An Answer to Prayer
This is Pentecost Sunday. This is the day in the Christian calendar when the traditional reading for the day is Acts chapter 2. This is the account of the coming of the Holy Spirit that most captures the imagination and the emotion of so many Christians. The outpouring of the Spirit upon the apostles gathered in that upper room leads to a proclamation of the good news of what God did through Jesus Christ in all the known languages of that time. The scene led many to believe that somehow the disciples were possessed.
But while the outpouring of the Spirit of God has been discerned by many in this way – marked by a granting of the ability to speak in tongues, the Gospel of John highlights another important aspect of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God is often described in the Old Testament as the spirit of wisdom, understanding and discernment. But in the Old Testament, the Spirit never comes as a stand alone part of God. It is ever an intimate part of who God is. In fact there is a strong sense in the Old Testament that the Spirit of God was ever present whenever God made himself known. Further we need to be cognizant of the fact that the Spirit of God is viewed as the feminine part of God. Every time the people of God sought wisdom from God, God was giving of His Spirit and that Spirit of truth and teaching was seen as the wisdom of a mother who trained her children in the ways they were to grow.
It is quite interesting to note that while the leaders of the people of Israel were predominantly male, the women of the nation were often seen as a repository of wisdom.
It is also interesting to note that while we have inherited a strong sense that God is male, there are many attributes of God that reveal a feminine side. It can very easily be argued that in God there is both male and female in perfect balance. It definitely makes picturing God as an old man with a beard a little more difficult. The only physical representation we have of God is what people have imagined Jesus to look like. Outside of the coming of God in Jesus, the other ways in which God appears to the people are not in human form except for the visitation of angelic beings that appear in our likeness. God is truly the unity of our humanity. Paul even states that in Christ there is neither male nor female for there is a unity of being in God that transcends the differences with which we are born. And so while the differences between us as male and female are visible to us as humans, the differences blur and even disappear as we move deeper into our relationship with God. And through this movement, we come to a place where the love with which God loves us becomes the love with which we love each other.
But let us get back to John’s Gospel and Jesus’ prayer that the Spirit of God will come to the disciples. The beginning of chapter 14 contains words that are often spoken at funerals. They are meant to be words of assurance in the face of the uncertainty that death brings to our lives. We then skip to the part where Jesus gives his peace to the disciples. What we always skip is the part where the disciples are struggling with what is going to happen to them in the meantime. It is all well and good to have an assurance from Jesus about the future time and to know that he is going to prepare a place for them and return for them to take them there; but what of the present? How are the disciples going to cope with living the message of Jesus in this present time and until the time of Jesus’ return?
After all the disciples are being asked by Jesus not to just remain as a small dedicated community who are called to love one another as Jesus has loved them. They are to be visible in the world and let that love of Jesus be a sign to the world that the message of God in Christ is real and that people can indeed live the life God has revealed. Jesus then goes on to tell them that they will do the works that he did and that they will do even greater. Imagine the fear and trepidation in their minds. They can probably barely even consider that they could emulate the works of Jesus let alone surpass them.
And yet Jesus seems to have great faith in them. If only they love him and keep the commandments he has given them, they will be fine. But Jesus does not want them to feel that his departure will leave them helpless and without a companion to guide them.
And so he says to them that he will pray the Father to give them another Counsellor to be with them for ever. This Counsellor will be the Spirit of truth that will come from the Father in response to the prayer of the Son.
We have come to know this Spirit of truth as the Holy Spirit. We consider it to be the third revelation of the person of God but in reality this is the same Spirit that had moved over the face of creation; it is the same Spirit that had guided the patriarchs and prophets of old; it is the same Spirit that was present with Jesus in his conception, at his baptism and that had attended him throughout his ministry.
And while in this moment, the Spirit of truth is just a promise, we know that after Jesus’ resurrection and at his appearance to the disciples in the upper room, he was able to fulfil the prayer that he prayed. And as a sign that the Father and he are indeed one, the giving of the Spirit of truth comes through the breath of Jesus flowing from him to the disciples. As he breathed, the Spirit came into their bodies and filled them.
No tongues of fire, no miraculous outbursts in foreign tongues, no great fanfare; the granting of the Spirit is done in a quiet way between the Master and the disciples, between the One who loved them and the ones who loved him in return. The Spirit was given not that they might bring people to faith through spectacle but rather that they be strengthened to reveal the new way of life they had found in Jesus and so be able to speak to others of what they had learned from him.
And while many people have experienced that outpouring of the Holy Spirit and received the gift of tongues, every believer can and does receive that wonderful gift of the Spirit that imparts strength, wisdom, hope and peace.
John shows us here and continues to show us that the God who created the world, the one who is to all of us a Father and a Mother is the very same one who lived as the man called Jesus; and the Spirit that moved over the face of creation was the same Spirit present in Jesus that was breathed into the disciples. There are no divisions within God and so there are to be no divisions within we who are his people. No matter what we imagine we might be or become, we are to never forget that the new commandment he gave us was that we love one another as he loved and loves us and to follow the path of life he has opened to us knowing that we do not take this journey alone but that the very Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of the Father goes with us wherever we go.
AMEN