For Sunday
Easter 6A
Collect
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
Jesus offers us assurance in The Advocate—the Holy Spirit.
Specifically, he is saying to his disciples that he will soon be going away. They need to get ready to follow The Way he has laid out for them. They know The Way because he has told them. And because they have been walking it already.
And as they may be afraid of the future or confused by what to do, they don’t need to. Because they know. And they can be assured of his presence with them.
This was the substance of what he said right before this. Here, he is saying, I’m leaving you with more assurance. An advocate. Who will abide with you. And in you. So you have no reason to be afraid. Keep it up, people!
In the two thousand years since this, we’ve come up with theological convictions around the nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We call them the Trinity. And we’ve also developed some interesting arguments about how they relate to one another and how it all works. But none of that was around in about 30 CE.
They had Jesus making a promise.
And that promise was that a Spirit would be with them and inside them. An idea that is quite striking. Especially given our tradition focuses our attention outward. Toward a God who lives “Up There”.
To suggest that part of God abides within us is way more than a step beyond being made in the image of God. It’s bunches of steps beyond.
So, what would it take for us to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit lives within us? And what would this do to our sense of loneliness? Our sense of community? And for our sense of church?
That perhaps we are of use after all? That we can’t be alone? And ultimately, that we genuinely embody the very grace of God?