The Woolly Mammoth (Pentecost Sunday)

Full service at Cramlington Parish where this sermon was preached.

Do you know the correct answer to a question I was once asked in a school science exam?

Q. Woolly mammoths survived in climates with sub-zero temperatures. What physical characteristic of the WOOLLY mammoth enabled it to survive in such freezing conditions?

The answer seems obvious, right?

Well, not for me! My teacher was amazed that I had managed to answer all of the difficult questions correctly in the test but tripped over the simple ones. He was particularly amused by the answer I gave to the Woolly Mammoth question.  In fact, he made me stand up at the front of the class while he read my answer.

I had said that the physical characteristic of the woolly mammoth that enabled it to survive in freezing weather was… it’s tusks.

My explanation of how this helped the mammoth was a long and detailed description of how the woolly mammoth would use it’s tusks to cut holes in iced-over lakes and rivers, catch the fish beneath the ice, eat the fish, thus creating a metabolic process of digestion that generated internal body heat and kept them warm.

My teacher couldn’t understand how I didn’t spot the answer to the question in the name of the WOOLLY Mammoth. The truth was, I had spotted the answer but it seemed too obvious, too simple. I was looking for a deeper, more complicated and spectacular answer. And, because I was searching for a more difficult answer, I missed what was right in front of me.

"Show me the Father and we will be content/satisfied?"

I think my attitude in that exam was similar to Philip’s attitude in this morning’s Gospel passage. He wanted to find God, He wanted to access Him in a deeper way, to know Him in an awesome and spectacular way.

He said to Jesus: “Show us the Father and we will be content.” Philip seemed dissatisfied with the level of knowledge of God he already had, he was looking for higher awareness, a spectacular experience, the bells and whistles and fireworks of an encounter with the Divine.

Jesus’s answer points out that Philip had missed the fundamental point.

‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”

Philip was so busy looking for the spectacular, searching for an intense experience of God, that he hadn’t realised who he had been spending his every day with for the last three years: Jesus, the Word of God in human flesh living among humanity. He hadn’t recognised God’s presence with him in his mundane, day-to-day life.

And Jesus’ answer tries to reveal this fact to Philip and the other disciples. He asks them to think back over the last few years. “Have I been with you all this time?...”

He wanted them to reflect on the times he’d met them at their workplaces – whether that was calling Matthew away from his tax collector job, or promoting Peter, Andrew, James and John from catching fish to catching people.

Jesus wanted the disciples to remember the days he had joined them on their fishing boats, the many times they had used their boats to sail him back and forth across lakes to the towns and villages where he would teach and minister to the crowds. 

He wanted to remind them of these daily, ordinary activities they’d accompanied him on, as well as the spectacular highlights: Jesus calming a storm; Jesus walking on the water; Jesus enabling them to catch a miraculous amount of fish after a long and unfruitful fishing trip.

Jesus points them to reminise on all the times they had sat and eaten meals together.  The weddings they’d attended, the dinner invitations to Lazarus, Mary and Martha’s house, Jesus stepping in when his disciples argued over the table about who would be the most important in God’s kingdom; Jesus sharing the last supper and washing his disciples feet. He wants them to reminise on all the everyday meals he had shared with them over the years as well as the times he miraculously multiplied fish and a few loaves of bread in order to feed thousands of hungry people; or the wedding in Canaan when he performed his first miracle of turning jars of water into wine to save the embarrassment of a newly wedded couple and their families when the alcohol ran out the reception.

“Have I been with you all this time and yet you still don’t know me?”

Jesus had lived life with his disciples. They had been up close and personal. He had shouldered the hurt feelings of his friend, Martha, who couldn’t understand why Jesus hadn’t prevented her brother Lazarus’s death. He shared their grief, when he wept at the graveside of his friend. Jesus shared their joy when he brought Lazarus back to life again, revealing to the disciples through this miracle that he was the Resurrection and the Life, that He was God. And yet, after all this time they still didn’t know who He was.

Philip had glimpsed the spectacular in every miracle he’d witnessed. He’d caught sight of God’s powerful works in Jesus, yet he hadn’t recognised God in Jesus in all of their daily ordinary interactions.  He was dissatisfied because He wanted to meet the Higher Power and didn’t realise that Jesus is the Higher Power, Jesus was what God looks like living in the world He created. Living as a human, carrying out God’s actions, speaking God’s words, living God’s will.

