Easter VI by Fr Jack

Acts of the Apostles 17.22-31
First Epistle of St Peter 3.13-end
St John ‘s Gospel 14.15-21

God is with us. John Wesley, who lived in this parish for many years, his grandfather was vicar here, and he served at St Luke’s a daughter church, is reported to have uttered these final words on his death bed: "The best of all is, God is with us."

Emmanuel - God with us. We hear that again and again at Advent and Christmas.

But it is just as true in this season of Easter, springing forth with sunshine.

We stand between Easter Day and Ascension Day on Thursday.

Next stop Pentecost. Scripture tells us that the Ascension was 40 days after the Resurrection. And ten days after that, so the Sunday after the Sunday after Thursday, the Apostles received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

And then the next thing is, well, us.

In the Bayeux Tapestry of Salvation History you have Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, and then the Pentecost people, that is to say, us the Church, doing their thing. And we still are. Living in and by the Holy Spirit until Jesus comes again. Which will be the next prominent panel in our Salvation ‘Bayeux’ Tapestry

In our section of the story, it is true that Jesus no longer walks the Earth, but God is far from absent!

That’s why, as Jesus goes up, the Holy Spirit descends to be with us, just as Jesus says in St John’s Gospel today. (Of course the Holy Spirit has always been with us, but since Pentecost, She has a particular ministry in the life of the Body of Christ, the Church).

Our John Wesley is quite right! "The best of all is, God is with us."The best of all is, God is with us."

God is with us.

It is the perfect battle cry for us on Welcome Back Sunday, in several different ways, actually.

Welcome Back Sunday is a Sunday: Sunday Holy Communion is the heart of the Christian Life. God with us hidden in Bread and Wine. Nourishing our souls and bodies so that we can take 7 more daily steps along the pilgrimage of life.

And it is the Holy Spirit that we invoke to take this bread and wine, and make it God’s gift of His life for us and in us. ‘Send down your Holy Spirit’… say the priests at that climactic moment of Epiclesis.

And God is with us is the perfect headline for us on Welcome Back Sunday, because we rejoice in inviting back people who have been Baptized here. Who has been baptized here or during their time here?

Baptism: the Holy Spirit working through the simple earthly gifts of water, oil and fire, to bring about an eternal, spiritual transformation in a person’s life. The Holy Spirit. God is with us.

And we also ‘welcome back’ wedding and blessing couples. Who has been married, or had a union blessed here?

Christian Marriage is the Holy Spirit sealing and animating the love shared by two people doing life together. And making that love a gift not only to them, but everyone around, and the whole world.

And what about Confirmation candidates? Who has been Confirmed here or during their time here? Confirmation is your own personal Pentecost. The Bishops, who now carry the mantle of the Apostles (the Bishop’s mitre even signifies the tongues of fire that landed on the twelve and Mary the Mother of the Lord). So the Bishop hands on the Holy Spirit’s fire of Pentecost to us in Confirmation, so that our lives might become a means of the glory of God, and God’s love in the world.

In all these ways and so many more: "The best of all is, God is with us."The best of all is, God is with us."

St Peter writes today of the spiritual realities of baptism, of living out our faith with integrity, courage, gentleness, and commitment. All these are works of the Spirit in us. Because as Christians, as worshippers, as baptized, married, ordained, confirmed people we are never simply drawing on our own resources. Heaven help us! My little faith, my little courage, my little understanding? No. God provides. I’ll always mess it up, but God still provides.

It’s true to of the healing ministries of the church, of Confession and absolution and every blessing we ever offer or receive. God provides. It is a mystery (not a vending machine). But God is with us.

So: God is with us. All that is left for us is to join in. To see God not as something we visit every now and then like a favourite Saturday morning coffee shop or a National Trust house; but to see God for who God is. For God is with us like the air we breath, the pavement we walk, the author and gift behind every tiny moment and part of our lives.

That’s the truth of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel speaks today: that the world, willfully unseeing, cannot grasp, as He says. That’s what St Paul is saying to the Greeks in the Areopagus in The Acts of the Apostles today: God is not ‘over there’ but ‘The one in whom we live, move, and have our [very] being’.

St John’s Gospel speaks of ‘abiding’, we don’t touch God, we abide in God: keeping commandments, loving, knowing, revealing what is already there.

God is with us. Or perhaps it is truer to say, we are with, in God. Because we aren’t the centre of this picture we call life. Our life is in God, the author and giver of all life, ‘in whom we live, move, and have our being’.

Friends, our joy, our quest, our hope of ever truly being alive is to wake up to this reality and live it.