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Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets!

It is, perhaps, rare, for a preacher to stand in up to preach and to wish to say, in the words of Jesus, “Today, this scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing.” But with the readings we have this morning, today is such a day. Between them, they give us a blueprint for Christian living in imitation of Jesus and allow us to say that on this Pentecost day, Moses' wish comes true “Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets”.

‘Prophet’ is one of the ways in which we see Jesus. He is both fulfiller of prophecy and prophet for the church as it moves forward as the people of God. Of course, Jesus is not only a prophet – he is also Messiah and Lord; and he is supremely priest – our great high priest who lives for ever to intercede for us and to pour out his spirit upon us. We will come back to that, but first, let us look to the joyful moment of Pentecost as we have it in the book of Acts.

Acts offers us a narrative both wondrous and terrifying. The disciples are gathered when a strange noise rushes through the house, deafening, a noise like a mighty wind filling the entire place. Then, divided tongues of fire appear and some of these rest on each of the disciples who are given power to speak in other languages. This is no mere private experience: the crowds here the sound too and when the disciples speak, it seems – well, what? Is it that the power of the spirit rests too on the crowd who can hear each in his or her own language? Or is it that the miraculous ability to speak in other languages is not simply the ability suddenly to speak Arabic or English but the ability so to speak that any with ears to hear may understand? The text does not tell us; only it is clear that the overwhelming power of the Spirit gives to the disciples prophetic ability which transcends race and age – which allows the Word of God to come to all who would hear.

And it is important that it does come to all who would hear. To the sceptics, to those who distance themselves, there is no communication – only a noise as if made by people who are drunk. And this point is worth remembering: it is not to everyone that the Christian life seems attractive and worth pursuing, not to everyone that the Spirit can come. But to those who are willing to hear, those whose ears are open, the promise is great: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved – saved from the futility of a life lived without purpose, saved from a life lived without love.

Ah, but you may think, I don’t recall Acts saying anything about love. Well, perhaps not in so many words but come with me now to the gospel reading and to the quieter, Johannine account of the imparting of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. In John’s account, the risen Christ appears to the disciples and breathes on them. Receive the holy spirit, he says. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. And if Acts shows us the bestowal of the prophetic power to God’s people for which Moses hoped and which Jesus exemplified, John shows us the forgiving power which we see utterly made perfect in and through Jesus, charged to us also. This gospel is often read at ordinations to the priesthood and is taken to refer to the priestly role of pronouncing the absolution of sin. But a priest pronounces that which God bestows – for it is God, the Son of God and now God’s people who forgive sin.

This, then, is why Pentecost delivers us from a life lived without love: for what is love if it is not the triumph of the power of forgiveness over the power of hatred, of bearing grudges, of refusing to let go: and it is by no means accidental that the Greek word used in this text for ‘forgive’ means precisely that – let go.

And it seems to be that above all else, this is the transforming power of Pentecost. No longer does the forgiveness of sin depend on the rituals of the temple; no longer is there need for another mediator than Christ between God and his people. Now, it is for us to forgive sin, now it is for us as a Christian community to ensure that wrongdoing does not triumph.

We should remember too that this is not just the forgiveness of those things which are done against us which we don’t much like. This is much deeper. This is the sort of forgiveness which looks beyond what is done to what is, which says that the people who were not God’s people – Gentiles like you and me – are now God’s people, those who were unloved are now beloved. Those who were outcast are now welcome to the messianic banquet.

This Eucharistic feast in which we prepare now to share is nothing other than a foretaste of that which is to come, the heavenly banquet at which we are united with our Lord and God. If there is anything which we as a Church have to offer the world, it is this: this most holy communion by which we know that the stranger is made welcome, the foreigner given citizenship, the dirty cleansed, the injured made whole and the unlovely loved. And to this feast we are admitted, even ordinary nothing special people like me and you because the Lord has poured out his spirit upon his people and all God’s own are indeed prophets, all God’s church shares now in the priestly role of Christ and all who wish to have their sins forgiven and their hearts made clean have only to ask in sincerity and truth.

Let us remember this in the week to come. For us, there may be no sound of mighty wind, no tongues of flame. But to us is given the love which knows no bounds – and to us too is given the charge to forgive as we are forgiven, to love even as we are loved by our Lord and our God to whom be all glory and might, majesty and power now and forever.

Amen.

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