| What
about the Holy Spirit? Chapter four of Dear Kim, this is what I believe . . . by Bill Loader |
| Dear Kim, When I was a boy, people were using the King James version of the Bible and spoke in its language when they talked about the Spirit of God. Usually that meant they spoke of “the Holy Ghost”. It was repeated, for instance, in every benediction at the end of worship. As a boy I found this strange. Did God have a ghost? I knew about ghost stories? What does the holy ghost look like? It was a little scary! Spirit, Breath, Wind Later I learned that people meant the Holy Spirit. People did sometimes speak about spirits as ghosts, being from the spirit world. However, the more I explored, especially when I learned languages of the Bible, Hebrew and Greek, what seemed weird came to make sense. It fact it more than made sense. It was profound. For the word used in both languages to speak about God’s Spirit was also the word for wind and breath. It was a very intimate way of speaking about God’s presence, as close as breath. It set my imagination going: breath brings life and wind brings movement. Sometimes in the ancient world people thought of God as far away and remote. One of the ways they bridged the gap they felt between God and themselves was to speak of angels, whom God would send as his agents. But another way they bridged the gap was to speak of God’s Spirit, almost like it was a detachable part of God’s person which God could send as he sent angels. That is not really how they saw it. It was just another way of speaking about God. Trying to explain God and God’s presence was never easy and so people resorted to saying things like God sent the Spirit or God’s Spirit came down on people or filled people. However, when they said that, they never meant that only part of God was present as though something of God was left behind. Human language always struggles when it tries to describe God and God’s presence. Talking about God’s Spirit was a way of talking about God, especially when they experienced God as being close like breath or wind. They used this language in various ways which could be confusing if taken literally. Paul, for instance, sometimes talks about God being with us or the Spirit of God being with us or the Spirit of Christ being with us or simply of Jesus being with us. He always means: God being with us. Lots of our songs and hymns show the same kind of mixed ways of saying things. The important thing is: God is with us! Signs of the Spirit What are the signs that God, God’s Spirit, is with us? This was a question which received different answers and still receives different answers today. It was a big problem in Paul’s congregations in Corinth. Some people were apparently claiming that God’s Spirit was with them but were behaving in ways that created division and disorder. Something was seriously wrong. What are the signs that God’s Spirit is with us? I remember being in groups who insisted that the Spirit would ensure that you were always rejoicing in the Lord as they put it, always feeling joyful, happy. It seemed to work for me for a while until I got a cold. Did I lose God’s Spirit when my body was far from happy? I soon learned that this claim was simply not true. We can know God’s Spirit with us when we have highs and also when we have lows. Surely that was also Jesus’ experience. Focusing on feelings is not the ways to go. Confusing feelings with spiritual wellbeing does not work. That is not to say that in opening ourselves to God’s Spirit we will have moments when we are elated and joyful. When Paul addresses the issue at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 12, he tells them not to get carried away the way they used to get carried away in the religions of the time, where probably drugs sometimes played a role. We are not into chasing highs. Instead, he points to the Spirit as having one main agenda: love – for self and for others and for God. One of the ways he speaks about this is to talk about gifts of the Spirit. In this he concentrates on leadership roles within the community. Some people teach, some preach, some organize, some engage in practical day to day help. The Spirit inspires such action, using people’s natural abilities. Openness to God means that we can sense a calling to be a channel of God’s love in particular ways that will be helpful in building up community. Among such gifts Paul also mentions prophecy and speaking in tongues. By prophecy he refers to people offering insights about current future situations facing the communities. The assumption was not that they were always right. Such claims needed to be assessed. Speaking in tongues was a phenomenon present in other religions of the time when people let their speech flow spontaneously almost not knowing what they were saying but doing so in response to God’s Spirit. It is like dancing with your voice making spontaneous movements. Paul does not discourage it. He, too, practices it. I remember talking to someone once who was into speaking in tongues and who demonstrated it to me while we were talking. It was clearly under his control. He could turn it on and