John 15.26-27
Ignatius Hazim was born in 1921 in a village near the city of Hama in Syria. The son of devout Arab Orthodox Christian parents, Ignatius discerned a call to the ministry when he was a young boy. After having served for decades as an Orthodox priest, Ignatius became the Patriarch of Antioch in 1979. Just four years before his consecration, the World Council of Churches invited Father Ignatius to deliver a talk at their assembly in Nairobi. At the conclusion of his lecture, Father Ignatius proclaimed the following benediction:
“Without the Holy Spirit, God is far away. Christ stays in the past. The church is simply an organization. Authority is a matter of domination. Mission is a matter of propaganda. The liturgy is no more than an evocation. Christian living is a slave morality. The Gospel is a dead letter. And preaching is futile.
But with the Holy Spirit, the cosmos is resurrected and groans with the birth-pangs of the kingdom. The risen Christ is here. The church shows forth the life of the Trinity. Authority is a liberating service. Mission is Pentecost. The liturgy is both memorial and anticipation. Human action is deified. The Gospel is living and active. And preaching is the word of God.”
If it is true that the Holy Spirit raised Christ Jesus from the dead, then the Spirit makes all the difference whether or not we are of all people the most to be pitied. The Holy Spirit is the difference between dead religion and the living God. If that same Spirit does not likewise dwell in us, then Christ does indeed dwell in the past and the church can never be anything more than a feeble attempt to continue the movement begun by the dead Jesus, which will, invariably, devolve into partisan propaganda.
The Holy Spirit makes all the difference.
And yet, the difference does not necessarily appear spectacular.
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According to the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan to submit to John’s baptism of repentance, the prophet, wearing a camel-hair coat and carrying a lunchbox full of locusts, initially protests. Critically, the Evangelist reports that there is a crowd of Pharisees and Sadducees and many others from all of Judea gathered on the riverside. They have all come to the Jordan to be baptized and to flee from the wrath to come. They all hear John balk at the notion of baptizing Jesus, “You come to me? I need to be baptized by you.” The crowd of dampened sinners not only hear the exchange, they see it. Likewise, they overhear— if not understand— Christ’s reply to his cousin, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” And then the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all the rest along the river witness Jesus go down into the Jordan. When Jesus comes up from the waters, gasping for breath, “Behold!” Matthew reports. Like the temple veil between noon and three on Good Friday, the heavens above the Jordan River are torn open. The Holy Spirit descends, bodily, as a dove and rests upon Jesus on whom he will abide until Christ draws his last breath. Finally, from the other side of the celestial debris, the Father’s voice announces, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
To which, Matthew records no response.
The episode ends there.
Notice what is missing.
Not a single sinner in the crowd exclaims, “Behold, a dove!” Nobody falls down in fear or awe because God has just torn a hole in the heavens. No one so much as follows this Beloved Son from the Jordan River into the wilderness. When Jesus calms the storm on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples ask themselves in wonder, “Who is this?” When Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fish, the multitude responds by trying to conscript him as their king. When Jesus summons the dead Lazarus from his tomb, the chief priests determine to kill him. But when the Holy Spirit alights upon Jesus, absolutely no one acts as though they have just seen a miracle. Only Jesus sees and hears what revelation reports. The same is true in the Gospel of Mark. In both, the Holy Spirit identifies Jesus as the Son of the Father, but the Spirit does so in such a manner that Jesus continues to live for three more years in near total anonymity.
The Holy Spirit makes all the difference. But the difference does not necessarily appear spectacular.
After the resurrection, at Pentecost, when the disciples and Mary have returned to the Upper Room, the Holy Spirit—as Jesus promised— descends upon his body. The arrival of Christ’s Spirit is occasioned by the sound of a tsunami. The din has a density to it, filling not just the Upper Room but the entire house. The mighty rushing wind at Pentecost heralds the advent of a tongue. A tongue! Like the Burning Bush, the tongue is ablaze with the glory of God but not consumed by it. The flaming tongue divides and distributes itself among the disciples.
