[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters, this passage that I have read sounds almost like a great mobilization order. And indeed it is: Jesus is issuing His decree, His last earthly command to His disciples, to spread the reign of God throughout the whole earth. And then what happened on that first Pentecost was really like a great mobilization. A great movement was really started then, and then it spread to the ends of the earth. Those double tongues of fire and the roaring of the wind, which we read about in the Pentecost story, seem to be a symbol of the fact that there was a fire there, and the wind picked it up and carried it away. That is the essence of Pentecost: mission. So that Jesus sends out His own to preach His gospel, to witness to Him everywhere. There are two limits to this sending, this mission. The first is a geographical boundary: starting from Jerusalem and going through the whole country to the ends of the earth. The other is a temporal boundary: until the day of Jesus' return. So the testimony of Jesus must be heard both to the final frontier of the earth and to the last day of the world, to the end of time. That is why Pentecost was then, and still is, a celebration of mission, a celebration of being sent by Jesus.And, brothers and sisters, this great missionary movement really took off then, there, on the occasion of the first Pentecost, with unprecedented strength and dynamic momentum. Its first great upsurge was in the first century after Christ, when, through the apostles, the Gospel of Christ spread, reached Rome and Spain, almost to the very limits of the Roman Empire at that time. Then soon after came the second great wave of the same missionary impetus at the beginning of the Middle Ages, when mission spread to the rest of Europe. This was the period of conversion to Christianity of the pagan peoples of northern Europe and eastern Europe. And in a great third wave, from the 18th century onwards, through the so-called foreign missionary movement, it spread to other continents: to Asia, Africa, northern and southern Europe, America and the islands of the Pacific - so that now the testimony of Christ is indeed being heard to the ends of the earth and in all human languages. But it looks as if, after this great third surge, this great momentum of mission has slowed down a little. It is as if the wind that had been spreading the fire had lost its strength and was slowly coming to a complete standstill, having reached the final limit of the earth.
Well, brothers and sisters, this great command of Jesus to mobilise, "be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon you", has lost none of its relevance today, even after the three great upheavals. Jesus continues to send all who believe in Him, who claim Him as Lord. And He sends everyone to bear witness to Him. And He gives the power to do so by His Holy Spirit today just as He did in the past, only the way of sending, the way of mission, is different today than it was in the past. And there is no doubt that we have really entered a new period in the forms of mission. Today, and especially here, the missionary command for us is not to go to the East or the South to regions where the Gospel has never been heard of and to preach it there, but this mobilising power of the Spirit of Jesus is as present and as valid and effective today as it was then, only in a different direction and in a different form. How then? I see three main directions in particular for witnessing to Jesus in the world today. So one of the main forms of mission through Jesus today is to send Christians and Christians of Protestant and Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Orthodox and Anglican, and all denominations towards each other, to find each other. To recognise one another as brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters, one of the most striking miracles of Pentecost today is undoubtedly that Christians of all kinds throughout the world are beginning to discover that, despite all their differences in dogma, rite and ritual, they belong to one big family: the fraternal community of the children of our Father. And even if they are gathered in different flocks, the sheep gathered in different flocks all form one flock, the flock of one shepherd. Is it not a great thing, brothers and sisters, that today we can rejoice more and more that, beside the candlelit altar and the simple table of the Lord, in a small village in the Baranian mountains, or in Tokyo, or in Buenos Aires, or in Vienna, or in any other place on earth, on this very day, the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus await the flock of believers who desire to share in the merits of His death?! Is it not a great thing, brothers and sisters, that in the churches of the Orthodox churches in Siberia and the churches of the Copts in Abyssinia, as well as in this small whitewashed Reformed church of ours, or in the beautiful modern Roman Catholic church in the city of Major, we say with one heart and one mouth almost in unison, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name"? And 'I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, only Son of God and Holy Spirit'?
