Pentecost
John 14: 23-31
Jesus replied, “He who truly
loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him and we will come to him
and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. He
who does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word
that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.
I have said this to you while I am still with you.
But he who is called down, the health-bringing Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, he will teach you everything and will awaken within you all
that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do
not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do
not be afraid [have no fear].
You have heard how I said to you, ‘I am going away,
and yet I am coming to you’. If you loved me you would rejoice because I am
going to the Father[ly Ground of the World], for the Father is mightier than I
am.
I have told you now, before it happens, so that
when it happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for
soon the prince of this world is coming. Yet over me he has no power.
But the world shall see in this how I love the
Father [Ground of the World] and how I act in accordance with the Father’s
purpose, as it was entrusted to me. Arise, let us go on from here. [let us be
on our way.]
Whitsun II
Monday May 28, 2012
John 14: 23-31
We are all surrounded by an invisible element. It is an
element that is vital to our life. It weaves among all things. It is the air.
Filled with life-giving oxygen, exhaled by the plants, the air sustains our
life. Yet most of the time we remain unconscious of it.
There is another invisible element that weaves among all
things, that surrounds and sustains the very nature of the universe. This
invisible, omnipresent element is God’s love. God’s love for all of His
creation surrounds everything, sustains everything, gives everything existence
and life.
After their apparent loss of Christ at His Ascension, His
disciples were encapsulated by grief. After ten days Christ sends His and His
Father’s healing Spirit of Love. This Spirit of Love, of understanding and
comfort now not only surrounds them, but in fact enters into them. Christ and
His Father make it possible for their radiant, life-giving and sustaining love
to begin to enter and operate from within human souls.
This is what He means when He says: He who truly loves me
reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and
prepare with him an everlasting dwelling. John14:23 But we need to make space in our
hearts. The poet says:
What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
….
When we are able to build
open spaces
….
then we can come to see
how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
[air]
together, that make fire possible.
….
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to
burn
can find its way.[1]
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