Can we relate to Philip this Pentecost Sunday? 

Our reading from the book of Acts describes the day of Pentecost. A room full of disciples are waiting in Jerusalem because they had seen the crucified and resurrected Jesus, and he had told them to wait in that city until they received the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.

The description of what happened that day is spectacular. A violent wind blowing down from heaven and into the house they were sitting in. Tongues of fire resting on their heads. The Holy Spirit filling them and enabling them to speak fluently in languages they had never learned. The Holy Spirit enabling them to share the Gospel with the diverse crowds gathered in Jerusalem, with no language barriers to inhibit it.

The Day of Pentecost, the founding of the Church, is a spectacular event but can we sometimes be susceptible to Philip’s way of thinking? Having an underlying dissatisfaction when we are not experiencing the Holy Spirit in a spectacular way? Is our expectation so focused on the extraordinary – speaking in tongues, jumping, shouting, fainting, dramatic healings -  that we sometimes aren’t recognising the Holy Spirit’s presence in the everyday and ordinary?

When we are in Philip’s mindset, we can find ourselves discontent and dejected unless we experience the Spirit in a spectacular way. We can find ourselves ignoring the full character of the Holy Spirit and the role the Holy Spirit plays in the life of a believer.

This Pentecost Sunday, what might God be saying to those of us who are in – or have ever fallen into – Philip’s way of thinking?

Might God the Spirit be asking us the same question that Jesus asked Philip?

“Have I been with you all this time and yet you still don’t know me?”

If so, what do we need to know?

Who is the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is the promised gift from God.

Jesus told his disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You KNOW him, because he ABIDES with you, and he will be IN you.”

We know the Holy Spirit initially because he draws us to God, leads us to repentance and lives in us from the moment we come to faith. The Bible says that it is the Holy Spirit that makes us know that we belong to God and enables us to call Him ‘Abba, Father’.

1)   The Holy Spirit is one of the persons of the Godhead.

2)   The Holy Spirit was present at and involved in creation (Genesis 1:2; Psalm 33:6)

3)   The Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets with the words of God (2 Peter 1:21)

4)   The bodies of those who are in Christ are described as temples of God because the Holy Spirit lives in us (1 Corinthians 3:16; and 6:19)

5)   The Holy Spirit is a person, not a mere force. He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). He has a will (1 Corinthians 12:4-7), He is a friend and companion of believers (2 Corinthians 13:14)

6)   The Holy Spirit seals us, marks us as belonging to God for eternity: Ephesians 1:14 ‘When you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession" (Like a sticker placed on a picture at an art gallery indicates that it has been purchased and is owned by someone who will collect it at a later date.)

The Holy Spirit in us is confirmation that we belong to God.

What do we know about the Holy Spirit’s role in the life of a believer?

The Holy Spirit:

Convicts

Fills

Empowers

Seals

Sanctifies [all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.]

Reveals God’s thoughts (1 Corinthians 2:10-11)

Teaches

Guides believers into all truth

Comforts

Helps us in our weakness

Intercedes for us.

Empowers us to live our lives in a way that reveals what God looks like.

The bible tells us that the Holy Spirit comes bearing gifts.

Both natural and supernatural. Gifts of healing, wisdom, knowledge, faith, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, various kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.

The Holy Spirit is a wonderful gift, equipping us with everything we need to navigate life.

The Evidence of His presence is the Fruit

 The Holy Spirit gives us so many gifts, spectacular and ordinary but the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in us is not in how many natural or supernatural gifts we have received, but it is in the fruit produced in our everyday lives.

What are His fruits?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22)

Maybe you listen to the list and are patting yourself on the back about how you are successfully producing all of the fruit in large quantities. But, if you’re anything like me, you might be aware of the fruit of the spirit that you are deficient in.

Maybe some of us are in a barren season, a time where we feel dehydrated, lacking in our ability to show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to the people and situations we encounter in our daily lives.

But we don’t have to despair. Not only does the Holy Spirit live inside us, we are promised that the Holy Spirit will replenish us, that we can come to God at anytime, ask Him to help us, and He will refuel and refill us, providing an ever-flowing source of power to help us in the everyday.

Because, as Philip was reminded, the Holy Spirit is with us even in the most ordinary of days.

The Holy Spirit is with us when we are struggling with challenges in our family relationships. He is with us when we are battling unforgiveness and resentment.

