Gather, grow, go
Text: John 20:19–23
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Our gospel reading for today is the same one we heard read on the Second Sunday of Easter only a handful of weeks ago. That was of course in the context of celebrating Christ’s resurrection and the way He brought peace to the disciples in their fear and uncertainty.
As we hear the same text again on Pentecost, our focus is on the Spirit that is given to the disciples that day. They get a sneak peek before the rest of the believers receive the Spirit with tongues of fire fifty days later. It is that same Spirit whom we believe “calls, gathers, and enlightens the whole Christian church on earth,” (Luther’s Explanation of the Third Article of the Creed) even today.
We’ve been on a bit of a journey as a congregation over the last twelve months or so. At our Elections Meeting in November, we adopted a new set of mission, vision, and action statements, summarised in the tagline, “gather, grow, go.” These “three g’s” are simply a reordering of what we say the Spirit does with the Church. We believe the Spirit calls, gathers, and enlightens us; He gathers, enlightens (grows), and calls (sends to go) us.
As today is also the day of our Annual General Meeting, it is fitting for us to reflect on who we are as a congregation and as the people of God, and what we exist to do.
At the South East Zone Ladies One Day Retreat on Thursday, we explored this theme under the headings, “gather”, “grow”, and “go”.
They will be our three points for today as well: the Spirit gathers His people, the Spirit brings growth (enlightens), and the Spirit goes with (calls) us.
The Spirit gathers His people
We heard the account of the Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost and Jesus’ gifting of the same Spirit to the disciples fifty days earlier. On both occasions, the people involved were already gathered in one place when the Spirit came upon them.
On the day of the resurrection, the Twelve minus Judas and Thomas were in that locked room for fear of the Jews. They feared for their lives because they had supported Jesus and it was entirely possible that they might suffer the same fate as their teacher. In their fear and uncertainty, they got one thing right: they knew they needed to be together.
On the day of Pentecost, the context is a bit different of course. Jesus has ascended to heaven, having given the disciples the commission to go and make disciples of all nations. In Acts 1, we read that the disciples returned to Jerusalem and spent a lot of time in prayer together. They had also found a replacement for Judas in Matthias to bring the number of apostles back up to twelve. It doesn’t seem like there was much more of a plan at this point.
But we read in Acts 2: “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in once place.” Before Pentecost became a celebration of the Holy Spirit, it was actually a Jewish festival. According to Jewish tradition, it’s believed that God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses fifty days after the Passover, which might be why they were all together. Regardless, we know that in both cases of the Spirit’s arrival, the people had already been gathered.
Jesus has a habit of taking old traditions and making them new:
During the celebration of Passover, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. That also established a “new covenant” in His own blood, as opposed to the old covenant between God and Israel.
The old sacrificial system was completely fulfilled when the Son of God gave His own life for the sin of the world. Now, the forgiveness of sins is available to anyone that repents and believes in the gospel.
Jesus rose the day after the traditional Sabbath, establishing a new Sabbath on Sunday. Christians around the world gather on Sunday mornings as a commemoration of the resurrection and the new Sabbath.
The original Feast of Weeks, commemorating the revelation of the Ten Commandments, is transformed into Pentecost which commemorates the arrival of the Holy Spirit and effectively the birth of the Christian Church.
When the day of Pentecost came, there were people from all over the place gathered in this house, and even various languages were spoken. It’s as if God planned all this to provide the perfect situation to send His Spirit into and create this moment of unity despite their differences.
On the day of the resurrection and at Pentecost, the people were gathered with no idea that the Holy Spirit was about to arrive. God is responsible for bringing these people together. God gathers His people. More specifically, the Holy Spirit gathers His people.
You came to this gathering today because the Spirit planted that thought in your mind at some stage in your life. Whether it was this morning or so long ago that you don’t remember it, the Spirit gave you enough reason to want to be here. Maybe He brought you here through your parents when you were very young. Maybe He used Facebook’s very intrusive algorithm to give you an ad for something church-related only yesterday. However you came to be among God’s people in this gathering today, it is no accident.
This gathering has one major difference between those disciples in the locked room and those believers at Pentecost. They didn’t know what was coming. In many ways, we do.
