Sunday, May 20, 2018
We pray, hoping that someone is
listening. Does this make sense? As Christians, we believe that good wins in
the end. More specifically, we believe
God, expressing God’s love, ultimately prevails over evil. Under this audacious belief, we live lives in
which we expect things to turn out well.
Should we? We hope for the good and live as if we’ll get
what we’re hoping for. Does this make sense? Such hope stands on what, exactly? What’s the foundation of our faith?
Reading an Edgar Allen Poe poem last
week, I was swallowed by a damp, thick, vague, darkness. It is what Han Solo means when he says, “I
have a bad feeling about this.” People
familiar with Poe might tell me I have just described all his poems, not just
the one I was reading last Thursday. Yet
poets and Star Wars characters are not the only ones to trust their gut
instincts instead of evidence. I have seen
the most down-to-earth of people fall prey to indescribable, untouchable yet
still palpable feelings. Something is
there. Intuition. I have heard the most
sober-minded of church members talk about the feeling of being blanketed by a
thick spiritual heaviness.
I’m no poet and I wasn’t in star
wars. But I have had my own moments
where feelings existing outside the realm of 5 senses have overcome me.
I was on the streets of Washington
DC in 1993 outside an establishment that featured exotic dancing. As men with lust in their eyes and wads of
cash in their hands lined up to pay the cover charge, I felt evil in the
air. It clung to my skin like the steamy
air after a hot summer rain.
Indeed, why should we Christians
have optimism or hope or faith? Evil is
about in the world. Demons; temptation;
the sin of man against man, woman against woman; what good news can we offer? To what hope can we cling?
We stand at a border in a war
zone. Before us is no man’s land. That phrase originated in World War I. Between the German trench line and the French
trench line was a space uncontrolled by either side. Any venture in might mean poisonous gas,
bombs, or exposure to enemy gunfire. To
go into no man’s land was to stare into death.
But there was no winning the war without advancing.
After the resurrection of Jesus and
the ascension, where Jesus went to sit at the right hand of the Father, the
disciples sat in utter uncertainty. Were
they destined to be executed as Jesus was?
If so, would it do any good? If death
was before them, did they have the courage to face it? They had become dependent upon the physical,
bodily presence of Jesus. Were they
ready for life without him with them? Staring
into the void, exposed in no man’s land, the disciples saw God’s love for them
in the coming of the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit came as Jesus promised the Spirit would.
We cannot see the Holy Spirit. We cannot measure the Holy Spirit through any
form of scientific observation. Relating
to God the Spirit, even believing in God the Spirit, is an act of faith. We live in this condition, in faith. And that lands us right in that most dangerous
of places – no man’s land.
We have our life experiences. I live with what I have seen and felt. I have severely sprained both ankles in
pick-up basketball games. The pain is alive
in my memory. When I am watching a game
on TV, and player is injured, and the broadcast shows it over and over in
super-slow motion, I can’t even watch. I
feel the horrible pain.
I
remember a time in a Hardees restaurant, 27 years ago. I was visiting my friends at Radford
University. We were in the restaurant laughing
about something, and a Radford student thought I was laughing at him. The next thing I knew, this guy was
threatening to fight me. I was so
shocked to go from carefree laughter to fight or flight mode, I didn’t even
really size up my attacker. Thankfully that
confrontation was posturing, not an actual fight. Still, all these years later, I remember.
I
remember the best hugs I have ever had. I remember times my dad and brother and
I laughed at the silliest of things, laughed until we cried.
I
remember watching my son joyfully run up the garage steps upon returning home
from school. I delighted in his
happiness. Then his foot slipped and he
went down, face first, breaking his tooth in half on the steps; all that
blood. I get a little nervous now, when
the kids run up those steps. I walk up
those steps with a little more care.
These
are tactile experiences, memories with taste and touch, emotions and
reactions. I cannot recall “seeing” the
Holy Spirit of God in any of these experiences.
From this no man’s land, this space of memory, I – we – stand at the
border of the physical world and the great unknown. We have deeper cuts than sprained ankles and
broken teeth. We have injuries to the
soul, wounds only God can heal and we cannot see this God we desperately
need. We have no choice. We have to step forward into the unknown
future. Where is God?
We
were made for relationships. Even those
among us who enjoy quiet and solitude need others. We all need intimacy. Yet, nothing hurts us as much as the person
we love who rejects us. We cannot look into the mind and heart
of another person. So we step into
relationship not knowing if we will be laughed at or loved. And if we are laughed at, then who picks us
up? Where is God?
All
we can do is step into the future. We
cannot be squatters in No Man’s Land. We
can live isolated from relationships, a life lived alone, but that leads to
intolerable emptiness. We must step into
the unknown. But how?
I mentioned the uncertainty of the
disciples at Jesus’ death. Even seeing
him resurrected, still they were unsure of what was next. They had lived life with him, in his bodily
presence. They were in the boat when he calmed
the raging storm. They saw him raise
dead people to life. Being so close with
him, they discovered their very best selves.
Once he ascended to the Father was gone, no longer with them in body,
could they continue to be their very best selves?
