changed creation. Because of the Resurrection, everything is changed – “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”
So, at this present moment, when we are celebrating the church and the future that God has called us to, that is the one thing I think we must remember. As Archbishop Rowan Williams once said in a beautiful Easter sermon: we are “Eastered” people and so we do this death and resurrection thing. We do it consciously with the help of the Holy Spirit, showing us how it goes.
The Helper, the Advocate, helps us to hear God’s word, not our own. God has called us to be instruments of his love to each other and to all people. How we do this is the discernment piece. But what we do know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that the God who has called us has also given us the power of the Holy Spirit to come alongside us to accomplish God’s will – wherever that takes us.
And so I pray God’s richest blessings on you all as you continue this journey.
The Right Reverend Dr. Susan J.A. Bell
Bishop of Niagara
Euchre and the Meaning of Life