READINGS

1. John 20:19-23

HOMILY

[James starts this homily with the reflection on St Luke’s account of the Pentecost and later moved to St John’s one; the very beginning is missing] … share the disciples all of them.

They’d gone and spent time together after the Ascension.

And here they are: gathered in one place it says and suddenly from heaven that came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.

Now each one of these images tells a story.

The rush of a violent wind. Why a violent wind?

Well, because in Isaiah 59, that is how the Lord promises that he will come.

He will come as a violent wind.

That’s after he has performed the act of atonement, he says, he’s so disturbed, the Lord says, he’s so disturbed by the lies and the violence that are going on that he himself is going to take on the garment of atonement and come down and perform the act of requital and then he will come to his children like the sound or like the rushing wind. 

So very clearly that’s what’s happening here.

This is the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah.

After the act of atonement, the coming of the rushing wind.

And it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Again, the word house.

Of course there were house.

Do you remember at ascension, as I told you, about the vision of Jesus being lifted up.

This was the vision of Isaiah 6 where Isaiah enters into the holy place and says: I saw the Lord high and lifted up.

And his train filled the temple.

And it says: the house was filled with smoke.

Here we’re in the house.

You see that Isaiah’s vision, it’s now three-dimensional, part of being, living in the Spirit is living within that Temple vision of Isaiah.

This is happening: the people here are being taken up into that Temple vision, but no longer they need the Temple.

Now they are the Temple, that’s actually shown again very beautifully: divided tongues as of fire appeared among them.

Okay so one of the things that had gone from the first temple was the fire.

And here you can tell that it’s the new temple is being set: was the fire has appeared.

But what is it that has appeared to give them the fire? Divided tongues.

It’s very interesting: the word divided.

Actually, it means more like apportioned out tongues.

And it’s referring back to our old friend Zechariah who says: the spoil that was taken from you will be apportioned out to you – referring precisely to the crucifixion.

So here, in this new temple, the lot that was taken from them – Jesus – is being apportioned.

It is he himself. So Jesus himself, the one who was killed, is now being given them as portions.

And they are becoming those portions. The time is resting on each of them.

So whereas in a temple the priests, after having sacrificed the sheep or lamb and they but hold aloft, and some of the meatier portions burning.

So the flames of fire my well refer to that.

And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability. 

And here we have something interesting, this is the beginning of the undoing of Babel where all people had been scattered. Now all people are being brought together in unity.

And this is how it’s described: that Jews from throughout the Diaspora, all of whom spoke other languages, for the Greek was probably the language they had in common, not Hebrew – they were in Jerusalem for the feasts and they’re suddenly hearing themselves spoken to it as if in their own language.

And it says, the text says: but this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered. 

Again two wonderful giveaway words, because gathered is what, of course, happened when the people tried to gather themselves together at Babel, in the Tower of Babel, tried to make themselves one so that they will all be united.

Then it says in the Book of Genesis that God scattered them and confused them.

And that’s where the word Babel comes from, it means confusion.

The Greek word here is: the crowd gathered and was confused.

Our translations, you know, cover over the fact that what this means is that here Babel is coming together and is now being undone.

They are going to begin to discover that they are going to speak all together, independently of the languages, all the things by which we define ourselves over against each other are no longer going to matter because, in fact, the voice of the one who speaks in us as Son is turning us into son and the new unity is being given.

All this is happening before our eyes.

Okay, so that’s the Lucan picture.

So many fulfilment, so much going on as what Jesus promised starts to make itself present. 

Now let’s jump back to St John’s Gospel, which of course is the text for today.

And this for me is simply one of the most wonderful passages in the whole of Scripture.

Remember where we are: in John’s Gospel, he doesn’t give us the fifty days between the Passover and the Pentecost which was the Jewish way of calculating the days he gives us that same evening, the evening of the resurrection.

He gives us Jesus appearing. Not without some indication that there is a slight difference, that there is an Ascension that needed to be waited for.

Remember he has that conversation with Mary Magdalene: don’t touch me, I have not yet ascended.