turn it off. Paul was also aware that this form of religious expression was under people’s control and could be harmless or could be disruptive and self-indulgent as he points out in 1 Corinthian 14. This is part of what he means when he tells them earlier not to get carried away the way they used to get carried away in their old religions. The Spirit and the Extraordinary Another common answer to the question, where is God, was to point to the extraordinary and the miraculous. This was common across the religions of the day so that there was almost a marketplace of competing religions: which ones produced the greatest miracles? Even politicians got into the act with emperors claiming special divinely given powers. Inevitably some early Christians entered the market with their list of miracles of Jesus. As time went on, we see them prone to exaggeration, with miracles becoming more and more fantastic. We see this beginning already when Matthew and Luke rewrite Mark using it as the basis of their gospels, when they take statements like that Jesus healed many and turn it into a statement that Jesus healed all. Despite our world of scepticism and our very different understanding of human illnesses and disabilities, there seems sufficient ground to claim that Jesus did indeed perform acts of healing through touch and other means and that these were seen as something which God’s Spirit helped him do. Some other miracles, like stilling a storm, or multiplying small amounts of food to feed thousands, echo imagery and events from the Old Testament, and for this reason some see them as primarily symbolic while others trace in them a core of historicity. We do not however have the impression that people believed that Jesus exercised a kind of magic which could have seen him heal all people everywhere and provide food for all the hungry people of his world but simply decided not to so. There were those who promoted Christian faith in a way that focused on miracles. Oneness with God guaranteed magical protection, prosperity and abundance, escaping all hardship, illness or disability. Not so, argues Paul, who points to his own journey and of course to the life Jesus, which ended on a cross. Walking in the ways of God and God’s love cost him his life but unleashed wonders of a different sort and earned God’s approval, who brought him up from the dead to be in his presence in heaven. Other writers in the New Testament reflect that the focus on the miraculous became a problem. At the end of chapter two, the author of the fourth gospel tells of people who followed Jesus because of his miracles and does so in a striking way. They believed in his name on that basis and then the author adds: but he did not believe in them. He then goes on in chapter three to cite Nicodemus as an example, who hailed Jesus’ miracles only to be told that he had missed the point and needed a new start if he was ever to enter God’s kingdom and God’s way of doing things. In what follows the author plays with the fact that the word for Spirit also means mind when he writes: "Wind blows where it wants to and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it has come from nor where it is going. So it is is with someone born of the Spirit." The same author has Jesus go for his life when people wanted to crown him king because of his miracles (John 6:14–15) and describes Jesus’ brothers as still unbelievers when they suggested to Jesus that he should promote himself on the basis of his miracles (John 7:3–5). At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew has Jesus declare that the day would come when some would put their claimed before Jesus as having performed miracles in is name and who acclaimed him as Lord only to be told by Jesus that he never knew them because their priorities were all wrong for they were not in step with what he had been teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 7:21–23). Love as the fruit of the Spirit Paul’s most famous response to the Corinthians who were peddling a spirituality based on signs and wonders comes in1 Corinthians 13 where he outlines what are the true signs of God’s Spirit. He starts with speaking in tongues and moves onto miracles, claiming that they count for nothing if love is not central. For love is the sign of God’s presence. That may sometimes be spectacular but sometimes it is not. It is about caring, because that is God’s priority both in creation in the first place and ever since. When writing to Galatians he lists the fruit of the Spirit and first on the list is love (Gal 5:22–23). Joy, peace, patience and other qualities follow and flow from love. Paul is using an image, fruit, which goes back to John the Baptist and was also used by Jesus, which speaks of trees and fruit. The state of the tree will determine the state of the fruit. When Paul spells this out, he talks about the transforming power of God’s Spirit and the love it brings people. It brings them forgiveness, alleviates their fears and guilt, helps them stop worrying about themselves and what other people think of them, and so frees then and their attention to turn in love towards