I doubt they really understood the
mission or the message at this point. We
venerate Peter and Andrew, James and John, Matthew and Thomas and the rest, and
rightly so. But in that short time
between ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, I believe the disciples
had greater anxiety than the spiritual uncertainty we live with daily. They surely felt that their lives were on the
line.
The teaching of Jesus at the Last
Supper, recorded in the Gospel of John, specifically what’s in chapters 14, 15,
& 16 is God’s answer to the disciples’ tremulous confusion in the days
after the ascension. What Jesus says
there is for us in the moments when we desperately ask, “Where is God?”
God is here! “I will ask the Father, and he will give you
another Advocate” said Jesus (14:16). “When
the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of
truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf” (15:26). The New
Revised Standard Version uses the word ‘Advocate’ to translate the Greek
word ‘Paraclete.’ In reality, no single
word in English adequately captures the meaning of this word; we might even say
of this name.
The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit sent by God. English
translators have called this one ‘Advocate,’ ‘Comforter,’ ‘Helper,’ ‘Teacher,’
and ‘Mediator.’ The Spirit fills all of these
roles. The presence of the Holy Spirit is
so important for living the life of a follower of Jesus, he actually said it
was for the best that he depart. His
ascension was the best thing that could come for the disciples because the Holy
Spirit would not come until he departed.
I find it hard to understand how I am better off apart from Jesus’
bodily presence, and I never met Jesus in the body. How much more would these disciples whose
feet were washed by him become incredulous when he said his departure was for
the best? But that’s what he said. They, we, need the Spirit more than we need
Jesus present in the body. We cannot be
disciples apart from the Holy Spirit. We
cannot be Christians apart from the Holy Spirit.
However, this does not mean we
strain to see or hear or feel the Holy Spirit.
Yes, we can listen, quiet our minds, open our hearts, and truly
listen. But, communing with the Spirit is
not something we accomplish. It’s
something we receive, a gift of God’s grace.
The Spirit is sent by God as God’s presence with us. We have this gift and God won’t ever go
away. God may sit patiently waiting for
us to be responsive to the Spirit, or the Spirit may act in ways we cannot
easily see, but the Spirit is God’s promise that God is always with us. As we come to understand this, we see that No
Man’s Land is transformed and becomes God’s Space.
In John 16:8-11, the Spirit is an
accuser who proves the depths of error found in the world. Remember, in the Gospel of John, the world is
fallen and dying, and is a dangerous place.
If we get too wrapped with the world, apart from God, we die with
it. The Spirit shows that world does not
understand sin, righteousness, or judgment.
Sin is life lived in rebellion against God. Righteousness is life lived in right
relationship with God. Judgment is God’s
verdict that the world will die and be destroyed before entering the
resurrection and being made new. The
Spirit exists within the evil world to teach this lesson about sin, righteousness,
and judgment and at the same to time to speak God’s condemnation.
Such wrath-filled rhetoric might
give us pause, raise our fears a little, but we can be comforted. The same Spirit that speaks judgment to the
world takes the church, the followers of Jesus, by the hand. The Spirit guides us to the path of absolute
joy and eternal life. I would say the
Spirit guides us gently and much of the time that is so. But sometimes, some of us need more than an
arm on the shoulder. We need a swift kick
to get us moving in the direction of God.
When need be, the Holy Spirit provides the necessary nudge.
Jesus said, “When the Spirit of
truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (16:12). He’s called the Spirit of truth and he guides
us into the truth. And by the way, the
Holy Spirit has no gender. I say “He”
because of the insufficiency of language. Earlier in John 14, we hear Jesus
say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
So when Jesus declares that the Spirit will guide us he means two
things. The Holy Spirit enables us to
truly see the world as it is, and guides
us to Jesus.
Jesus says that he sends the
Spirit. He also says the Spirit comes
from the Father. In the Gospel of John,
Jesus and the Father are one and whenever one acts, we are assured it is as if the
other said that word or performed that deed.
All that I am saying does nothing to clarify the mystery of the Holy
Trinity. I cannot make the 3-in-one
nature of God simple. Next week we will
talk more about our Trinitarian understanding of God. I fear confusions will persist. What I offer – what the Bible offers – what Jesus
promised is not answers, but presence.
God knows that John’s gospel presents
the world as evil. God knows the struggles, the uncertainty, and
the sense of isolation that we face. God
knows. God loves us and what God has
done for us is to come to us. God is
with us in the person of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is the ultimate testimony that God is love. God’s ultimate value is love. When you or I feel abandoned or defeated or
collapsed in guilt or lost, God says to us, “I love you. I will show you my love by being with you.” This is God: love. God is love.
Many years on Pentecost Sunday –
today – we would read Acts 2 and see how the dramatic coming of the Holy Spirit
launched the beginning of the age of the church, the body of Christ alive and
active in the world. This year on
Pentecost Sunday, rest in who God is.
God is the one who loves you and is with you. The world is dying in sin, but you are
rescued for eternal joy, eternal love, and eternal life. The Spirit has come and is here. We need not fear. Because of who God is, we can live in the
midst of evil as witnesses to the truth.
AMEN
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