The Spirit of Truth

”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. »

John 14

We haven’t had much sunlight the past few weeks.  But we have not stopped believing in the sun.  We know it is shining even though our vision is clouded  by rain and storm clouds.  We keep on looking into the sky, delighted with even a small break in the relentless gray.  Happy with glorious cloud shapes gilded with the promise of sun.

When Jesus tells his disciples (you and I) that while he must go to another place, he will give us a new way to be in relationship, he is saying that even though you cannot see the Advocate, helper, you will receive the Holy Spirit.

We will know the Holy Spirit because we have known and do now know Christ.  Just as sunlight is not separate from sun, neither is Advocate separate from Christ. 

And the way in which our eyes will be trained and our hearts open to receive this power, will be in the lives we lead, keeping the commandments.  Jesus is not a thoughtless disciplinarian, wanting us to follow blindly to illustrate His power.  He knows that if we are not consistent in our lives, we will wander aimlessly looking for the Holy Spirit outside ourselves.  Jesus wants us to be confident in our value, and consistent in our practice.  This consistency of spiritual practice and observation of right living forms us into the people who can say with confidence, ‘the Advocate is here.’

We can look into the sky, however dark, and see that light is breaking forth.

And we can invite those around us to believe in that generosity of light and comfort God so desperately wants to give to all.

Even after all this time,

The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe me."

Look what happens with

A love like that.

It lights the whole sky.

- Hafiz of Persia