The Whitsunday Passage stretches for almost 200 kilometres between northern Australia’s coast and the spectacular but dangerous Great Barrier Reef.
It was named by explorer James Cook, who discovered its safe anchorage on Whitsunday June 3, 1770.
Sunday, June 8 is Whitsunday or Pentecost, which marks seven weeks after Easter and recalls a major, miraculous safe passage into God’s grace.
Its name also comes from white robes that people have often worn to celebrate since it happened almost two millennia ago.
Back then, pilgrims and tourists from across the Roman Empire had packed Jerusalem for a week of harvest celebrations, when suddenly they heard God’s love being explained in their native languages.
These messages came courtesy of a bunch of Galileans who had hardly ever left Israel.
The crowd would have got the general drift if the Galileans had used Hebrew or Greek, which was used empire-wide for trade and basic communication.
But God wanted everyone to sense his personal touch into their most intimate hopes or hurts.
This personal touch had infused Jesus’ ministry, especially for religious outcasts, and upset powerbrokers who focused more on religious rituals and regulations than on people’s needs.
They had become so upset that they contrived his brutal death.
After catching everyone’s attention, the Galileans went on to explain that Jesus’ death was not the end.
Instead, it was God’s way to take judgement on himself; to absorb the full effects of all that goes wrong; and to release his spirit so anybody may find a safe, lifelong passage into his grace.
People responded in their thousands and were initiated by baptism into a whole new entity – the church – to be individually and jointly filled with God’s presence.
This was God’s way of spreading his grace and truth further than ever; so that even today we might continue the ministry Jesus began so long ago.
It has always been a big risk for God to take in trusting ordinary, fallible people to fulfil his goal.
For the history of the church is far from perfect, and the Bible includes many of the original leaders’ mistakes and disagreements, and it offers clear guidance for churches that were getting it wrong.
Yet God is love, and love will always involve some risk, so he gives us room to grow our understanding and our effectiveness.
So long as we take him more seriously than we take ourselves.
Noel Mitaxa
On behalf of a church near you, inviting you to explore God’s love