It is a weird story!
And it is rendered all the stranger in that Luke reports no reaction whatsoever from any of the thousands of pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost. No one hears the rumble that shakes the rafters. No one sees the fire fall like a meteorite upon the Upper Room. No one runs for a fire blanket because Mary, the ark of God, is aflame like the Burning Bush. The arrival of the Holy Spirit belongs exclusively to the experience and knowledge of those upon whom he rests. Luke states this explicitly in his account, “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” The Greek is ōphthēsan autois— they “appeared to them.” In other words, Pentecost appeared to everyone else as ordinary as the baptism of Jesus.
What the Pentecost crowd finally notices is not what the disciples see but what they hear— the speech the Holy Spirit has empowered. The crowd encounters the Holy Spirit not as spectacle but as the power of human witness. The crowd does not perceive the Spirit; they receive the Spirit from the lips of the disciples. They do not see the fire; they hear its fulfillment. They do not feel the wind. They hear the speech the Spirit elicits.
That’s it.
That’s all.
That’s the appearance of the Holy Spirit for them.
They hear the disciples.
Talking.
Again, the difference the Spirit makes does not necessarily appear extraordinary.
Even in the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist is the sole witness to the Holy Spirit resting upon Mary’s boy. “I saw the Holy Spirit descend from heaven like a dove,” John testifies, “and the Spirit remained on him henceforth.” John the Baptist alone sees the Holy Spirit at the Jordan River, yet John responds to seeing the Spirit by declaring, “Behold, the lamb of God (Not the bird!) who takes away the sins of the world.” The Holy Spirit is made visible to a single witness, not staged for the whole world to see. And the Holy Spirit is made visible to John so that John will proclaim not the Holy Spirit but Christ Jesus.
The point of the dove is the Lamb— God incognito.
Which means the presence of the dove will seldom appear spectacular.
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Listen again to Father Ignatius of Antioch:
“Without the Holy Spirit, the church is simply an organization. Authority is a matter of domination. Mission is a matter of propaganda. The liturgy is no more than an evocation. Christian living is a slave morality. The scriptures are a dead letter. And preaching is futile.
But with the Holy Spirit, the risen Christ is here. The church shows forth the life of the Trinity. Authority is a liberating service. Mission is Pentecost. The liturgy is both memorial and anticipation. Human action is deified. The Gospel is living and active. And preaching is the word of God.”
The Holy Spirit is the difference between dead religion and the living God who raises the dead. But notice, even with the Holy Spirit what the world sees of the church remains obscurely ordinary. Looked at from the outside, Ignatius of Antioch’s two lists are essentially the same. The world does not get to see the fire. The world gets the fruit not the fire. The Spirit-filled church still always appears as mission and liturgy, scripture and proclamation, tradition and authority, as ordinary Christians speaking and serving and praying.
As water, wine, and bread.
The Holy Spirit makes all the difference, yes— absolutely. But that difference is not a difference easily discerned exactly because the Spirit does not come to make himself the spectacle.
The Holy Spirit is not spectacular.
The Holy Spirit is self-effacing.
The point of the dove— the purpose of his power— is the Lamb.
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Having foretold the world’s unceasing hostility towards him and towards those whom he has chosen, Jesus promises his disciples the Holy Spirit for the third time in the Upper Room. And once again in his Farewell Discourse, Jesus posits the whole Trinity in a single verse. Thus not only is Jesus the only way to the Father, Jesus is the only way for the Spirit to come to us from the Father. “When the Comforter comes,” Jesus says, “whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also will testify.”
Jesus speaks his parting words under the shadow of the cross. Jesus has just warned the eleven that his death will not appease the principalities and powers of this world. “If they persecuted me,” Jesus assured them, “they will surely persecute you too.” “The servant,” Jesus insists, “is not greater than the master.” In other words, the world will not be satisfied with making Mary’s boy Pilate’s victim. Those who follow him will bear crosses too— or worse. Yet Jesus follows his prophecy of their own persecution and passion with a seemingly lackluster, obscurely ordinary promise.
