Stepping into the unknown…
King George 6th in 1939 famously said, "I said to the man who stands at the Gate of the Year, 'Give me light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Step into the darkness, put your hand into the hand of God, and that will be to you better than a light, and safer than any known way.'"
Today in our gospel reading (John 14:23-29) Jesus was speaking to his disciples again, this time on the night before the crucifixion, and he was talking about his departure from them – from time to time we hear of people such as politicians standing down or football managers moving on from their jobs. There will sometimes be talk of their legacy and often thanks will come in the form of prepared and agreed statements…
But Jesus’ promise of departure was rather different – He made no great speech about what he had done, he didn’t need to, and he promised to leave behind what he called his ‘peace’, he asked his disciples not to be afraid, and he promised the help of the Holy Spirit to guide them through what must have seemed an incredibly uncertain future.
In effect it was these sort of words that King George 6th was trying to express in that message. The country was faced with a dangerous and uncertain future, there was the hardship of war, the worry about loved ones, the limited resources and so on. For many people there was little to hold on to other than faith in God.
It seems almost a faith of last resort when we think of it superficially, and that is how we often look at it, but Jesus is promising so much more. In his promise of peace, he is promising something that only he, and not the world, can give, and something that nobody can ever take away.
I read once that it is not peace that is self-induced, but rather anxiety – in other words the will of God is that we should live at peace – at peace with God, at peace with those around us, and even at peace with the world.
It’s something that is so hard to achieve, and by ourselves we’ll probably struggle to do it at times… It is the gift of the Holy Spirit, but it is a gift that is so often ignored. The evangelist Billy Graham once said ‘Take the Holy Spirit out of the Church and 95% of what we do will still go on.’
I don’t know in what context he said that, and whether it was intended as a criticism or just an observation, but it must emphasise to us what we are missing if we are not building our lives, and our Church with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In different ages, different people expect different things – I enjoy reading, thinking about and listening to programmes about history but it’s so difficult sometimes to imagine the thoughts that were going through people’s minds in years gone by, and the further we go back the more true this seems to be…
And through the centuries, whilst the Holy Spirit has not changed at all, our dependence on the Holy Spirit has I suspect changed dramatically – for those early disciples, they still felt the presence of Jesus very much moving amongst them. Their experience and their inspiration was based on the example of someone they knew, someone who had walked and talked with them…
Later in history, dependence on the Holy Spirit would become almost a superstitious kind of idea for some, maybe even a scary idea, and now perhaps that dependence has moved again.
Today we are reluctant to depend on the Holy Spirit because we are so often suspicious of depending on anyone or anything, whether consciously or sub consciously. There are also many who use the Holy Spirit just as an aid to worship, and others who really don’t think that the Holy Spirit has anything at all to offer them.
And in every position we must surely look back to Jesus, and try, however difficult it may be, to place ourselves 2000 years ago, as we recognise his divine and saving power, and his extraordinary love.
On Thursday we celebrate Ascension Day, a celebration because Christ’s work on earth was complete. Jesus ascended but never intended to leave us alone. He never left us without support and guidance. He never left us without anyone to care for us, or support and strengthen us.
When Jesus spoke to his disciples, I think he spoke of the Holy Spirit as someone to guide every second of our lives – not a guide for worship, not a strength for the bad times, not an inspiration for the times when we need wisdom, but someone to guide us all of the time...
One of the most challenging questions that any of us can ask ourselves is ‘What is getting in the way of our relationship with God ?’
The answers can be varied, but I’m sure without exception we can all think of some things which are doing just that – maybe it is being too busy, maybe a fear of trusting, or a problem with prayer or worship, maybe it’s a dependence on a particular kind of worship, a problem with another person – there can be all kinds of different reasons for our reluctance to allow God fully into our lives.
Yet as we reflect on it there is only question that he actually wants us to answer, and that is ‘Whether we want him to be part of our lives’.
It really is, I think, as simple as that – if God is not playing a full part in our lives, it’s because we are choosing to keep him out. His invitation is there for all of us all the time to trust him, to enjoy a life changing relationship with him, to know his presence with us always…
I’ll finish with a story about the evangelist D L Moody who, when speaking to a large audience, held up a glass and asked, "How can I get the air out of this glass?" One man shouted, "Suck it out with a pump!"
Moody replied, "That would create a vacuum and shatter the glass."
After numerous other suggestions Moody smiled, picked up a jug of water, and filled the glass. "There," he said, "all the air is now removed." He then went on to explain that victory in the Christian life is not accomplished by "sucking out a sin here and there," but by being filled with the Holy Spirit.
That is our invitation! To trust more. Whether we have followed Jesus for years or whether we’ve never been sure, we have that invitation to allow God to fill us with his Spirit – a Spirit that doesn’t make all of our problems go away but gives us a strength to deal with them… A Spirit that offers us gifts to live, really live, knowing we are never alone…
May God give each of us the wisdom and the desire to allow him to fill us with his Spirit, enabling us to get closer to him, and to each other; and to offer praise and glory to his name in everything we do. AMEN
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