Each year, at the festival of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Spirit upon the ragtag band of Jesus followers who would be formed into the church.

It is understandable that the inexplicable phenomena that took place as part of the event often takes our attention. The wind, the tongues of fire and unusual languages were all intended to communicate important aspects of what was taking place.

Anticipating the Spirit’s arrival, Jesus speaks of this coming as the arrival of an advocate - The Spirit of Truth. The work of revealing truth is perhaps the singular task of the Spirit - the truth of Jesus and the truth of each of us as well!

The story of the Good Samaritan has long been heralded as the example of how to care. But it begs the question whether this is an example we take seriously - any more than Jesus original audience would have.

When Jesus first told this story, every character performed true to form except the Samaritan. The Samaritan, by contrast, behaved in a manner that was simply unbelievable!

What do we make of this unbelievable tale? Is it simply a nice folksy story about how life would be better if people were more kind to each other? Or does it whisper something more of the true nature of God’s kingdom and how we might encounter it in our own lives?!

What is it with Jesus and lambs? How did this fluffy, gentle creature become so central to Jesus’ teaching and eternal identity?

There is something about the non-threatening gentleness of the lamb, even in the midst of the kill-or-be-killed ways of our world, that speaks of the eternal nature of God’s kingdom ways. Uncompromising gentleness is a stark contrast next to the intrinsic viciousness of how our world does its business.

The power of the gentleness is in where its confidence is placed. This is not confidence in brute force or dominance. Gentleness is the lived assurance that God’s ways will prevail in the end. Gentleness is a sign that the kingdom is among us.

When a promise is made, we are wise to consider the past form of the one making the promise. Have they been true to their word, and is what they promised in keeping with what we have observed of their character.

When God promises (through Isaiah) that something new is coming, we can be assured by God’s consistent faithfulness to past promises made. Also, God has consistently done hitherto unimagined things among his people.

Making humanity central to the creation story was new. Calling Abraham out to an unknown land was new. Making a covenant with the people was new.

Isaiah indicates God is again about to do something beyond the imagining of the people. Yet we know a good deal of the character of our God. It may be new (and thus unknown), but we can be sure it will be good - better than we could imagine!

The story of the Prodigal Son has become known as a yarn about a wayward child and a very gracious parent. There is much more going on in this outrageous narrative that Jesus wove for his eager audience.

The behaviours of each of the characters reveal something important. Together they suggest a way of being together that is barely comprehensible to our worldly understanding. A way in which the things we simply assume to be the most important are virtually passed over... And that which we almost dare not hope to be possible, is revealed to be true.

Yes. God loves us that much. Can you believe it?!

For the fledgling church, struggling to find its place in a political culture determined to snuff it out, there were deep questions about where the adventure of following Christ was likely to take them.

The Revelation of John seeks to offer some clarity and hope in response to that wondering. Throughout its dramatic visions there is recognition of the challenging realities the people of faith were facing.

Yet, the vision also holds unswervingly to the lordship of Christ and the ultimate fruition of God’s kingdom. This talk explores a little more what that looks like.

In his high priestly prayer of intercession on behalf of his disciples, Jesus asks his Father for those things which would be essential for them.

Oneness is an intriguing inclusion. Presumably Jesus, with his insight into human nature, would have known just how challenging being one would prove to be for his followers. Setting aside the splintering of the church into uncountable denominations, it is difficult enough for a single congregation to be one.

Yet the disciples being one is a key and powerful testimony to the truth of who Jesus is. It is also a persuasive pointer to the salvation of the world.

This talk is part 2 of a 3 part series on the Revelation.

There is an inevitable tension between the world’s way and the way of Christ. We feel it in our personal lives (see Romans 7). It can also manifest as a societal tension.

Established power easily becomes threatened by the alternate frame of power and meaning that the way of Christ represents. Not the threat of being overthrown by brute force. It is the threat that love and truth pose to deception and intimidation.

Any attempt to stamp out this threat makes the existing fragile power more transparent. The more force is applied… the more those in power reveal their ultimate powerlessness in the face of the eternal kingdom.

The way of Christ stands through and beyond time. There are seasons of tribulation. Yet, the way of Christ prevails.

After the ructions that took place with Jesus crucifixion and the preaching of his resurrection, John (the writer of the book of The Revelation) was exiled on the island of Patmos.

It would seem this was an entirely sensible thing for the authorities to do (from a Roman imperial perspective). The Revelation is a profoundly subversive text that dares to indicate an entirely alternate structure of power and meaning.

For us today, as people shaped by centuries of Christian infused Western culture, the starkness of the challenge to assumed structures of meaning and power may not be obvious. Think about it for a moment...

According to The Revelation, the greatest expression of power and authority in all of creation is a lamb! Seriously!?!

Isaiah looked over the horizon of his day and glimpsed a new day when life would be so different to the ways he was experiencing that the only way he could describe it was as a ‘new heavens and a new earth’!

The seemingly fruitless struggle that characterised so much of his people’s history would come to a close. Something altogether new was to be created - not by the people themselves - but by the hand of the one who watches over and created them in the first place.

The tenor and flavour of this new creation would be as different from the existing experience of life as chalk is to cheese. Rather than fear as the central organizing dynamic of communal life, there would be rejoicing and gladness.

Isaiah could not have known that what he was glimpsing... what he was hoping for... was the way of Jesus of Nazareth. The way of self-giving that goes beyond death and on into resurrection life!