Sometimes we forget that we can invite the Holy Spirit into all aspects of our mundane everyday. Coordinating the family calendar, the often-chaotic mornings and school runs, tackling the never-ending laundry basket, keeping on top of the housework, helping with homework, tantrums and tears. Battling health difficulties, struggling to get an appointment with the GP, trying to stay calm when we are tired and stressed.

The Holy Spirit power is within us, equipping us to tackle each one of the everyday challenges we face.

The Holy Spirit is with us in our workplaces. Helping us to do our jobs with integrity, to own up to mistakes, to be a support to our colleagues. Helping us to handle uncertainty and job instability. Available to help us handle stressful environments.

On our commutes and in our communities, it can be easy to have our heads buried in a book or our phones, our ears covered with headphones, but when we remember that the Holy Spirit is with us in the everyday, we can listen out for where and who the Spirit is blowing us to.

The Holy Spirit is with us in the everyday, seemingly unspectacular, ways we support our community within our church. Whether that is through collections for food banks. Being generous with time and resources to keep coffee mornings and messy churches running. Providing friendship for people who may be lonely, and a much-needed free children’s activity for struggling families.

Filled and refilled by the Holy Spirit, we, as Christians, are called to demonstrate what humanity looks like when walked with God.

We are not perfect. We all have struggles with moral failings and personal challenges. But we have this treasure in clay jars. The Holy Spirit living in us shines through the cracks. In our weakness we can lean on God’s strength and it is evident that the ability is not ours but from God.

Just as we see with Peter, who a few weeks prior had denied even knowing Jesus because he was afraid of the consequences from the Romans and religious authorities, but was suddenly able to boldly preach the Good News of Jesus Christ to hundreds of people on the day of Pentecost because he was empowered by the arrival of the Holy Spirit in his life.

Because, the point that Philip missed, the point that we miss whenever we get overly focussed on seeking the spectacular, and fail to recognise the Holy Spirit in the everyday – is the purpose of God’s presence.

The purpose of God’s presence in the world as a human was to die for the sins of humanity. There is nothing more spectacular that what happened on the cross.

 "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" 2 Corinthians 5:19. 

It means that God, through Jesus Christ, is actively working to restore a right relationship between Himself and humanity. This reconciliation involves not counting people's sins against them. 

Essentially, at the Cross, God is making peace with the world through Christ, and the message of this reconciliation is entrusted to all believers to share. 

In need of a refill?

Each believer has been given the Holy Spirit to carry out the works of God. That’s why Jesus says that we will do greater works than he did on earth when he was confined to one human body.

We are called to be God’s hands and God’s feet in this world. He wants to work through us in spectacular as well as ordinary everyday ways.

And if this morning any of us is feeling drained and as though we’re running on empty, God invites us to drink in more of His Spirit.

If we have been focusing on the wrong thing and not noticing the Holy Spirit in our everyday, we can be filled again. God is not out of reach. He is within us, He promises to fill us, to refresh us and fire us up again so that we have enough to help us in our lives and to overflow into the lives of those around us.

The Holy Spirit wants to live God’s life through us. Whether that is being used as an instrument of healing for someone in pain: Speaking words that are life-giving and encouraging to someone at a time when they are in despair.

Or whether it is the way we respond to the culture and mood of our society. In a time of economic struggle, at a time when political agitators are stirring up hatred towards the weak, vulnerable and impoverished – how do we engage? Do we lean into the human tendency of tribalism and distrust, or do we live and act as God acts:

God [who] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and the foreigner., giving them food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

In a time when the temptation can be to think selfishly, the Holy Spirit calls us to give generously to those in need.

In these troubled times, in these last days, God promises to pour out His Spirit on all of his sons and daughters, the young and the old. He promises to guide us as we navigate the turbulence of our society, the wars and natural disasters occurring all around the globe.

He promises to give us vision and hope for the future – even while there is so much fear and uncertainty everywhere. He will empower us to boldly declare the good news, as Peter did, that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This is a great commission, a divine responsibility of every believer, and God has provided us with a gift that will enable us to carry it out.

So, this Pentecost Sunday, may the Holy Spirit come and fill and refill us so that we are fuelled to leave these doors and demonstrate the fruit – the love, joy, peace, faithfulness, patience, kindness, self-control – that results from the Spirit’s presence in our every-day lives.