I wonder if they noticed as the miracle was happening? Five loaves and two fish broken up isn’t a lot is it, and yet as it goes around that great crowd everyone has enough to eat and be satisfied. I wonder if they noticed it was going further than expected, I wonder if they noticed that the supply didn’t seem to be running out. Five thousand fed, and, as Matthew alone notes, that’s just counting the men.
What does it mean to be a Christian? Is it about an extra set of practices we need to keep: reading the Bible, praying, doing good? Is it about a few extra things in our diary like worship on Sundays and other things throughout the week? Is it about a new set of beliefs we sign up to and say ‘yes, that’s what I believe’ as we do each week in the Creeds? All of those things are true, but they don’t get to the heart of it, they’re the working out of a bigger and more fundamental truth: to be a Christian is to be adopted into the family of the God of the Universe.
In the lead up to, the day of, and the days that follow Pentecost we see the Holy Spirit at work, in the preparations, in the driving out of the disciples in mission, and in the welcoming of people from every tribe, language, people and nation.
John the Baptist has sent some of his disciples to Jesus because John is starting to have doubts. All his prophecies about the coming Messiah involved decisive action, it was time to choose, time to walk in God’s ways or reject them and find yourself rejected. He spoke of the coming judgement and harvest, fire and wrath. But Jesus is just walking about, teaching and healing. So is Jesus the one John was expecting? Or is there someone else still to come who will do all that John expected?
As Paul moves into the final part of his letter his attention turns to the second of the issues he wants to address, work. Whilst he’d mentioned it in passing in a few places in his first letter, here he dedicates the second longest section to this topic, clearly it is becoming an issue. There are some in the Thessalonian congregation who are idle. And here Paul doesn’t just mean lazy as we might assume, although there is that, but he also means they are not or are slow to follow the teaching they have been given. They’re not working, instead they are relying on the generosity of others to sustain them.
Every year when I come to preach on Remembrance Sunday, without fail, there is more violence, war and innocent blood shed than the previous year I had preached. So the end must be near right? Jesus is coming back soon, look at all the signs, right?
We’re in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians again, one of Paul’s earliest letters and therefore one of the earliest texts in the New Testament. And having spoken into the suffering of the Thessalonians in chapter 1, assuring them of God’s justice and care for them, Paul now turns to the first of two issues which are troubling the church there; the question of Jesus’ return.
What is the Church? We talk about coming to Church, sometimes we might even talk about being part of a Church of the Church. But what is the Church, what are we actually talking about when we use that word.
In some ways the end of the Creed feels a bit like an add on. A bit like the list of items at the end of the Apostle’s Creed but expanded a little. To me it’s always felt a bit like ‘oh, and all these other bits too’. But in studying it the past few weeks I’ve realised it’s part of a cohesive whole, it’s not just tacked on.
Go, but wait. Those are the final words of Jesus to his disciples. You’re to go into all the world and be my witnesses, passing on the Gospel message of the forgiveness of sins through Christ and his death and resurrection. But wait, wait until you have received the Holy Spirit. In some ways it feels like a contradiction but it’s not. Because this task isn’t to be done through our own efforts, our own skill and ingenuity, but by the power of the Spirit.