The Holy Spirit Promised

How Christianity ever reached this point is something we marvel at.   If we set Jesus and the gospel in the appropriate historic position we can see that he was promised by God many, many years before he actually came.   It was hundreds of years that the Jews of Israel yearned for the Messiah foretold by the prophets.   At the time of Jesus’ ministry there was a very long history for the people to look back on.   This was the time when God chose to intervene in history and it made an immense difference.   Just a handful of close friends and supporters went around with Jesus as he talked to the population.   Towards the end of his ministry, as our gospel reading confirms, he began to prepare them for the work they would begin when he was no longer with them.

Jesus said, “If you love me you will obey my commands; and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another to be your advocate, who will be with you forever.”   These very ordinary men, workers in the pastoral scene were to be the ones to spread the gospel once Jesus was no longer around.   So it makes sense that Jesus began preparing them for their new work.   It would not be very long before they would meet behind locked doors for safety.   Yet they had been chosen, not just to follow Jesus, but take over from him the greatest task anyone had ever undertaken.   They were to become the continuing representatives of the Messiah as the work began to build.   What a responsibility they would have!

These men had little power of their own.   They did not consort with kings, governors and the like.   They were not well known among the population for all eyes would have been on Jesus during the three years he preached the good news.   Suddenly there was going to be a huge burden laid upon them.   Their first thoughts, I would imagine, would be fearful indeed.

But Jesus lost no time in assuring them that they would have a new force to carry them along.   The Holy Spirit would come upon them and truly empower them.   Now, depending on which translation of the Bible you happen to read, the Spirit is described as one of three things.   You will hear the Spirit referred to as a helper, a comforter or an advocate.   I find it interesting to consider all three descriptions separately.

We know, from our current viewpoint that the Holy Spirit was and is an amazingly powerful force.   In all three descriptions we can see the power made available to all who follow Jesus.   To me, it makes complete sense that what Jesus promised as a permanent force would be an all powerful entity.   After what Jesus had accomplished in those three years of ministry there would have been a feeling among the apostles of “How do we follow that?”   Alongside Jesus, they had experienced a power on which they could solidly rely all through.   He had all the answers to all their questions.   He had sent them out on occasion to do his work and they felt less than equipped to do the job.   Sometimes they returned having not achieved their aims.   But Jesus was there to explain that this was only to be expected.   Perhaps it was a part of their training for what was to come after Jesus.   With the benefit of hindsight we can see the enormity of the task they would be carrying out in Jesus’ name.

The first word to consider is “helper”.   Evangelising the whole known world at that time was a challenge of epic proportions.    When the helper came it was initially an experience of wind and fire, two powerful forces indeed.   These two powerful forces were anything but personal or private.   Many people were present and marvelled at what they saw and heard.   This was a helper quite different in meaning from any helper we have ever known.   Its everyday meaning of assistance was certainly part of the picture.   But beyond this was a helper that gave the disciples energy and power well beyond that with which they had been born.   They would be energised to live for God in a beautifully refined holy way.   How they lived would be something emulated by millions of followers yet to be brought to God.   They would also have to be able to inspire great things in those to whom they brought the gospel story.   It would spread like wildfire as the power passed through them into many new followers of the way.

Look at the effect on Paul.   He was to take the gospel to the gentile world and bring many, many men and women to God.   He would be instrumental in changing their lives completely.   They would be new people experiencing a complete new start in life.   For them it would really be re-birth in all its meanings.   Paul found himself unable to support the various groups beginning to be known as churches.   It was always best to be with people to encourage them in their new lives.   But this was something with human limitations.   So he wrote letters to churches when he could not be with them and they felt renewed bu what they read.   Eventually his letters were the only means of communication when he was in prison.   So powerful were the words he wrote that we read them today and become inspired.

