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The
Holy Spirit: The Promise (2) Romans
15: 7 – 13; John 14: 15-18, 25 - 31 We
live much of our lives on promises. Our dearest relationships and our
general livelihood are grounded on promises. Our marriages rest on the
promise of faithfulness and the declaration of love. Our friendships
likewise are based on the implicit promise of loyalty and genuineness.
Business ventures float on a sea of well intentioned promises. Politicians
win our votes with promises. In fact the promise, when thought about,
plays a huge part in living life. The promise feeds our hope. Hope makes
life meaningful. The
story of God’s relationship with
us is predicated on God’s
promises. Paul reminds his readers in Romans 15 that Jesus is the
truth of God who confirms God the Father’s promises [Rom 15:8].
Paul goes on to speak of God as the God
of hope who fills us with joy
and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may abound in hope [15:13].
God, who called Abraham and Sarah, and Miriam, Moses and Aaron, promised a
child to the barren and freedom to the enslaved. God promised to keep the
Covenant and did so with the kings of Israel through the faithfulness of
the prophets of Israel. It is this God who says in Jesus, I will not leave
your desolate, I will come to you, and I will send you the Counsellor [Jn
14:16,18]. Firstly
we
understand that promises
are part of life. Secondly we understand that God’s relationship with us is grounded in promise.
The third thing we understand is that promises
aid our freedom and growth. Let me try and explain. If we could
imagine life without promises we would be imagining a life of certainty or
despair. Certainty, because life would be automatic. Things would happen
routinely, if not mechanically. We would be automatons.
Despair would emerge if uncertainty prevailed and there were no
promises giving hope. What
the promise does
is help us envisage our future. The promise gives us hope. The promise
places us in relationship. The promise
builds our trust; it exercises our judgement;
and, develops
our personhood. Let
us take marriage as an example. Two people make promises to each other.
They begin to imagine a new future together. They are called to act in
response to the promise. This means they will grow in their personhood.
Their lives are given hope and meaning, they find a new freedom and
a new purpose. You see promise not certainty sets us free to be. Jesus
prepares his disciples for his earthly
departure, and he promises. Jesus’ promises have two major
effects. Firstly,
it means that the disciples were going to become independent and their faith would
mature. They would
no longer be depending on Jesus’ physical presence. Now they would have
to take responsibility. They were set free to grow and act and become
God’s servants. The
second major effect is that Jesus’ departure made way for the Holy
Spirit freed
to be present wherever Jesus
promises the Holy Spirit
because it would not be easy to
remember and follow Jesus. Jesus knew we would not find life easy. It
would not be easy to love one another. It would not be easy to always have
the courage to act. It would not be easy to understand what the truth is.
It would not be easy to be on our own. It would not be easy to witness to
others. It would not be easy to call for justice for the exploited. We
need some help. Jesus
knew that. Just as Jesus knew that the disciples needed someone to help
them learn to pray, someone to teach them the deep truths of God’s word,
someone to help them see they could walk on water, and catch them when
they started to sink, someone who would give them tough love that
confronted their wilfulness and strengthened uncertainty.
Jesus knew that we needed a Helper, and so the Spirit is given to
us. Jesus
says, I will ask the Father to give you another Counsellor [Jn
15:14]. The word “counsellor”
translates the Greek word ‘parakletos”
which literally means someone-called-in-to-help.
The authorised version of the Bible translated this Comforter
which has become a poor expression for the Holy Spirit.
Comfort originally meant to make someone brave and able. Now it is
associated only with sorrow. Likewise the words Counsellor
or Advocate
are inadequate because today they generally describe a psychologist, or a
legal person. Maybe the word Helper
is the best word to use. The
Holy Spirit is our Helper. Jesus
knew that our relationship with God needs a Helper
to be with us. Jesus calls us his friends [Jn 14:16]
and he assures us that the friendship will continue through the Holy
Spirit. She will continue to maintain the friendship. The Holy Spirit is a
person. She is not a mere power or influence. The
Holy Spirit will maintain the friendship. So
the first thing Jesus says the Holy Spirit will do is to 14:26
…
teach you everything, and remind
you of all that I have said to you. Not only can we not remember
everything Jesus taught, but neither can we understand everything he
taught. The Holy Spirit will
teach us. That is a wonderful thought that anyone can sit down with the
Scripture and read it. And God through the Holy Spirit will make its
meaning clear to us. Now you may be saying, “Peter, it doesn’t work
like that for me!” When
I speak of the Holy Spirit teaching and reminding us I do not mean that
she will fill our minds with lots of information and details, and we will
just know everything. Her work is not to take away our responsibility to
learn. The Holy Spirit will help us understand
our relationship with God. So there are many testimonies of
people reading the Scriptures for the first time and being drawn close to
God. I recall Greg testifying to that happening to him. We
must distinguish between knowledge gained from learning, and knowledge
understood about our relationship with God. The Holy Spirit’s task is
not to fill us with information, but to draw us close Jesus. The Holy
Spirit is there to help us understand the truth of the Bible, and that is
how God the Father loves us, how God the Son comes to us and shows us the
way. Read the Bible and ask
the Holy Spirit to teach you to love God and others better. Ask her and
see what happens. The
Holy
Spirit leads us into truth. Jesus said she is Truth [Jn
14:17]. And that she will
guide you into all the truth; for (s)he will not speak on his own, but
will speak whatever she
hears, and she will declare to you the things
that are to come [Jn
16:13]. Note two things about
this. We will be guided. Truth won’t be given to us. Rather guidance
will be given, which means we need to think about it. We will be
required to exercise our minds and
take responsibility. It also is a warning to us not to become
arrogant. Sometimes we too easily assume we know the Holy Spirit’s mind,
when we have confused guidance with our desire. Being guided means we
share the responsibility for decisions. It means we need to be discerning.
It means we need to be humble and ask others to share in the response and
understanding. Secondly,
see that the
truth is about God’s self revelation in Jesus Christ. This is
not about new things. It is not
about a new spirituality. It is about the living tradition of
the past being made new in the present. In
all this we cannot escape the
fact that the three persons of the Trinity call us into a
relationship of love with the One God, whom we know as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. And we cannot escape the fact that we are called to be God’s friends, agents, hands, feet, eyes and mouth. So
it is the Holy Spirit who will witness to Jesus and we will be called to
be witnesses [Jn 15:26]. This
teaching on the Holy Spirit reminds me of the
singular difference between Jesus and other great religious teachers.
Jesus does not give us a six--step code to right behaviour and say follow
it. He gives himself and calls us into a living relationship with him.
This is why we are given the third person of God, the Holy Spirit. It is
her task to keep the relationship going. We are not given a list of things
to achieve. We are given a friend and a community. Christianity is not
about achieving, but being and doing. That is why Christianity is life
giving and liberating. For it is about loving. This relationship with
Jesus, nurtured by the Spirit takes us to the very centre of God. This is
why Jesus could say to his disciples; John
14:9 Whoever
has seen me has seen the Father.
The first and only response we can make is to say Yes to Jesus as Lord and
Saviour – the rest is a joyful relationship. In short the Holy Spirit is
our helper, our friend. Will
we let Her come close to us? I’ve decided to do so! Others have made
that decision – look at them. ******* Peter
C Whitaker, BUC: 01/06/2008
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