But when he’s ascended, meaning seated at the right hand of God, the whole of the act that he had come for completed.

He is then able to share that with the disciples. So let’s look at this passage. 

“When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews”.

Again is this sense of apparently – apparently is the wrong word – undoing of the notion of the holy place in the temple, where of course Jews were frightened to go in, as well they should be.

No one was allowed in except that high priest and the high priest only under extreme, with extreme precautions.

But so here we have this inversion: in an ordinary house where the disciples are hiding.

And guess what? – This house turns into the Holy place in the Temple. because “Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 

In other words, the first thing to notice about them is: they’re frightened.

They’re frightened, they’re ashamed, they are kind of failures, they’ve been following someone who turned out to have been killed, they don’t know what’s going on, they’re hiding. The very first sign of his presence is peace.

“After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. ” So he has to identify himself. How does he identify himself?

He had advised himself as the crucified and risen victim, as of the lamb standing as one slaughtered. 

“Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”

That was what enabled to understand that there was a wholeness going on, that it was the same person as the one that they lived with.

A second time he says: peace be with you.

In other words, his whole appearance, this is the definitive theophany for the most high in the whole of the scriptures.

And unlike all the others, it’s not frightening.

This is if you like the great shock of the New Testament that when God finally does turn up, God it’s not frightening. 

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

In other words, you are now going to become part of the continuation of my work of opening up creation.

“When he had said this, he breathed into them.”

And I changed the translation.

Translation said “breathed on them” but is the same verb as was used in Genesis when our Lord breathes into Adam’s nostrils to give him life, exactly the same verb.

So it seems to me better that it be translated breathed into here because that’s what he’s doing: he’s creating the new Adam.

And says to them: receive the Holy Spirit. Which means, strangely: now be inside us in the life of God. 

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

And of course, I’ve asked because we tend to be moralists and so on and so forth.

This very easily becomes a matter of priests forgetting sins of people etc. and so on and so forth.

It means so much more than that.

This is a new creation we’re talking about.

What it means is that we are being invited to be insiders in God’s opening up of creation, making it a much much bigger, healthier space.

And he’s giving the power for this to happen to us. In other words, this is going to be a human endeavour.

Now it says: you know, as far as you open it up, as far as you let go of the things that bind down and open it up, in other words – forgive sins and they’ll be forgiven; those you don’t, they won’t.

In other words, there’s no extra outside, you know, deus ex machina figure coming to swap things up… no.

It’s up to you. I have done the whole of this so to make you insiders in the creative act of God as humans.

With your intelligences, with your … with your failures. It is you who are gonna be able to do this. 

This is one of the most astounding things that anybody could possibly have heard: that God would turn up and say: now be participators in the inside of my life, and you are going to be if you like, its bearers. I want you to take charge of opening up creation.

Please understand that this is not creation in some, let’s say, historical sense of something that happened a long time ago.

He is saying: no, that which is real, that which is of God, that which is truthful, it’s actually a reality we’re talking about. You are opening up reality.

You’re going to be conscious participants on the inside of opening up reality. And this is going to be a human-centered exercise.

That’s what I find astounding about this. 

We think of the Holy Spirit, we listen to the imagery from Luke, we read the passage here and the sense that we are being with something incredibly gentle to breathe into us.

Of course, you’re welcome to the the more pictorial imagery of Luke, but ultimately it’s the same thing: this incredible gentle breath within us which turns us into insiders, into the life of God.

And means that at this very very intimate personal level, we are being invited as an act of extreme gentleness, intimate gentleness to be co-discoverers of the real, of the truth, of the trust.

What actually the life of God is really like. 

Life of God and a reality, everything that is real, it is the Creator Spirit who is making us as part of reality, open up part of reality.

So much going on here. I just wanted to leave you with this sense of this act of intimately trust that we’ve been invited to take part in.

And as we sit with this to discover what it is to be living inside this new in-between, this life in which we are being made together, intimate participants, sharers, builders-up of each other, openers-up of life for each other.

What is it look like? That I hope and praise what we are going to discover in the weeks ahead.