2024-05-10 A Meditation on the Spirit
“26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (Jn 15:26-27 ESV)
A rather lazy faith calls “the Spirit” all manner of heavy, lugubrious, artificial things. It goes so far as to posit that “the Spirit” is at work practically any time we can’t point a thing out, anytime code of silence makes untouchable the so-called “Spirit at work”, “speaking”, “insinuating”, “tormenting”, falsehoods and invented names, conversations overheard, preaching.
For, we are no slouches, no disobedient or unsubmitted sorts of sots, but we do largely prevent cracking into the “system”: who, we ask, is the author of this so-called “spirit”? Is it a man or woman reputable, an authority or a person we care to listen to, in all love, in all submission, in all mutual respect in the case of a peer, and all worshipful punctuality in an elder figure?
That is, the soldier is not being “clever” or “thinking too much” when he or she talks of a Future City, talks of a Convicting Experience, a Moment Meaningful, giving Pause. And these pale in contrast to the wicked insinuations or accusations: no, we say, those are things I have repented of; those are sins I no longer serve. For we have a font and a Spirit untouchable, hidden in Eternity, caged off from the world. We, in short, have a bravery and a courageousness to strive for the higher things, the purity, the cleanliness of perspective, the blessedness of forgiveness: whomsoever in the congregation is accused, we all emerge accused.
A rather lazy spirit either serves sin or serves Eternity. Sin will be swallowed up in victory. All of us rise up encouraged when spoken to in an encouraging manner. All of us can hastily imagine, a world when we are no longer damned by falsehoods and complaints. We are no victims of our past mistakes. We are properly understood in some ways or measures to have lost just about everything, but on the flipside to have earned all things. This is why, not “clever” nor “smarty-pants”, we nonetheless plead “No! Pay no mind to the spirit in the film, or the spirit in the sermon, or the spirit in the chance dialog with a neighbor.” That is, these are all fine spirits, a zoo of angles on the affair, a perspective melody, a loose affiliation with one person’s notion of what is True. But all those spiritual facts are yours to find in prayer; there is a better Father, a stronger Peace, a more measured out Forgiveness, if you put aside the day’s news or the clicking and scrolling. Those “spirits” will always be around, blessing some things, complaining on others. But the Spirit who is Christ is a non-negotiable Reward for finding Conversion Truth.
Our Heavenly Holy Spirit we blush about a bit, because it took us a long meandering time to find Him. Now we who have the Spirit are in the business of Spiritual things. We are in the business of appreciating what artistic and social commentary-like endeavors are “out there”, while also knowing some things, too painful, too hard the road, call for a fast from the zoo, a devotional time in which we let Scripture in a bit, but not the wild cross-lingual calls of a headline or an unbelieving parable or story.