Our congratulations to Stephen and Victoria on their marriage.
With Michael and Annabelle they are forming a building block of the Church - a Christian family.
They've known each other 13 years. Victoria's roots are in the village and Stephen's in Burgess Hill. Victoria's a beauty therapist and Stephen an electrician.
Today they pledge to inner beauty and connect to a power beyond this world.
Stephen has had an adrenalin rush or two caused when someone says a wire's dead and it isn't!
Today through their marriage blessing and their daughter's baptism they're connecting with a live line.
This morning they with Annabelle connect to Holy Spirit power as they receive a special anointing from God.
It's the week before Pentecost so we're all due a reminder of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Many think Christmas is the greatest Christian feast but it's not. Easter is. Christmas isn't even in second place. Pentecost - alias Whitsun - is, so Christmas comes third.
The birth of Jesus is famous because he died and rose at Easter. He's also the one who sent the Holy Spirit on the Church at Pentecost so his resurrection power could be with her to the end of time.
With Michael and Annabelle they are forming a building block of the Church - a Christian family.
They've known each other 13 years. Victoria's roots are in the village and Stephen's in Burgess Hill. Victoria's a beauty therapist and Stephen an electrician.
Today they pledge to inner beauty and connect to a power beyond this world.
Stephen has had an adrenalin rush or two caused when someone says a wire's dead and it isn't!
Today through their marriage blessing and their daughter's baptism they're connecting with a live line.
This morning they with Annabelle connect to Holy Spirit power as they receive a special anointing from God.
It's the week before Pentecost so we're all due a reminder of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Many think Christmas is the greatest Christian feast but it's not. Easter is. Christmas isn't even in second place. Pentecost - alias Whitsun - is, so Christmas comes third.
The birth of Jesus is famous because he died and rose at Easter. He's also the one who sent the Holy Spirit on the Church at Pentecost so his resurrection power could be with her to the end of time.
Christianity is the full revelation of God. You can find traces of that revelation in other religions but the full picture is the Trinity. We bless Stephen, Victoria and Annabelle today in the name of the Father who made the world, of the Son who was send to overcome our sins and of the Holy Spirit who brings the whole of God into each moment.
The Holy Spirit is the God in the present moment bringing God’s love, power and joyful goodness to play in our lives.
Of course when one person of the Trinity acts all act. We can’t say the Son and the Spirit were absent at the creation, or that the Father and the Spirit were absent when the Son came on the earth or that when we experience the Holy Spirit this morning the Father and the Son are not in tow.
When God acts, the whole of God acts. Bear this in mind as I continue.
Our first reading tells how the Holy Spirit led the apostles at the beginning in the choice of St Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot as one of the Twelve. The same Spirit will guide Stephen and Victoria in the important decisions of their life.
Jesus says to his Father in today's Gospel reading 'the words you gave to me I have given to them'. The Christian good news is given to be handed on and the Holy Spirit is our God sent motivator. Stephen, Victoria and all of us know good news of a God who loves us and that's the most precious thing we could share with anyone.
Of course God can't be seen. Like the air around us he's invisible until the wind blows. Breathe on me breath of God we just sang. Breathe on Stephen, Victoria, Michael, Annabelle and all of us.
No one has ever seen God the Bible says but Jesus Christ made him known by a 33 year life, a cruel death, a glorious resurrection and by plugging us into the power of this at Pentecost.
Marriage and baptism, like the other five sacraments, are personal Pentecost’s. They plug us in to Holy Spirit living full of the surprises of God.
Last Sunday one of the cancer patients we prayed for in Church texted us catching the notices slot to tell us God saved his life through prayer. We were all reminded that God is God of the present moment ready to speak into it where there’s faith to welcome his gifts.
May Stephen, Victoria and all of us have eyes to see and engage in joy with the surprises of God.
Today is a new beginning for the Frettens but every day is a new beginning for all of us. It’s the first day of the rest of our lives.
May the Holy Spirit come upon us this day to make it his own so we live to see his possibilities opening up in our lives, possibilities that are richer than our widest imagining.
This Church building is made up of hundreds of stones quarried 900 years ago in West Hoathly. Here's a slab from that quarry.
The Frettens are themselves today made a building block in our Church since the real building blocks of the Church are families called into Christian fellowship.
May God pave the way for this in making St Giles attractive to all four of them, and may he make them a blessing to him, to St Giles and to all who share their lives in years to come.
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