Those people didn’t anticipate that the Holy Spirit would come to them on those two occasions, or at least in those exact ways. However, we gather in this place because we expect things to happen. We expect to have our sins forgiven. We expect God to speak to us. We expect to be blessed. We expect the Holy Spirit to come to us when we gather. Why? Because God says so and because these things happen every single week without fail.
Those people gathered with little-to-no expectation or anticipation. We gather with extremely high expectations and they are consistently met for us. This is all because it’s not us who does the gathering—the Holy Spirit gathers His people.
The Spirit brings growth in His people
To gather in God’s presence is a wonderful thing in and of itself. After all, that is essentially the definition of heaven itself. However, we are not here simply to enjoy each other’s company or even to enjoy God’s company. The Spirit gathers His people to bring about growth in them.
In speaking about this growth at the One Day Retreat this week, Pastor Joel from Bordertown referred to the very well-known saying of Jesus about the vine and the branches. Jesus says:
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4,5)
It’s quite common for us to say that we come to church to grow in our faith. I would argue that isn’t entirely true. Primarily, we come here to be fed. Fed by the bread of life in the Word; fed by Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine. We come to Divine Service to be fed and to be served by Christ Himself.
The branch doesn’t decide to grow by itself. Branches grow because the vine sustains them. If a branch is separated from its vine, it’s just a dead stick. A branch that is attached to the vine is attached to its source of life. Then, with some maintenance from the vigneron, that branch becomes bigger and stronger and eventually produces fruit.
In the same way, we can’t decide to grow in our faith, let alone produce that growth. All we can do as branches is to stay connected to the vine. All we can do is put ourselves in the best position to be fed.
And how do we stay connected to Christ? Where is the best place to be fed? Right where you are now: in that pew/seat and at the altar. Here, you are fed with every spiritual nourishment you could ever need—the forgiveness of sins in all its forms: spoken, preached, and even consumed.
As St Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Co. 3:6).
Growing is about moving from one state of being to another. A seedling grows into a fruiting tree. A student grows into a professional. A child grows into an adult.
A Christian grows into Christ. We don’t become the man Himself of course, but we do grow in Him and become more like Him.
As we read and listen to the Word of God, receive His forgiveness, and participate in the life of Christian community, we grow in our knowledge of God, our ability to receive His grace, and we even grow in holiness.
The Spirit enlightens us—deepens our knowledge—and sanctifies us—makes us holy. We seek to live holy lives—that is, lives that God would be happy with—but our ability to do that is all thanks to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit brings growth in His people.
The Spirit goes with His people
Having been gathered and then fed, we are as ready as we’ll ever be to be sent. After giving His peace to His scared and confused disciples, Jesus says: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
What does that mean exactly? Are we really sent by God in the same way that Jesus was? Does that mean we are sent to do the same things Jesus did? Do we have the same mission objectives that Jesus had? Yes and no.
We are not sent by God to die on a cross to save the world from sin—that has already been done. Regardless, us dying on a cross would only be our just punishment for sin anyway. Only Jesus’ death could save the world.
However, just like Jesus, we are sent by God to tell people the good news of salvation to all people, to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19). It is mission impossible, but it’s not our mission to achieve—God initiated it by promising His Son and then delivering Him, and God will continue His mission through His Spirit. It is that same Spirit, and that same mission, that lives in us. We are continuing and sharing in Christ’s continual mission to bring all people to Himself. This mission is not a requirement or an order—it is a joy and a privilege to participate in.
Gathering, growing, and going is not always in such a logical order. It makes sense that we come together, develop some knowledge and skills, and then go out to do the work. It’s more of a continual cycle than a linear process. That’s often how the Spirit works; not always according to our logic, but according to His will.
However, what we do know is that these three things—gathering, growing, going—are all constantly involved in the life of the people of God and in the life of the Christian Church on earth. All three are connected and rely on each other. The Spirit continually “calls, gathers, and enlightens the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”
May the Spirit, who came to each of us in Baptism and continues to abide in us, keep us united with Jesus and with each other in the one true faith. Amen.
[1] Luther’s Explanation to the Third Article of the Creed
