Prayer:  Lord, please lead us through your word today. Come fill us with the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, so that we may grow and make a positive difference in your name. Amen.

Have you ever had to let someone close to you go – witnessed them dying? Given our average age in our community here at St Luke’s, the answer is more than likely yes for most, if not all of us.  

My father died 32 years ago when he was 65 years old. I was 31 years old and had only just been getting to know him as an adult. I didn’t think I needed to rush my growing friendship with him; I thought I had plenty of time. But, unfortunately, I didn’t.  In my thirties, I was an agnostic. I thus had a vague hope that dad might be going somewhere better, but I had a stronger fear that he was going nowhere except oblivion. I was left feeling bereft, guilty, and empty. It was truly a dark night of the soul for me. 

When I studied John 14 for today’s message, it occurred to me that the disciples must have had similar feelings immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross. They were with Jesus for just three years, following him with the great expectation that he was the Messiah who would bring about the overthrow of the Romans. They hoped that he would save them from an empire that used the threat of violence to dominate their known world. But now he was dead, crucified by that very empire. They must have felt so incredibly bereft, so incredibly guilty, and so empty.  

Then, the resurrection came. Death and the Romans had not defeated their saviour. The disciples felt amazing joy and unquestionably overwhelming awe. 

Of course, the disciples had been told this would happen by Jesus before his crucifixion. John records Jesus saying to them: “Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy”. Moreover, as John records, Jesus had already told his disciples that when he goes his father will send the Holy Spirit to tell them all they need to know and to uphold them in everything they do in his name. But at this point in the gospel, in the upper room, the disciples are confused, unsure of Jesus’s meaning and undoubtedly more than a little worried.  

 

Thankfully, we live here and now, well after the old and new testaments have been written. We can read the full story of our saviour Jesus the Christ. We are better off than the disciples were. However, we also know that reading a book or passage doesn’t mean we automatically understand what has been written, or that we can enact what it teaches. 

We may read the Bible in one year and be left confused by its complexities, paradoxes and meaning, especially as they apply to our saviour Christ, the Son of God. Moreover, we can go to university or college and get a doctorate in biblical theology and still not know how to enact the Bible’s teachings sensitively and powerfully. What can we do about this – how can we come to fully understand and enact how we are to be disciples of Christ? Further, how are we to feel calm and courageous as disciples in this current world, riven as it is by suffering and death.  

In John 14, Jesus gives us a very powerful answer. And it’s important to note that when he was speaking to the first disciples, he is also speaking to us. He said, “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. (John 14: 16-17)…The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14: 26).   

So, who or what is this Holy Spirit that can give us understanding and support?  

Of course, I don’t really need to tell anyone here in our church today who the Holy Spirit is. We have all read about the Holy Spirit in the Bible and we have all likely listened to many sermons about what she does – (grammatically the Hebrew word for the Spirit, Ruach (Ruark), is feminine).  

For example, we have all read and heard that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. Every Sunday we read the Creed and there is the Holy Spirit, along with the Father and the Son. Most of us have also likely read John 14 before, and heard, amongst many other things, that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth who will teach us everything we need to know and remind us of what Christ has said to us. And, most of us here have also likely heard that the Holy Spirit will empower us for the work Jesus has called each one of us and our whole Christian community to undertake for Him. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the Gospel with others. Moreover, you have also likely read that when we share the gospel with our friends it’s the Holy Spirit who’ll work in their hearts to convince them of the truth of what we’re telling them. In addition, you have also likely heard before that the Holy Spirit supports us in our struggles against brokenness and sin. She stirs and guides our conscience and empowers us to not only love our neighbours as ourselves but also our enemies, as well as to do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us and pray for those who abuse us. And finally, we have heard, today, if not before, that the Holy Spirit is our advocate. The person of the Trinity whom the Father sends in Christ’s name, to intercede for us; to bring us into a relationship with the Father and the Son.  

I for one have read about the Holy Spirit in the Bible, and I have certainly heard her preached about from the pulpit. However, it’s not until recently that I have been able to go beyond just reading and hearing about the Holy Spirit towards more deeply understanding and knowing her. 

