Thursday, May 16, 2013

Today’s text

John 14:16-17

I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth whom the world can never accept since it neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you. 

Reflection

Too often we look at Jesus and see the immense gulf that separates from him. He seems so unreal, so unworldly, or so we make him in our minds.

But when he says he and the Father are one, he is speaking not only of his life but ours, especially when he promises to send the Spirit, the Paraclete/Helper who will abide is us, filling us with … the same thing that filled him--awareness of the immense love that is the Father.

The Spirit comes, abides within to bring intimate union with God and the power that comes from knowing who we are: bearers of the eternal mystery, just like Jesus, our brother.

The difference between him and us, I suppose, is that he allowed his heart and mind to continually abide in the mystery of that identity. Therefore, he spoke and acted--in every moment--from the depth of his union with the Father.

We act and speak so often moved by our fears and experience of feeling threatened, anxious and wounded. No way to live, it’s not life at all.

Life is to know what Jesus knew, the Abiding Spirit of God in-dwelling the heart and mind, giving trust and peace, allowing the full power in our being to pour out unhindered, and relishing the beauty of life and living as God intends.

We are not as different from him as we think. The Spirit that was in him is in us, so hindered and buried beneath the anxious drivenness of each day. It waits for us to stop and listen, clear away the noise and pay attention to life within us that wants to live … or shall I say to come out and play in the beauty of the day?

Pr. David L. Miller