And do you know, dear brothers and sisters, that today the greatest Christian theologians in the world are no longer polemicising with each other, but learning from each other? And they do not emphasise what divides us, but what unites us! In fact, it is becoming increasingly common, even in Protestant-Roman Catholic relations, for them to minister in each other's churches. Today, then, the Spirit of God is especially mobilising us to witness to Jesus, who prayed in the great High Priestly prayer that "all may be one". May all who believe in Him be one. And let them not be one in order to form a great common Christian front against the unbelief of the world - for this motive is no longer of the Holy Spirit, it is an impure motive - but let them be one so that the world may believe that Jesus lives. So that the testimony of groups of people who confess Christ as Lord may be authentic before the world, so that the Church, the Church of Christ, may proclaim with one heart and one mouth to the world the great things of God and the eternal great commandment of love, and so keep the conscience of the world awake. In this striving for great unity, it is not a question of the different denominations developing and adopting a common dogma, that is to say, a system of doctrine and a common, uniform rite of worship, but precisely of living spiritual unity, the reality of belonging together under the lordship of one Christ, over and above all differences of doctrine and all differences of outward appearance. Today, this is one of the forms of the movement animated by the Holy Spirit. And you, dear brother, join with me in fanning and nourishing this fire by praying for it, and by praying that the consciousness that we are one people of one Father may become more and more alive in your own soul as well as in the soul of your friends of other denominations. We are all called Christians and Christians of the same Christ, and we are moving towards the fulfilment of our common hope. And this is where the marriage of mixed faiths has a particularly important role to play. Let every mixed-religion marriage be an authentic witness to the spiritual community for which Jesus prayed, that "all may be one". Jesus sends you, too, to find the sons of other faiths, your brothers and sisters, and to experience and deepen spiritual communion with them. This is one direction.
The other direction towards which the power of God's Holy Spirit is moving believers in Him today is the direction of the ministry of reconciliation. That is, to bear witness to the Jesus who said to his followers, almost testamentally, "I leave you peace, my peace I give to you". In the Bible, we often find expressions like this, that God is the God of peace and that Jesus is the author of peace and the worker of reconciliation always and everywhere. And from this, brothers and sisters, it follows that what we tend to think little about is that in every effort to work for reconciliation - between people or between peoples or between continents or even between currents of thought - every such effort has in some way the spirit of Christ, the Prince of Peace. And if we believe in what is written in the Book of Psalms in this way, that "God is King of all the earth" - All the earth! Not just the church, the earth! - "He reigns over the nations" - not just Christians, but over the nations - "He gives wisdom to the wise and understanding to the prudent"; that if we believe this, then I am not afraid to say that the world movement, which is growing ever more powerful, which condemns all wars, and rightly so, and which demands the peaceful resolution of international tensions, and rightly so, this powerful world movement is also, in a certain sense, the work of the Spirit of the Prince of Peace - yes, of the Holy Spirit. For God is Lord even over those who do not know Him. And He also moves the minds and emotions and intentions of those who do not seek His will at all. Imagine, brothers and sisters, what would happen if today war were the watchword of the world's powers: it would be terrible, it would be horrible! We have seen it before, but in the fact that today the mobilising command of the world is not war but peace, we can undoubtedly feel the moving power of the Spirit of the Prince of Peace, because of the divine powers that have appeared in Jesus on this earth and are working through Jesus, many more are prevailing among men than are represented by the Christian churches.
In other words, the Holy Spirit of God is at work among men outside the church, and I am convinced that all the true social sentiments, ideas and aspirations to which this world aspires today, and all the truly progressive ideas, such as social justice, or the consciousness of brotherhood, and all true humanistic thinking that seeks to make life more bearable here on this earth, has its deepest roots in Jesus. All this is His spiritual legacy, the influence of His spirituality on human thinking. I am therefore also convinced that the Spirit of Jesus is behind this great secular movement of our time, which is working for reconciliation. And it is our distinctive task as Christians in particular to fan this fire by our prayer and by our behaviour, by our words and by our conversation, so that this slogan, "peace", which is uttered by millions, may indeed be filled with the content and the energy that can bring about the peaceful resolution of the tensions of the world. And it is our task to pray that this word "peace" may be a word as true and pure and as powerful and authentic as the true, pure, powerful and authentic word of God that proclaims peace through Jesus to this world. Of course, first of all we ourselves must be filled with the peace of Christ. Of which He said, "I leave you peace". So we must first of all strive that in no corner of our own souls should there remain any unpeaceful anger, resentment, resentment, anger, hatred or the like. So that we may first of all be truly reconciled to God and man to the fullness of our hearts, and then spread this peace among men all around us. You know, do you not, that this world is full of the germs of discord, dissension and quarrels - in tiny human communities as well as in large human relationships - of sensitivity, envy, distrust. Now, then, whenever you reconcile angry people to one another; whenever you succeed in bridging a gulf between two people; whenever you succeed in quieting a troubled, resentful heart, you are always doing a work for which the Holy Spirit of God gives you the power. Then you are always moving in the direction that the wind of the Holy Spirit blows, because Jesus always moves those who believe in Him towards reconciliation.
