JUNE 2007

Dear members of the community,

Are you old enough to remember when Whit Monday was a Bank Holiday? If so, then I guess you may be beginning to feel your years because up until 1970 the Whit Monday Bank Holiday was just that, the day after Whit Sunday, which meant that the Bank Holiday could be anything from 11th May to the 14th June, depending on the date of Easter. In 1971 the Late Spring Bank Holiday was fixed as the last Monday in May (although, confusingly, many people still refer to that as the Whit Bank Holiday). Well, this year, Whit Monday and the Late Spring Bank Holiday coincide. Whit Sunday, or Pentecost as the modern Church has come to call it, is May 27th and Whit Monday is the late Spring Bank Holiday on May 28th. Nostalgia rules!

But what of Whitsun or Pentecost, what do we make of that?

One of the things that strikes me most strongly about the story leading up to Whitsun is the state of mind of the disciples. As I look back over the Gospels, I see twelve men who have few of the skills that they will need when they are chosen to be disciples. Gradually, and falteringly, they acquire them. But it strikes me that Peter, who becomes their leader, is archetypal. He is essentially a self-made man, strong in the strengths that he has been given and confident in his strengths. So, when he stands beside Jesus and says that whatever anyone else does, he will stand beside him, this is not an empty boast, this is the fruit of Peter’s experience of himself. How devastating it must have been for him when Jesus’ own prediction of his behaviour came true and he failed his Lord.

But that does seem to me what the disciples are like, men with skills and experience in their own field, being trained for a new task: for one it might be ability with money, for others the practical skills of fishermen. It’s just that none of them had the skills of articulation and explanation that they would later have to show.

And for most of the story, well for the whole of the gospel story, that is how it goes. The disciples grow, but it is usually growth in their own strength. Of course, Peter believes that Jesus is his Lord and Saviour, the promised Messiah, but somehow he also believes that it is he, Peter, with his enthusiasm and strength, who will be there with and for his Lord and proclaim him. And Jesus leads him (and his fellow disciples) through a difficult series of experiences towards the birth of the Church at Pentecost. Peter is compared by Jesus to Satan, Peter lets Jesus down after his arrest, Pete is asked three times after the resurrection whether he loves Jesus. Jesus leaves the disciples in dismayed confusion after his death, and as they begin to grow stronger (though still at least partly in their own strength) after the resurrection experiences, he leaves them again at the Ascension. On the day of Pentecost they are together. They had chosen Matthias as a replacement for Judas, and had talked about their response to Jesus’ call for mission, but they hadn’t begun it.

Within the shortest of times they are out in the marketplace, communicating with foreigners in their own tongues, and Peter is giving the speech of his life (well, of anyone’s life). Read Acts 2 sometime; it’s a remarkable story of the first day of the new life of the Church.

So one of the key questions about Whit Sunday is “How did they do it?” And even though Peter was a natural leader of men, fearless, enthusiastic and committed, the answer was “not in his own strength”. They did it in the strength of the Spirit, who had been given to them as they sat together.

Now the most apt comparison in my life turns out to be swimming. I can swim, but it’s always me against the water, an element in which I am, at best, uncomfortable. So far I have always won: but only because I don’t risk anything else! How different it looks for Olympic competitors. Some of them might be hard-pressed to compose a speech or a sermon, but they are fully at home in water. They are focused, they are relaxed, they trust, and, as a result, it isn’t a fight for them and they might have a job understanding someone like me. The water could be home for me as it is for them, but first I would have to stop fighting it and trust myself to it. Frankly, I don’t see that happening.

We have the story of the disciples. We see that men like Peter change and grow through the passage of the story, we see how much they can achieve by the development of their own strengths and gifts. But Whit Sunday/Pentecost is something else. Here we see men who cease to operate in their own strengths and now work through the power of the indwelling Spirit. It is as though, overnight, I am changed: I trust the water and am one with it.

So the key Christian attribute that we need to pray for now is the gift of trust - that we may not trust in our own strength, but put our trust in God. If we can be that at home in God, then the promise is that his Spirit will live in us and there is no practical limit to what we might achieve as disciples. I don’t, of course claim it as a new idea: look again at the words of that lovely hymn “Fight the good fight”.

With Best Wishes,
George Biggs