You will be given the Holy Spirit.
And with the Spirit of Jesus you will possess the power to…talk.
To speak.
That’s it.
That’s all.
“You will testify,” Jesus says.
Do not forget. Whatever their other shortcomings, these disciples are believers who know their scriptures. They know what the Holy Spirit of God is capable of doing. They know that in the beginning, the Holy Spirit brooded over the face of the dark waters, and out of the formless void the Spirit begat the world. Not only is the Holy Spirit able to create the world in the Book of Genesis, in the Book of Judges the Holy Spirit clothes Gideon and sends him into battle. Later in Judges, the Holy Spirit rushes upon Samson, empowering Samson to tear apart a lion with his bare hands. When the Philistines bind Samson, the Holy Spirit rushes upon him once again and the ropes fall from his arms like flax in a fire.
The Holy Spirit is capable of so much more than speech.
In the Book of Samuel, the Holy Spirit rushes upon Saul and transforms a king into a prophet. During the exile, the Holy Spirit seizes the prophet Ezekiel, lifts him up between earth and heaven and catches him up in visions. And when Ezekiel stands in a valley filled with the brittle, picked-over bones of the dead, it is the same Holy Spirit who breathes upon them until all the lost and slain stand on their feet again as though an exceedingly great army.
Wind and fire, strength and sight, life and life from death!
The disciples know what wonders the Spirit can work.
Which surely makes it surprising— if not unsettling— that in the shadow of the cross Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit in a manner that appears to make no difference at all
Jesus does not promise them that his Spirit will make them invulnerable. Jesus does not promise them that his Spirit will keep their bodies from the valley of dry bones. Jesus does not promise them the Holy Spirit will snap their chains or strike their persecutors or bring down the proud and powerful from their thrones. He does not promise the Spirit will part the waters and swallow up their enemies, horse and rider, into the sea. Remember, Peter carries a sword with him from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane. He lands a blow on Judas’ lynch mob at the first opportunity. Peter would be happy for the Holy Spirit to empower him as the Spirit so animated Samson. But instead of a warrior like David, Jesus promises that his Spirit will transform Peter into a speaker.
“The Holy Spirit will bear witness about me. You also will bear witness.”
Rather than “sinew-upon-sinew” power and strength, with the Spirit Peter will have something to say.
About Jesus.
That’s it.
That’s all.
That’s strange.
As Adrienne Von Speyr comments on this passage, “All this is totally beyond our grasp yet also totally and altogether ordinary.”
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Over a quarter of a century ago, no sooner had I arrived at seminary for my first semester than the resident bishop recruited me to pastor a small, nickel-scraping church on the outskirts of town. I committed all my first mistakes against that poor, unsuspecting congregation, and, with the exception of the local punk band I invited to play the Easter sunrise service, they forgave me all of my trespasses.
Including Pentecost.
For my rookie Pentecost sermon, I used the assigned passage from the Book of Acts as a runway to get to other places. We do not talk about the Holy Spirit enough in the church, I thought (and said). The Holy Spirit should not be the anonymous third person of God. And so I dazzled them with a little Trinitarian theology. I exhausted them with a catalog of the fruit of the Spirit— according to both Galatians and Ephesians. I even exhorted them to identify certain political issues and social justice causes as movements of the Spirit. I spent the entire sermon not preaching but talking about the Holy Spirit.
What’s worse, they appeared to enjoy it.
The sermon appeared to be a success.
But after worship Fred waited until everyone else had trickled out of the sanctuary. Fred was a quiet, elderly African American who served as the patriarch of the congregation and who always, in all weather, wore a navy blue Members Only jacket. Four months after that Pentecost Sunday, Fred would lose his only son when the second tower fell into lower Manhattan.
Fastidiously polite, Fred crept up so close to me at the sanctuary door you would think he was picking my breast pocket.
