I have a confession to make. I like the piece of sacred music entitled How Great Thou Art -not as part of a worship service, but as an expression of thanks to God for creating us and saving us. I particularly like the version sung by the American all- male a cappella group ‘Home Free’ that you can still see on YouTube. The scenery from the Swiss Alps is breathtaking and tuneful words and stunning pictures blend beautifully in appreciation of God’s creation.

Life is a journey - or so we are told. As a journey, life has a beginning, a middle and an end. A starting point, a direction of travel and an end-point. It all sounds so simple and straightforward, yet inevitably as the journey unfolds, certain questions arise: Where am I now on my journey? How can I be sure I’m on the right path? What is my ultimate destination? – to name but a few.

Moses died at the age of 120, and, according to the Bible “His eye was undimmed and his vigour unabated” (Deuteronomy 34:7). Gautama Buddha died at the age of 80. In his final year he was attended by many followers and continued to teach his disciples the seven factors of enlightenment. Confucius devoted his whole life to learning and teaching. Frustrated in politics, he was accompanied by an expanding circle of students. He returned home to teach and died at the age of 72, surrounded by some 3,000 who sought to maintain his philosophy.

Human beings have much in common with ancient ruins. There is a grandeur that can still be seen, but much has fallen into disuse and disrepair. As we investigate the nature of Christianity this is a major element we must build into the picture – what human beings are by design and what we have become by rejecting the Designer.

Christianity is far from a hobby you can just add on to your life. Rather, it is something that reorders your life from top to bottom, with this person called Christ (his title) or Jesus (his given name) at the very centre. Something Jesus said only hours before his arrest points out just how important he is, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). A Galilean peasant in his thirties is saying that he – in his person and his work – is the exclusive means of access to the God of the universe. It is a breathtaking claim that must be accepted or denied.

It was on the day of Pentecost, when the disciples were sitting together that the place was filled with a sound like that of a mighty wind and ‘there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each one of them’ (Acts 2:1-3). The result was that ‘they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance’ (v.4).