Paul was just one man and there were many others out on the mission who also inspired the people they met and brought them into the emerging church.   These men were out there in the world talking to anyone who was prepared to listen.   They were challenged in many ways, some of which we know like the case of Philip encountering the Ethiopian eunuch who wanted to know more about what he was reading.   Often it was a case of latching on to an enquiry and explaining the gospel to the enquirer.   But the Spirit was truly active and caused the early missionaries to go to many places to tell the good news.   This was a clear case of a helper making all the difference.

The second word to describe the Holy Spirit was “comforter”.   It is plain that the inspired work carried out by the early followers of Jesus was dangerous.   We know from historical records how many new followers did not live long as they encountered persecution.   One of the worst forms of persecution was the sending of committed Christians to fight wild animals in the arenas of Rome.   There was one case when a prisoner, brought before a judge of a Roman court, was supported by a member of the public in the court itself.   For supporting the prisoner they were challenged and confessed to commitment to Jesus.   Immediately they were seized and sent to an arena to be torn apart in a public spectacle.

There were many church leaders who were even pleased to die for Jesus, such was the strength of their faith.   They almost queued up to die for him, because he had died for them in the first place.   This could only have been a time when they knew the Holy Spirit as a comforter.   The Spirit came to them to give comfort as they faced trials that many today could hardly envisage.   In more recent times Rosa Parks would have felt both help and comfort when she took issue with the discrimination of the day which required her to stand and give up her bus seat to a white person.   This led to a year long bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama with the black community winning as the bus company was almost financially ruined.

The black people of the southern states were inspired by preachers like Martin Luther King, himself inspired by the Holy Spirit.   The inspiration enabled them to become empowered with a strength eventually sufficient to win the arguments and gain civil rights for all.   The hardship they endured would be softened by the “comforter”.   People who have risked everything for Jesus have need comfort in their times of struggle.

Some of the people who resisted the Nazi regime in Germany found that, in prison, they experienced a strange sort of comfort that told their families that they were still alive.   They spoke of being able to pass an encouraging message home by a prolonged smile.   Even in the depths of a horrible prison, with countless doors locked between them and the outside world, they experienced comfort brought by the Holy Spirit.

Thirdly we now consider the word, “advocate”.   For us in the 21^st century, “advocate” is a description of someone who speaks up for another.   It is true to say that, in a life where we are tested in many ways as we carry the gospel to others, we could make good use of an advocate.   In my experience as a former trade union branch secretary I found many occasions when it was better that I speak up for members who were attending disciplinary hearings.   Simple matters were usually dealt with by departmental stewards and the more difficult cases fell into my lap.   There were occasions when the member would be advised to let me answers certain questions in case he or she were so nervous that they admitted guilt when they were not really guilty.

Jesus also refers to the coming Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Truth”.   In last week’s gospel reading we heard Jesus say “I am the way, the truth and the life.”   Here again in today’s passage we hear Jesus referring to the Spirit of Truth.   It is quite obvious that Jesus set great store by truth, that it was the most important thing to realise that when it was the truth you wanted you could guarantee to hear it from him.   In Oscar Wide’s play, “The Importance of Being Earnest”,   Mr John Worthing, speaking of being found in a handbag on a railway station, declared, “That is the truth, Lady Bracknell, pure and simple.”   Lady Bracknell comes back as sharp as a razor, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple!”   But, in this case we attach huge importance to truth because it is one of the titles of the Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit carries absolute truth there can never be a better advocate.   In fact it was demonstrated that, with the Holy Spirit embedded in all that they did and said, the disciples had all the power they needed to successfully preach the gospel learned from Jesus.  

The most amazing thing about all this is that we have the Holy Spirit in support to this very day.   Two thousand years on and we can still call upon the Spirit to be our advocate.   This is why the greatest cause of all has lasted to now.   The Spirit has preserved it and has driven it over many centuries.  

On 24^th May 1738 this is what happened to John Wesley:

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.   About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.   I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the Law of Sin and death.”

What happened to one man that evening caused him to preach salvation with a renewed power and thousands have come to a personal relationship with God as a result, and it is still happening.

So we can say how amazing it is that we meet here today drawn by and influenced by the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus to his closest friends.   We are blessed indeed!