Sermon – Imagining the Holy Spirit

Howard Wallace – 28 May 2023

 

The Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, is the most difficult part of the Trinity that is God to describe. When we hear about God the Father or about Jesus, Son of God, we can easily imagine them. For millennia people have pictured God as a bearded old man on a throne. More recently we have been invited to think of God in mothering terms. We form our images of Jesus from the stories in the Gospels. But what about the Holy Spirit? How do you imagine that? Or can we only imagine the Spirit by the work the Spirit does? In other words, the traces the Spirit ‘leaves behind’?

 

The biblical writers had the same problem when it came to speaking of the Holy Spirit. So maybe if we consider the imagery they used we might get a little closer to understanding the nature and work of the Holy Spirit with and within us. First, there is Luke’s account of the gift of the Spirit after Jesus had ascended into heaven.

 

1. Tongues of fire

What is fire and what does it do? Well, if it managed properly, if it is controlled it is extremely beneficial as humans have found over many millennia. It nourishes us through cooked food. It warms us in cold weather. But if it is allowed to get out of control it can endanger life. Fire can be both life-giving and life-threatening. But even in the latter form, it might still have its life-giving benefits. We are all familiar with the fact that many parts of the bush around us need fire to regenerate. Or if we think bigger still, what is our sun other than a great ball of atomic fire that is the very source of all life on earth.

 

We might also think of the language of fire and its uses. We can burn with passion for something or someone. A situation may become heated. We can warm to a proposal. We might hear of a hot tip for the Melbourne Cup this year.

 

Does some of this cover the nature and work of the Holy Spirit – life-giving, invigorating, enthusing, putting into action, being committed to, nourishing, comforting?

 

And yet there is also something uncontrollable hinted at here too. And maybe something engendering awe or caution, for we are talking about God, and mystery and power beyond our imagining.

 

2. The sound of a rushing wind

Unlike fire here is something that is not seen and yet we know its effects. We can hear it through what it does to trees, bushes, our structures and other things. Before we had a Bureau of Meteorology its origins were unknown, its destination uncertain.

 

Wind can be strong, roaring, powerful, energetic, the blow you over kind. We have witnessed destruction of buildings, bridges, trees etc. It can be wild and unpredictable. It can be a searing, hot wind, or it can be the kind that sends the thermometer plunging.

 

Like fire, wind can be dangerous. But it can also be life-giving. It can blow away what is old and dead like the leaves covering many gardens at the moment. It can catch you up and sweep you along if it is strong enough. It can also be refreshing, invigorating, a relief in unbearable conditions.

 

Does some of this cover the nature and work of the Holy Spirit – comforting, refreshing, invigorating, relieving, moving us along to new places, clearing away fears and false hopes, or old ways of doing things. Yet even more than fire we are reminded of the uncontrollable, unseen work and presence of the Spirit, known only by its effects.

 

3. In John’s Gospel there is a different picture of the Holy Spirit

The gift of the Spirit in John’s Gospel is described in a different manner, taking place at a different time and place to Luke’s scene. The risen Jesus breathes the Spirit upon his disciples. The Spirit is pictured as breath, the divine breath of the risen Lord. The image draws on the Hebrew and Greek words for breath, spirit or wind. In Hebrew: ruach. In Greek: pneuma. But Joh’s Gospel also draws on the stories of creation in Genesis where God breathes into the humans he has created to give them life.

 

Breath can be gentle, soft, caressing. Above all breath is a matter of life or death. It’s what we search for if someone has been seriously injured. It is what marks the presence of life. Its absence signifies death. We might also be called upon to give breath to another to revive them.

 

Maybe breath is the primary symbol for the Holy Spirit – that which gives and sustains life within us – individually and communally. Jesus breathing on his disciples recalls God’s giving life in creation and marks out the gift of the Spirit, as a new creation.

 

*******

Jesus lived a life of God’s compassion and love in a flesh and blood form. What now that he is no longer physically, visibly present? Are we left with only a memory, a story from the past, a good example to follow? Luke’s visual and auditory portrayal of the coming of the Holy Spirit – a scene full of vivid imagery – says NO. The life of Jesus goes on. John’s account suggests there is a new creation in this event.

God said yes to Jesus in raising him from the dead. God was saying in that: this is who I am and how I am. We are not left with only a memory, or just an inspiring story, but the divine presence goes on with us. Like a wind or breath, it is not really visible, as the created order of our world is. But it is still noticeable through its effects in the world, through its effect on people’s lives, through its comfort, its invigorating presence, its gift of strength in difficult times, its engendering love and compassion and justice and freedom for all. Its presence keeps us in touch with God’s word to us, teaching us to communicate in love; giving us cause to celebrate being a community in true continuity with God’s people of all ages, with God’s way of being and doing in the world.

Both Luke and John paint vivid word pictures. They want us to realise a momentous truth. That the Spirit of God, the breath of God, God’s presence is with us as it was with Jesus long ago. All the ancient curses and fears that plague humankind, and all the things which inhibit relations and hope can be overcome. Jesus was Emmanuel, ‘God with us’. So now we have a new Emmanuel, the life-giving Spirit of God, with us. We are a new people in a new way.