Good morning, Friends! I hope you’re all doing well today.
If you follow the Christian calendar, we’re in the season called Pentecost. It’s 50 days after Easter. Pentecost was originally a Jewish holiday. It celebrated the appearance of the first grain of the season. It meant that God was blessing us, and that no one would starve this coming year.
In the Bible, in the book of Acts, it says that on the day of Pentecost, Jesus’ circle of friends were gathered to worship, and suddenly the Holy Spirit came to all of them.
They felt it was like a mighty wind, roaring through them, not a breeze, but a hurricane. They felt it was like a blazing fire, that filled their minds and burned out their fears. They felt that it was like being given the gift of speech, to tell everyone in the whole world about Jesus, even in new languages and new words.
Pentecost – the gift of the Holy Spirit – was actually something that Jesus had promised to them. Jesus had promised that even when he went away, even when people could no longer see him, that his spirit would remain. People would always be able to call on him, to ask him for help, to pray and know that he was listening.
There’s a lot of confusion about the Holy Spirit. A lot of people have strange ideas about what it is and what it means.
When I was little, the Bible translation we used back then talked about the Holy Ghost. That’s what it says in the King James. I always found this confusing, because I always thought ghosts were dead people, and the Bible seemed to be saying that the Holy Ghost was alive.
The only ghost that I knew about was a cartoon on Saturday morning – Casper, the Friendly Ghost. And I knew that he wasn’t real. This didn’t give me a lot of confidence.
Then, when I was still in school, a new translation came out, and it talked about the Holy Spirit. That made me feel a little better, but only a little bit.
Spirits were generally not friendly. There were a lot of bad spirits around in the world. One of them hung out in my bedroom closet at night, and used to scare me. Another one hung out under my bed. And there was a really scary spirit on the dark back stairway that went up to the attic, where the light bulb was burned out.
When I got to be a teen-ager, everyone said it wasn’t cool to believe in spirits. That was just superstition and hogwash. No intelligent, educated person believed in them. So, I went along.
But then, I started reading the Bible for myself. And the Bible kept talking about spirits, and especially about the Holy Spirit. I came across this section in the Gospel of John. So, let’s read it together today.
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.
The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.
Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, 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.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 14:15-27
So, let’s talk a little about the Holy Spirit. Is it real? Is it fake? Is it something to trust and follow? Is it something we should just forget about? Let’s think about this for a little while.
The first time we run into the Spirit is right at the very beginning of the Bible, in the very first sentence of the book of Genesis. It says, “In the beginning, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. . .” (Genesis 1:1-2)
The Holy Spirit was right here at the beginning, the beginning of all things. You can’t get away from it. It was here before everything else.
The word in Hebrew for “spirit” is ruach, which also means “breath.” So, some translations of the Bible say that “the Spirit of God was breathing over the dark waters.”
Then, when God created human beings, it says that God breathed into them. God’s spirit – God’s holy breath – is what makes us alive.
There’s a hint of that in our own English language. When someone is filled with the Holy Spirit, we say that they’re inspired – literally, “in-spirited”.
Doctors to this day call breathing in, inspiration. Breathing out is called expiration. When you don’t breathe any more, when the spirit of life has left a person, we say that they’ve expired.
So, God’s Holy Spirit is present in the creation of everything. God’s Spirit is the breath of our life. The Holy Spirit shows up in lots of interesting places in the Bible.
The Spirit gave people physical strength – the Spirit of God came mightily on Samson, and he broke his chains in pieces. The Spirit of God filled the prophets, and gave them burning words to share with people, about how God sees the world and what’s going on today. The Spirit of God is poured out on people, and the Spirit of God rests on people.
It isn’t something we can control – the Bible says that “The wind blows where it wishes; you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)
The Spirit is a whole lot smarter than we will ever be. The prophet Isaiah asked, “Who can direct the Spirit of the Lord? Who can teach the Lord anything? Who did the Lord ever ask for enlightenment? Who did the Lord ask to show him the right way?” (Isaiah 40:13-14)
Then along comes Jesus, and Jesus is someone who is really filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit seems to guide Jesus all the time. In his very first sermon, Jesus quoted from the Jewish scriptures, and he said,
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Isaiah 61:1)
When Jesus is around, the Holy Spirit has a lot to do with healing. The Holy Spirit is the one who heals, who calms people down, who casts out other spirits.
The Holy Spirit is the spirit of forgiveness. It washes people clean. It fills their hearts and minds. It makes people who are crippled, get up and walk. It comes down as gently as a dove, and it knocked Paul down off his ride and blinded him for three days.
This Holy Spirit is really powerful, every time we meet it in the Bible!
In today’s reading, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit several things. It’s like Jesus is trying to help us understand.
First, Jesus calls it the spirit of truth. That’s really important. Healing, freeing, forgiving – all those things are important. But more than anything else, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth.
If there’s one thing that the Holy Spirit is not, it’s anything fake or false. Lies are the complete opposite of the Holy Spirit. Any time we tell the truth, the Holy Spirit is with us. This is something that Quakers really focus on. For Quakers, Truth is really another name for God. It’s like God’s other name.
