Pentecost Sunday  8am                                19^th May 2013

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit.

Thirst for God is a gift of God.

It’s the one who is thirsty who comes to drink of him and that thirst, the exercise of our faith, is his gift even if it’s something we have to exercise or act upon.

The writer of Psalm 42 says As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God Psalm 42v1

At Pentecost we are led to think from that sort of physical thirst towards deepening the spiritual thirst which will keep God and all he has done for us in Jesus Christ central to our life.

St Bernadette was a shepherdess who lived in the Pyrenee mountains in the south of France over 150 years ago. She had something of a thirst for God.

One day she had a vision of Jesus’ Mother who told her to lift some stones in the ground and a stream of water slowly emerged.

That stream is well known today. It is in Lourdes where many people who’re thirsty for God go and find healing and refreshment. I’ve been there, drunk the water and bathed in it for healing.

Here’s some of the water (Lourdes water). I’ve put some in the porch holy water this morning so you could take some on the way out.

I said people who’re thirsty for God go to Lourdes and find healing and refreshment but you don’t need to go to Lourdes.

The stone you need to lift is here. By that I mean the things that weight upon your heart and quench the flow of the Holy Spirit in your life.

 What does it mean to be thirsty for God?

It means to know your need of him and to be actively addressing that need through prayer, reading scripture, and receiving the sacraments.

Our Lord taught in Matthew 5: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake for they shall be satisfied. If you’re not actually hungering this morning are you at least hungering to hunger, or hungering to hunger to hunger?

To want more of God in your life we need to pray and through prayer you also receive more of God in your life.  It’s an extraordinary circle and it’s no circle of delusion.

I remember once feeling God was a long way away and saying to him ‘God if you’re there show yourself’. I happened to be walking in the garden and I felt a leaf on a tree speak to me: ‘I made you. I love you. I want to fill you with my Spirit’ That was when I first experienced the Holy Spirit in power and it helped me to pray more easily and love other people more.

When you’re thirsty for God and tell him so he gives you his Holy Spirit.

Before Pentecost Mary and the apostles kept a nine day prayer vigil to express their thirst for God and then we read how At Pentecost as we just heard they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind…and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

To be filled you need to be empty.

Holy Spirit Sunday is a challenge to all of our self-sufficiency. It’s a reminder that to be filled by the Spirit we need the resolve to empty ourselves in service.

Christians, to continue the water image of today’s Gospel, are made like fresh water pools. These need both an inlet and an outlet.

Water goes stagnant when it lacks either an inlet or an outlet. So it is with our souls. They go stagnant unless they both receive from God and give to God.

Pentecost is something very personal. It’s something that can happen in our lives today as either we lift the stones that block the inlet or increase our outgoings in venturesome love and service.

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit.

Come down, O love divine, seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardour glowing.
O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.