Holy Spirit 2: An Encourager Forever
John 14: 15 – 17; 16: 4b – 15
We don’t have to cope with life alone.
I was meditating at the Taizé service on Monday night and I prayed for the Holy Spirit to come. Sometimes we ask things of God in a clumsy way. At least I do. And then it came to me. The Holy Spirit is dwelling with me. The Holy Spirit is right beside me. She is my companion. That’s what Jesus said; God will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. [14: 16] Praise God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Yes, we have been talking about the Holy Spirit. She is so important. (Oh, I’d better say something about the feminine pronoun. In Greek the neuter pronoun is used – ‘it’ – for the Holy Spirit. Naturally a male dominated world thinks of the Spirit as ‘he’. But God is not a ‘male’ – God is God. Secondly, in the Scriptures the Spirit of God is aligned with ‘Wisdom’ and Wisdom is always referred to by the feminine pronoun. So I go with the feminine pronoun, as do a few others.)
But let us remind ourselves about how important the Spirit is. The Spirit is present and active in Creation, establishes the Church and is crucial to salvation [Gen 1: 2; Acts 1: 8; John 3: 3,5; 14:16ff].
Now let us move somewhere else. Let’s think about good companions. Some quotes from famous people may help us. Mark Twain said; “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” Suzzane Collins of ‘the Hunger Games’ says; “I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I’ve been in the arena. How comforting the presence of another human being can be”. R.A. Salvatore, writer, says; “Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.”
How wonderful are Jesus’ words to his disciples and hence to us. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” [Jn 14: 15-17] God gives us a Companion for life.
Loving God and keeping God’s commandments is life. And the best news is that we don’t have to do it on our own. Jesus will ask the Father to send the Spirit to us. Now the word Jesus uses to describe the Spirit’s role is pregnant with meaning. The Greek word translating Jesus’ promise is paraclétos, which is translated by our English words ‘comforter’ ‘advocate’ or ‘helper’. These words we find in the Authorised, NSRV and Good News bibles respectively. Tehy indicate that paraclétos is a rich word.
The NT scholar, William Barclay, writes. “The word paraclétos really means someone who is called in; but it is the reason why the person is called in which gives the word its distinctive associations. The Greeks used the word in a wide variety of ways. A paraclétos might be a person called in to give witness in a law court in someone’s favour; he might be an advocate called in to plead someone’s cause when someone was under a charge which would result in a serious penalty; he might be an expert called in to give advice in some difficult situation. He might be a person called in to encourage and inspire, for example, a company of soldiers who were depressed and dispirited. Always a paraclétos is someone called in to help when someone is in trouble or distress or doubt or bewilderment. Now the word Comforter was once a perfectly good translation. It actually goes back to Wycliffe who was the first person to use it. But in his day it meant much more than it means now. The word comforter comes from the Latin word fortis, which means brave; and a comforter was someone who enabled some dispirited person to be brave. Nowadays the word comfort has to do almost solely with sorrow and a comforter is someone who sympathizes with us when we are sad. Without doubt the Holy Spirit does that, but to limit the work of the Holy Spirit to this function is to belittle her. We have a modern phrase, which we often use. We talk of being able to cope with things. That is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to us and takes away our inadequacies and enables us to cope with life.
So what Jesus is saying is: ‘I am setting you a hard task, and I am sending you out on a very difficult engagement. But I am going to send you someone, the paraclétos, who will guide you and make you able to do it. The Holy Spirit will bring you truth and will make you able to cope with the battle for the truth’.”
Jesus’ teaching on the role of Spirit follows this statement; if you love me you will keep my commandments’. We know well Jesus’ commandments to love God and love our neighbour as ourselves. Jesus’ teaching and ministry was about loving. The parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus’ acceptance of children, his healing touch of untouchable lepers and his acceptance of women as disciples all demonstrate Jesus’ love. Jesus personified love. Love is everything. As the first epistle of John indicates that to not love others is to not love God [1 John 4: 20].
Can we see the connection between loving others the giving of the paraclétos? Loving is not easy because it includes love for the neighbour we may not like and love for our enemy. Remember too that love is not the same as liking. We like people who share our interests and with whom we get on. We can love our enemies and those we dislike, for to love is to want the best for others regardless of our like or dislike of them. That is the Christian way – the way of the Kingdom of God. Jesus knew that such love is hard. It is downright hard. Often to love, in some circumstances, is not only difficult but invites rejection and hatred from others. To love your black neighbour in South Africa at one time might result in breaking the law and rejection from your fellow whites. I recall once pondering and deciding to take our black servant woman into her township by car. Why the hesitation. Well at that time it was unlawful for a white man to take a black woman alone in his car! The point is love in some circumstances is more than hard. That is why we are given the Spirit as our paraclétos. The task is hard and challenging.
Recently I have been more mindful of the gift and the promise of this paraclétos to us. So I have been thinking more of the Spirit. She is with me. That consciousness is making me more prayerful. That consciousness is heightened. I want to suggest that you remind yourself that God through Christ Jesus has given you the Holy Spirit to be with you always. That is the promised echoed in our Baptism. I ask you to acknowledge that at least once a day. You’ll become more prayerful. You will find some things get easier. Decisions will become more appropriate. Joy deepens and we develop more courage as we face our daily living. Take seriously these promises of God to us. We’ll be blessed and be a blessing.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 13/05/2018
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org
God our Creator, we pray:
for new mothers, coming to terms with new responsibility ;
for expectant mothers, wondering and waiting;
for those who are tired, stressed or depressed;
for those who struggle to balance the tasks of work and family;
for those who are unable to feed their children due to poverty;
for those whose children have physical, mental or emotional disabilities;
for those who have children they do not want;
for those who raise children on their own;
for those who have lost a child;
for those who care for the children of others;
for those whose children have left home;
and for those whose desire to be a mother has not been fulfilled.
Bless all mothers, that their love may be deep and tender,
and that they may lead their children to know and do what is good,
living not for themselves alone, but for God and for others.
Amen
| Mother’s Day Prayers
As well as poetry, quotations, readings and thoughts for the day God our Creator, we pray: Loving God, Gracious God,
Keep us united with you and with each other, so that we can be and become all that we are meant to be. Amen. |