The earliest name for Quakers was the Seekers of Truth. The other early name for Quakers was the Friends, which was short for the Friends of Truth. Quakers were people who were almost obsessed with truth, because there was so much falsehood and so many lies, which were propping up a whole broken culture of injustice and sin.
- Can women be ministers? Quakers read the Bible and saw that both men and women were created equally in God’s image.
- For that matter, did God create some people to be the aristocracy of the world, and should we all bow and take off our hats to them? Or should we only bow down before God, our Creator, or before Jesus, our Savior?
- Should we only tell the truth when somebody makes us hold up our hand and swear on the Bible? Or should we be telling the truth all the time?
- Should we tell the truth on Sunday, and spend the rest of the week lying and cheating in business? Or should we have the same standard of truth all the time, for everyone?
If Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and if we’re serious about being Christians, truth has profound consequences for us.
One of my favorite Quakers is always Elizabeth Fry. She lived in the 1800’s, and she was a prison reformer and an activist against slavery, and many other social causes.
Elizabeth Fry said, “I give myself this advice: Do not fear truth, let it be ever so contrary to inclination and feeling. Never give up the search after it; and let me take courage, and try from the bottom of my heart to do that which I believe truth dictates.“
In today’s reading, Jesus says: “The world cannot accept the Spirit, because the world neither sees the Spirit nor knows the Spirit. But you know the Spirit, for the Spirit lives with you and will be in you.”
That is what Jesus said. Jesus draws a line, between the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of this world. In the kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit is always near by. The Spirit is with us and in us.
In the kingdom of this world, the Holy Spirit is an invader. The world doesn’t want to listen to the Holy Spirit. The world rejects it and fights against it. As Christians, we need to choose, a lot of the time, whether we want to follow the Holy Spirit, or the spirit of the rest of the world.
Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Advocate. An advocate is someone who speaks up for you, who’s on your side. An advocate pleads your case, and remembers all of the good points on your side. In court, if you’re being sentenced for doing something wrong, an advocate asks for mercy and asks the judge to give you another chance to straighten out your life.
The Holy Spirit is the holy advocate – the holy one who begs for mercy and is your character witness. The Spirit is the spirit of truth, but the Spirit is always on your side, always helping you to get out of trouble.
Jesus also calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter. That doesn’t mean a big, soft, fluffy blanket, although some people feel the Holy Spirit that way.
The Holy Spirit is the one who brings comfort. In one of his teaching times, Jesus said:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who grieve, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the humble, for the earth belongs to them.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right, for they will be filled.
Blessed are those who show mercy, for they will receive mercy themselves.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:3-9)
This is what comfort is about. This is why the Holy Spirit is here.
“If you love me,” Jesus says, “keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter to help you and be with you forever. . .”
Some Christians believe that the Holy Spirit gives them the gift of tongues. In their worship, they expect people to speak in unknown languages, which can sound like babbling to other folks. I know some Christians insist on this, but Paul says it’s not helpful. Speaking in tongues is something outside my own experience, so I’m not going to go there.
My experience is that the Holy Spirit tells me to reach out and to build bridges. When I reach out to people from a different culture, a different way of life, or a different place around the world, I feel that’s the Holy Spirit, inviting me to meet someone new.
The early Christians had this wonderful experience when they traveled – and they were big travelers — they discovered that the Holy Spirit was already there ahead of them. They were filled with joy and they were excited, because there was no place in the world where the Holy Spirit couldn’t go. Even dark places, like jails and prisons, in slums and places of great suffering – they found that somehow, the Holy Spirit was there.
One of the things Jesus said in today’s reading was, “the Holy Spirit will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. . .”
That’s important, because there’s a lot that we don’t know. There are things about the world that we don’t understand. And there are situations where we’re at a loss for words.
Jesus once said, “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” (Luke 12:11)
What a relief! We don’t have to know everything ahead of time. Just stay close to the Spirit, and the right words will come.
The last thing Jesus says in this morning’s reading is one of the most important. Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Sometimes the Holy Spirit stirs things up in our hearts. We need to shaken and stirred sometimes. But the Holy Spirit is also the spirit of peace. That means peace inside ourselves, in our hearts and minds.
One of the reasons we have our quiet time here at worship every week, is because it’s a time for the Spirit to breathe into us, to calm us down, to help us find our center, to rest and feel a sense of peace again.
With the Holy Spirit, the world can be going crazy, and we can still have God’s peace in our hearts. We can rest in security, knowing that God always loves us.
God is our anchor, our rock, our refuge and our safe place. When we pray, we find that place of peace and let it fill us.
The world gives peace, but it also threatens us – “Do it my way, or I’ll destroy you!”
The Holy Spirit gives peace, just by being here. “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
There’s so much more we can say about the Holy Spirit – about truth, and healing, and wisdom, and freedom. Just remember, Jesus’ own Holy Spirit is with us, wherever we go.