Finally, brothers and sisters, the third form of witnessing for Jesus is directed toward the heart of another person. Today, we are not living in an age of mass evangelism, but of heart-to-heart witnessing and spreading. And the language of love is the most authentic and clearest way to bear witness to the life of Jesus. Everyone understands this. It is the least on earth and the most needed on this earth. You know, brothers and sisters, that all spiritual pain, all sorrow, all suffering, all bitterness, all feelings of injustice, all such passions are in fact nothing but an unquenched hunger and thirst, and that is the hunger and thirst for love. Just a few days ago, brothers and sisters, I read a very poignant article in a Swiss Reformed Church newspaper, entitled "What do we Jews expect from Christians?". Among other things, the author writes verbatim: "Christianity, as we know, is a religion of love for one's neighbour. Well then, we Jews would ask Christians, Christians who live in the spirit of the supreme doctrine of the Christian faith, not to exclude the people of Israel, from which the prophets, the apostles and even Jesus himself came, from their sublime circle of love for their neighbour. Let them consider us simply and objectively as fellow human beings, without favouritism but without hatred. Accept us without prejudice, for we are neither superior nor inferior to other children of God. Do not regard our religion, our synagogue, our faith, as something exotic or anachronistic, for we have many things in common, such as the Psalms, which we both pray, and the Ten Commandments, which we recite in church and synagogue week after week, and you, our common heavenly Father, whom you and we worship with equal devotion."
Brothers and sisters, I was moved by this because it expresses an unheard of modest demand: the demand to be considered a fellow human being without prejudice. That is what the world around us longs for. It is what people around us are waiting for, to be seen as human. Simply to see them as human beings, as people like ourselves, and not just Jews, who are closest to us geographically and religiously, but all people and all kinds of people. But Jesus has given us and continues to give us strength through his Holy Spirit to do much more than that: to love as brothers and sisters. So many times have people been caught up in the selfishness, the cold indifference, the malice of others that they no longer dare to believe that there is love, but there is, because Jesus lives. The Jesus who helped everyone, who took up the fallen, who comforted the afflicted, who reached out to the underprivileged of society. The Jesus who even there, on Calvary, crucified, prayed for those who mourned Him and reviled Him - this Jesus lives! But of this Jesus you must bear witness by the caressing word and helping gesture of your own love.
It is to this witness of Christian love that Jesus, through His Spirit, mobilises His own, and to this He gives the strength through His Holy Spirit today. So, brothers and sisters, as you can see, the fire that Jesus lit is still being carried by the wind today. And it is in the form of bringing the different Christian denominations closer together, in the service of reconciliation that seeks to bridge the divisions in the world, and in the living out of true Christian love for our neighbour. And whoever enters into this flow of the Spirit of Christ will always experience the power that the Holy Spirit gives him. He can count on this power. He does not say, I am incapable of it, because then he is already in the current of the Spirit and it is carrying him. Try it, you too will take strength, superhuman strength, if you really want to be a witness that Jesus is alive!
So let us all pray now:
Spirit of the living God, come and bless me,
Let thy eternal flame pass through my heart and mouth.
Untie me, send me away, fill me with fire!
Living Spirit of God, come and bless me!
(Canticle 463, verse 1)
Amen.
Date: 14 May 1967.