others. They end up not just doing what the Law commands but exceeding its demands, as Paul explains in Romans 8. That includes openness to being loved and taking that love on board. Loving yourself as God loves you sets you free to bear the fruit of love. This is what happens when we open ourselves and keep opening ourselves to God’s Spirit, to the love which God offers us. This is very personal and chimes in well with the understanding of the word Spirit as meaning breath. God breathes the Spirit of love into us. This is not about a super-spirituality or being on a high of religious self-indulgence. It is about being what we were made to be, God’s partners in love for others and for creation. The Day of Pentecost and the Spirit The fact that the word for “Spirit” could mean also “wind” or “breath” opened many opportunities to play with images when referring to the Spirit. The opening verse of the Bible in Genesis uses the word to say that a “wind” from God swept over the surface of the waters at creation, but it might have meant instead that the Spirit swept over the face of the waters. It is a playful image. Luke makes use of this range of meaning when he describes the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–21). He writes about a mighty rushing wind. The scene he creates had many other symbolic elements designed to enhance the importance of the Spirit. Luke assumes that many of those who would be listening to his account would know of the legendary story about My Sinai. It told of fire coming down from heaven and dividing into seventy parts for the seventy nations of the world so that all could understand God’s law. However none of the nations accepted the flame except one, the nation of Israel. Luke’s scene on the Day of Pentecost has the Spirit descend as flames of fire and rest on everyone’s head. In his story it symbolizes a new beginning, a new styart which the Spirit makes possible for all peoples. There was more to the symbolism. The book of Genesis tells an ancient story or myth about why there are many different languages (Genesis 11). It all came about, so the story goes, because people in Babel, Babylon, built a tower reaching high up into the heavens. The gods or God considered them too arrogant and so demolished their tower and scattered them abroad and made them speak different languages unable to communicate with each other. Luke has the Day of Pentecost cancel or undo that event. Now, possibility of communication is restored. Luke connects it symbolically to those in Jerusalem speaking in tongues which he depicts as praising God in different languages. Despite their doing so, people understood what they were saying. He picks up the fact that Jews will have come as pilgrims to Jerusalem from all parts of the empire who, apart from all knowing Greek the common language throughout the empire, also recognised local languages being spoken by those praising God. “Pentecost” is a Greek word meaning fiftieth and refers to the fiftieth day after the Feast of Passover. It was a festival day when Jews celebrated the coming of the Law and was also the Festival of the first fruits of the harvest. That was yet another aspect of the symbolism Luke brings into the story. For indeed the coming of the Spirit marks a new kind of harvest as people from across the empire come to the faith. In some ways Luke as storyteller gives us a similar message to Paul about the Spirit. The Spirit brings people together, helps them love and communicate, and inspires them to spread the message of love through the world. His dating the coming of the Spirit to the Day of Pentecost and its festivals was rich symbolism. It is why we celebrate the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost on our church year. In depicting the beginnings of the church Luke uses such symbolism. We see it also in his having Jesus ascend after forty days, echoing Israel’s forty years in the wilderness before entering the land and Jesus’ sp[ending forty days in the wilderness. Numbers made connections. Similarly, he mentions the twelve disciples and the gathering in the upper room as beibng one hundred and twenty (12 x 10). Elsewhere we read of the Spirit coming on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. In the fourth gospel the risen Jesus meets with his disciples on the evening of the day of resurrection and breathes on them, saying “Receive the Spirit”, telling them also that they are be God’s envoys as he was. “As my Father sent me, so I send you”. This scene, too, has its element of symbolism, especially the reference to breath, which recalls the story of God making human beings from clay in Genesis and breathing into them the breath of life. Baptism and the Spirit Speaking of the Spirit of God was a way that people spoke about God’s presence with them. It was not as though the Spirit was a separate being or gift which God chose to impart, such as only after Easter or on the Day of Pentecost. Jesus spoke of the Spirit of God as active during his ministry. Indeed, John the Baptist who baptised people in the waters of the River Jordan, said that Jesus would baptise people with