Holy Spirit

Sermon in the Methodist Chapel 29 May 2011

Reading Acts 17.22-31

²²Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. ²³For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, ²⁵nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. ²⁶From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him - though indeed he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”
²⁹Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. ³⁰While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

Second Reading 1 Peter 3.13-22

¹³Who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? ¹⁴But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, ¹⁵but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; ¹⁶yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. ¹⁷For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. ¹⁸For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, ¹⁹in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, ²⁰who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. ²¹And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you – not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²²who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Gospel John 14.15-21

Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the first and the last, says the Lord, and the living one;
I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore.

All Alleluia.

When the Gospel is announced the reader says

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.

All Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus said to his disciples: ¹⁵‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷This 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. ¹⁸I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’

Sermon
Holy Spirit – what do we associate with the Spirit – what is the Spirit like? – what experience have we of the Spirit? – how does relationship between members of Trinity work?

Spirit-filled worship – does that sound attractive to you? Or do you associate it with people falling down, speaking in strange sounds, waving arms in air?

In Scripture – many pictures of HS. Spirit broods over water in Creation. Psalmist asked God not to take HS from him. Mary became pregnant by HS. HS appeared as dove, as cloven tongues of fire, and as wind.

In preaching, HS is not often named or described in detail. Somehow we are afraid to do so. Our knowledge is so sparse. And what we do see, we are often very dubious about. We talk about the HS at Pentecost, but only to try and explain the Trinity. That’s hard enough. Easier to talk about a God who is creator and sustainer, or Jesus as redeemer, the incarnate God. But somehow talking of the Spirit is to tread on dangerous ground.

At Last Supper, Jesus talks about separation. Disturbing prospect. But there is comfort. He will send the Holy Spirit.

The disciples will be bereft. They will feel abandoned. But Jesus says he will not leave them as orphans. He promises to come to them in a different form. Where he is, they will be also. Because I live, you also will live he says to them.

That’s all very well for them, but what about us? They have seen and experienced the Lord. They have spent time with him. They have seen and heard him with their own eyes and ears. We have not.

So what does he promise after the resurrection? Something or someone who is present but absent. A paracletos – which is translated Advocate. παρακληπός

Does this strike you as odd? An advocate is someone who appears for you in court. It may be someone called to your side when you need help. A professional who advocates a particular cause. A person who pleads your case with authorities when you cannot act effectively for yourself.

From this you might think the Holy Spirit brings up our case before God in the hope he will be merciful. Isn’t that what an advocate would do? But that can’t be right. Think about it. Isn’t God already merciful? Has he not through abundant grace offered us the way of redemption, freely, without measuring our sins, through faith in Jesus Christ alone?

No – I believe the Advocate works in the other direction. The Advocate is the Spirit of God. He sits alongside God. The Spirit mediates God to us, not us to God.

God has already given the gift of love unstintingly through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and such love is what creates genuine life. The Spirit is the Advocate who brings the truth of that love and life to people in this time after Easter.

Didn’t Jesus do that as well? Didn’t he speak to us of the love of God? Didn’t he show us what God is like? Yes, he did. And that should not surprise us. Jesus made it clear, the Holy Spirit could not come to us until he had gone to the Father. Even in today’s reading, he says:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

The functions might be the same, but the Holy Spirit is not Jesus, and he is not the Spirit. Jesus glorified God, but the Spirit glorifies Jesus too. Both bear witness to the truth and expose the world’s wrongs, but the Spirit did not die for our salvation. The Spirit continues the work of Christ, but cannot replace him or what he did for us.

The Holy Spirit is rejected by the world, in the same way that Jesus himself was. The world here means those people who are alienated from God. So the Spirit acts as advocate, filling our hearts, teaching us what to say and how to act, disclosing to the world the truth about the life and death of Jesus and what it means, if the world will only pause and listen.

This picture of God’s advocate is closer to the still, small voice, the sound of sheer silence, than it is to the tongues of fire or the noise of Spirit-filled worship. It’s closer to our needs – the advocate who will be with us forever. It’s more like having Jesus alongside us, inside our very being, guiding us, convicting us, speaking to us of God, than an influence that affects many people at the same time. Both, no doubt, are valid. Feeling the Spirit in our worship is important, even where only two or three are gathered together.

How will be know? How can we be sure? First, because that is the promise of Christ in John 14. Second, because as Christians we will know him, even though the world does not recognise the Spirit or the Spirit’s influence. Third, because the Spirit lives in us all the time, to be with us. All we have to do is be silent and listen. Listen for the Spirit who is there.

¹⁷This 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.

Amen