Without Office Hours--May 22, 2024

Without Office Hours--May 22, 2024

[Jesus told his disciples:] "Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." [John 16:7]

At some point, all of our language about God falls apart. 

Our words are blunt tools, and our brains have the two-fold weakness of having a limited grasp while thinking they are big enough to grasp everything.  That's especially true when it comes to talking about God's life as "Trinity"--as three Persons in one Being (which is what Christianity has classically taught, in those explicit terms since at least the fourth century).  We fumble over what we mean, and we stumble through describing God without our language crumbling into nonsense.  And yet, Jesus gives us some places for a firm toe-hold, even if they are still beyond our complete grasp.

For one, Jesus reminds us that the Spirit he sends is somehow still very much in connection with Jesus himself.  Jesus doesn't see the Spirit as a consolation prize, parting gift, or second-tier B-list deity.  So even though we might think to ourselves, "It would have been so much BETTER to have lived during Jesus' time, so we could have perfect clarity and right answers to all our questions, but we're stuck living here twenty centuries too late," Jesus thinks that we're actually in a better spot than that.  "It is to your advantage that I go away," he tells his disciples, "for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you." The Spirit Jesus gives is no less divine, no less good, no less sufficient, than what we have been given in Jesus himself.  And without saying that the Spirit is merely Jesus in Disembodied Voice mode, Jesus does make it clear that the Spirit gives us a live connection to Jesus, who remains resurrected and alive forever.  I don't know how to explain that, dissect that, or even diagram that--it feels like words themselves fail here.  And yet, I'm willing to trust Jesus' promise that somehow the gift of the Spirit keeps us in touch with the Crucified and Risen Jesus, and somehow the Spirit's presence is even better than what the first twelve disciples experienced in their time walking the dusty roads of Galilee with Jesus of Nazareth.

I want to suggest at least one possible way that having the Spirit, rather than the physical presence of Jesus of Nazareth, is "to our advantage."  It is the gift of the Spirit's presence everywhere.  That is something that the physical body of human-and-divine Jesus cannot offer us.  During the years of his earthly life and ministry, Jesus of Nazareth could be one place at one time.  If he was at Zacchaeus' house, it meant he wasn't at Peter's house.  If he was healing a woman in a busy crowded street, it meant that he couldn't be at Jairus' house attending to a sick daughter near death.  If he was dying on a cross, he couldn't be wrapping his arms around his grieving mother.  Even after his resurrection (which seems to have allowed Jesus' some unusual abilities to appear within locked doors!), Jesus can't be everywhere at once--if he is on the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and his companion, he can't also be back in Jerusalem at the very same time with the rest of the disciples.  He has to leave one place to go to the  next.  But the Spirit, however, can be with you where you are, with me where I am, and with a whole world full of us all over God's green earth.  The Spirit not only enfolds us like the air around us in the atmosphere, but the Spirit can be within us like the air that fills our lungs and is incorporated into the cells of our bodies.  That's not a trick Jesus' physical body can pull off--and it means that none of us is ever really alone.  None of us is left to our own devices, and none of us has to wait for our turn in a line of billions for some one-on-one time with God.  The Spirit makes it possible for us to be in the presence of God anywhere, anytime, without waiting for scheduled office hours.  And yet, Jesus doesn't make it seem at all like he's passing us off to the Spirit like some kind of grad student assistant instead of getting to see the professor face to face.  Jesus insists that the Spirit given to us is no counterfeit, no substitute, and no second-class knock-off.  By the Spirit, we are in touch with Jesus, and he with us, wherever the Spirit leads us.

How will it change your day, or at least your outlook on the world and the way you face it, to know that you are not alone--and that the One who goes with us brings the fullness of God right in our midst?

Lord Jesus, stir up your Spirit among us now, and bring us into your presence.