the Spirit. This, too, was symbolism. What it meant was that Jesus was going to bring God’s presence, God’s goodness and love to bear on people’s lives. Luke has him begin his ministry by citing Isaiah 61 to describe his authorisation, saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring god news to the poor” (Luke 4:16–19). The story of Jesus’ baptism speaks of the Spirit coming upon Jesus and pictures it as coming down from heaven like a dove. Already in Old Testament times people spoke of the Spirit inspiring people, especially prophets. When the first Christians adapted John the Baptist’s baptism performing it now in the name of Jesus, they saw it as also symbolizing the coming of the Spirit on the baptized person. As always with language about the Spirit, we are not to take it literally as though at the point of a person’s being baptized God sends the Spirit. It is however something which baptism symbolizes. And this is something we also celebrate when we baptize infants. The act of baptizing symbolizes how God’s Spirit, God’s goodness and love, is there for us even before we have the capacity to understand. Language about the Spirit is nearly always symbolic, whether we speak of being moved by the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, or being baptized by the Spirit. It is always only God that we are talking about. It is not to be equated with a feeling or a high or a special power. It is a traditional way of speaking about God and God’s presence with us. In some ways the language can be used very loosely. People speak of the Spirit, of God, of Jesus coming to them but they all mean the same thing, the same person. Always God and God as love, whose love forgives us, restores us, sets us free, empowers and inspires us to be God’s partners in the world. The relative untidiness of such language was inevitable as people sought to give expression to their faith and what they were experiencing. It had the potential to produce confusion and misunderstandings. One of the reasons for developing the doctrine of the Trinity was to keep such misunderstandings at bay. Whether we talk of the Father or the Son or the Spirit, we mean God, not three gods. Walking in the Spirit Paul spoke about living and walking in the Spirit. By that he meant keeping constantly open to God and God’s presence and in this way letting God shape our lives. This might sometimes fill us with the emotion of joy, but it is always more than emotion. It might sometimes be a comforting and encouraging presence when we face tough times, knowing that sometimes it is costly to love and stand up for justice and compassion. Jesus knew that. In the fourth gospel we have a long section in which the author presents Jesus’ parting advice. In biographies of famous people those days one of the important components of such an account needed to be what the author imagined would have been the famous person’s last advice relevant to the generation of the reader and those who would be listening to his work. The gospel writers did the same thing. Mark has just a chapter in which he has Jesus talk about future suffering and indicate that the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed (Mark 13), something which happened in 70 CE, shortly before Mark wrote. Matthew writing around fifteen years later expands Mark’s account of Jesus’ final words with another chapter in which he employs parables of Jesus to challenge believers of his day to remain faithful and caring (Matthew 25). Luke, who also uses Mark as his main source, expands the speech but also transfers some of Jesus’ teaching found earlier in Mark and places it within his account of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples (Luke 22). John’s gospel goes much further and has not one but five chapters given over to presenting the message of Jesus to people of his time (John 13–17). In presenting Jesus’ last words each author is drawing on sayings and stories of Jesus and elaborating them to have them address people of their own day. When the author of the fourth gospel does so, he gives special attention to the Spirit. He speaks in John 14 of the Spirit as another encourager or comforter. If Jesus was the first, the Spirit continues that work of encouragement. The author has Jesus speak of the Spirit as taking the message of Jesus and repeating it. It was a way of saying that the Spirit helps us connect with who Jesus was and what Jesus was about. Ultimately, that means that the Spirit helps us connect to God and what God is on about. For to speak of the Spirit is in fact to speak about God and God’s presence with us. So, far from being a ghost or something obscure and mysterious, the Spirit is the way we talk about our intimate connection with God, as close as breath, as powerful as wind. And if you look for signs of the Spirit in your own life and in the lives of others, you will see it wherever you see love and compassion in action. For the fruit of the Spirit is love and as Paul conclude his wonderful words about love in 1 Corinthians 13, “For the present, what we have is faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” |