During these waning days of Easter, we pack in another great day to celebrate – Ascension. Ascension is this Thursday, and the area Episcopal Churches are celebrating it together, as one body of Christ. Ascension is an under-appreciated day, because it is through Christ’s ascension that our humanity is joined with God the Father. On Ascension, we celebrate Christ’s departure of this world, and because he takes with him our toils and tribulations, joys and loves, his departure is a good thing. It’s why we talk about Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension.
But Ascension has a little bit of a down side, at least on first blush. When Christ ascends, he leaves this place, leaves us. No one likes to be left behind.
What we need is some lingering God presence, after Christ’s Ascension. And that’s exactly what Christ leaves as his parting gift. Christ promises the that the disciples, then and now, will not be left alone. We will not be abandoned or orphaned.
On June 8, we will celebrate Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit. THIS is the comforter about whom Christ speaks today. We will not be left alone, because Christ will send another comforter to be with us always. God the Holy Spirit will dwell in us. Today, Christ is setting up the story in the Gospel reading.
With God in us, with God who - through Christ - knows all our human ups and downs, God knows us. God is with us. Always. The results of that God spirit inside us are pretty great. First of all, it’s hard to say God is somewhere else, God is foreign. God isn’t up there. God is with us. Always. It’s that in-dwelt Holy Spirit that leads Paul to say today to the people of Athens that we worship a known God, rather than an unknown God, foreign and distant. God is known to us because of God the Holy Spirit is with us. Present and imminent.
Sometimes it’s hard to feel close to this omnipresent God, because we don’t really know what God the Spirit looks like. Scripture doesn’t tell us much. There are a few illustrations, like a dove, like flames, but that’s probably about as accurate as describing an indescribably beautiful sunset as pretty. Not wrong, but woefully inadequate. So what is God the Holy Spirit and how would we recognize it when we encounter it?
Craig Rennebohm, author of the book “Souls in the Hands of a Tender God" has a working theory that makes sense to me. He is a pastor and chaplain to some of Seattle’s most vulnerable and mentally ill people living on the streets and he talks about the Holy Spirit in this way. He says that we often think about the Holy Spirit in vertical terms, as if it is occupying the space between us and a God up there. Instead, he says that the Holy Spirit is best described and seen in the space between people. It’s more of a horizontal plane, rather than a vertical plane.
I think the Holy Spirit is best seen between people. But obviously not like flames or doves. I think we can learn something about what the Holy Spirit looks like in action from the collect for today.
The collect asks God to “Pour into our hearts such love”. Paired with the readings today, perhaps the love that is poured into us is the same as the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps that love we experience and show to others IS HOW we experience the Holy Spirit. Whether it is the spirit or the effects of the spirit, I think loving actions between us is our best glimpse of the Holy Spirit.
We’ve all experienced love from others. We’ve all acted in loving ways to others – big or small. Maybe that is the Holy Spirit.
It’s the Holy Spirit in us that allows us, and sometimes propels us, to act in loving and self-giving ways when common sense would have us act in another way. It’s the Holy Spirit that makes us give of our time, talent and treasure. That love is poured into us.
Christ says he is leaving the gift of the Spirit for everyone. In you. In me. In everyone we meet. One of the other great results of having an ever-present spirit of God is that it’s in us, and connects us. One spirit. One God. Uniting all of us. It’s when the Holy in me meets the Holy in you that I experience God.
This happens at every time when one person loves or cares for another. At coffee hour when we watch out for and care for the younger members of the parish. When you are moved to give money to help others. When I share an unexplained unexpected tear with someone.
When Jeanette takes care of the young woman who was sold into prostitution by her dad. When Bill brings breakfast to the paranoid schizophrenic who otherwise wouldn’t get a meal, or Shari and Karen make 600 cups of coffee. When George returns to have coffee with some of the most broken, disturbed and disturbing people in this community. When we help others, we are meeting their holy presence. They are holy children of God, and the Spirit in us helps us see that. Watching two people together engaged in any love or light is watching the Holy Spirit in action, in the space between the two of them.
Those are holy interactions, between holy people. We are all holy, because we all have God the Holy Spirit living in us. It’s the Holy Spirit in us that allows us to see Christ in others.
God the Holy Spirit is a great comforter. And while sometimes that comfort comes from a peaceful internal sense of God. More often for me, that comfort comes from others, from other holy people with God dwelling in them. It’s the love shared between people that comforts me. People comforting people. This is where we see God the Holy Spirit.
Christ was fully human. He knows what it’s like to be abandoned, as he was abandoned at the Cross. Today, he promises us that we will never ever be left alone. That we have a present God. And that Holy Spirit propels us to love others, is visible in our loving actions, and comforts us through the actions of others. It’s through the light and love between people that I believe we catch a glimpse of God, or of God’s kingdom come.
God, pour in us your love. Send us another advocate to be with us forever. Then, filled with that love, let seek and recognize the holy in each other.
Amen.