Before I became a Christian, I trained to be an academic I learnt how to analyze and think critically and dispassionately about the strengths and weaknesses of every argument and to search for empirical evidence using validated research tools. I remember going to a psychologist early in my career because I had shocking anxiety. When he found out what I was doing for a living he said – Ah you’re an academic – you people are all dead from the neck down. I took his advice on board and strove to become even more reason driven and rational.  

I learnt a great many things and intellectually understood a lot about my subject area – business ethics. However, all my careful reasoning and thinking led me up a fairly predictable path to what we ‘intellectuals” call moral relativism. From this viewpoint, all norms, rules, and laws are just questions of personal taste or culture – there is no solid ground underpinning what we see as right and wrong. It’s all an awkward “social construction”, which is another overly “intellectual” term.   

Thankfully, I became a Christian and was led away from any sympathy for extreme moral relativism. Nevertheless, perhaps unsurprisingly, and despite many promptings, until recently I pursued the things of God solely with my intellect. I have searched for proof of God using logical arguments and tried to find evidence of the resurrection using historical studies of the life and death of Jesus. And, I have sought to understand the things of God, including the Bible using critical thinking. Reason, logic and critical thinking have taken me a long way, but they haven’t earnt me a deep understanding, knowing, or lived experience of Christ. For example, have you ever tried to deeply understand the Trinity purely in intellectual terms?  

Try giving it a go. The Athanasian Creed might help you here. I will quote some of it:  

 

Now, this is the catholic faith: 

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal. What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being. So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings; there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being. 

 

I can’t get my head around all this intellectually. My brain drowns in its complexity and perplexity. My brain takes me so far and then like a teenager says “Huh, what?”.  

But, in recent months while my brain is still over-taxed and failing to fully comprehend the things of God intellectually, my understandings and knowledge feel like they are growing. I can’t unpack the Trinity using the tools of critical analysis and empirical research. I can’t even think through the flow of cause and effect.  Nonetheless, in my heart, the Trinity is beginning to feel powerful to me. I feel a growing sense that its complexity and perplexity flow together beautifully. The Catholic writer Richard Rohr calls the Trinity the “Devine Dance”. An intertwined and dynamic relationship that if we say yes to will draw us into an infinite dance. The Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev in the fifteenth century, painted the Trinity as seen on our screen.  

Paintings and writings, such as those of Rublev and Rohr, are beginning to make sense to me. Knowledge through poetry, painting, prayer and innumerable other forms of non-intellectual understanding are becoming more important. And, the Bible, the Gospel and all the things of our God, including the death and resurrection, are beginning to have a deeper meaning for me, in my heart.  

I blame Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit for this growth. I’ve taken to heart what Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth”. I have fallen in love with Jesus Christ, and because of this, I know I am growing in understanding and faith. Finally, I know the Holy Spirit is also growing me in other ways through the comfort she is giving me in the face of further suffering and grief.  

I told you at the beginning of this message that my father died 32 years ago and that his passing left me bereft, guilty and empty. Thursday week ago, my mother died. She was 95 and very frail, but it was still unexpected. I feel bereft, I’ve lost the person who brought me into the world and loved me with few conditions. But I also feel a deep sense of peace about her passing, and I certainly don’t feel empty. This is unquestionably in part because I am married to Deb who I know loves me, as I love her. It’s also because I now have many brothers and sisters in Christ. And it is also because I got to pray for and say goodbye to my mom before she passed. But above all, I know that it is the Holy Spirit that is giving me peace, and I believe it was her that led me to visit mum in Queensland in the very week that she passed away.  

So, enough about me, let’s turn to you. Are you feeling empty today?  As Ruth asked last week, are you feeling a little dry in your spiritual life, your prayer life; are you struggling with despair and a lack of hope in today’s world? Or are you just doing way too much brain work, and still feel like you don’t have much deep understanding in your heart about our Lord? 

If so, then turn to Jesus, fall in love with him again, and know that he will ask the Father to fill you afresh with the Holy Spirit – our advocate, our comforter, our Spirit of Truth.  

Let’s finish in prayer.  

Lord Jesus, thank you for sending us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, so that we can grow in the knowledge of you, feel comforted in the face of suffering, and enter a deeper relationship with you, the Father and the Holy Spirit herself.  

Amen.