“That was more talk about the Spirit today than I think I’ve ever heard.”
“Thank you,” I said, beaming with pride.
He gestured with his hands to tamp down my enthusiasm.
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment, preacher.”
I must’ve looked confused because he continued.
“You said the Holy Spirit shouldn’t be the anonymous person in the Trinity.”
“Yeah,” I said, not sure where he was headed with his pushback.
“But that’s wrong,” he said, “Read on your scriptures some more— the Spirit does not want to call attention to himself.”
“But it’s Pentecost,” I protested, “Pentecost is all about the Holy Spirit.”
Fred shook his head.
“Christians don’t talk about the Holy Spirit,” he said, “We speak in the Holy Spirit about the LORD Jesus. There’s nothing to being charismatic other than being Christ-centered.”
And then he dropped that line on me, “The point of the dove is the Lamb. That’s it. That’s all.”
I had become a believer in a church plant in suburban Richmond, but in those three short sentences, by bearing witness to me, Fred made me a preacher.
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In Homily 93, Saint Augustine preaches on this passage, “For this is what the LORD said: “He will bear witness to me, and you also will bear witness. Because the Holy Spirit will bear witness, you will certainly also bear witness— he in your hearts, you in your voices; he by inspiring you, you by sounding forth, so that the psalm can be fulfilled, “Their sound has gone out to all the earth.” That is, in a hostile world that still hates God, the Holy Spirit wants to make known nothing but the Son. As Martin Luther preached on these verses, “The poor Holy Spirit does not know any other subject but Christ.” The Holy Spirit does not envy the Son’s glory. The Holy Spirit does not compete for our attention. The Holy Spirit does not assert his own individuality. Even more counterintuitively, the Holy Spirit wants to make Jesus known through no other means but you.
Not through fire.
Not through wind.
Not through signs and wonders, strength or ecstasy.
Through you.
Talk about ordinary and unspectacular.
Just so, the Holy Spirit’s lack of distinguishing traits is itself a disclosure. The Holy Spirit’s personhood is revealed precisely in its concealment— in you. The Holy Spirit thus has the character of a secret. Like those gathered on the Jordan River, when we see the Holy Spirit we will see nothing other than Jesus, on whom the Spirit rests. And to see Jesus now is to see nothing other than his risen body, the church.
“He will bear witness to me, and you also will bear witness.”
In his farewell at the end of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus makes explicit to what we will testify in the Spirit. “You are to bear witness to these things,” Jesus insists just before his ascension, “that the Christ suffered on the cross and on the third day rose from the dead, and that the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed to all the world, beginning from Jerusalem.” Hence, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit so that we will testify not to anything we might say about God or Jesus. The Son sends the Spirit from the Father so that we will bear witness to the gospel.
Not testimony to our spirituality.
Not testimony to our causes.
Not even testimony generically to “God.”
Testimony to an event and its promise.
Christ crucified for sin and raised for our justification.
“The Holy Spirit will bear witness to me, and you also will bear witness.”
Curiously, when Christ pledges the Holy Spirit for the third time in the Upper Room, the verb he chooses (martyreō) functions as both an imperative command and an indicative promise. It is both law and gospel. As such, it is both binding and liberating.
Which is to say:
On the one hand, your witness to these things— these particular things— is all you really must do as a follower of Christ Jesus. You do not need to do everything that Jesus did. You need only testify to what God did in Jesus Christ. That’s freedom.
On the other hand, you must bear witness to these things— these particular things. You must hand over the goods because there are sinners in this hostile world who are desperate to hear the pardon of God.
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Sharon worships with us via the online stream from Colorado where she has served as a professor. Ten days ago, after the service, she sent me an email.
“Dear Jason,
It’s been a while since I have written. My family is about the same since I wrote last, which I guess is better than being in a new crisis. Today I joined you all during my morning run. As I laced up my shoes and stepped into the Colorado morning, hinting that fall is going to end this extra hot summer, I felt that existential crisis you claimed was in the heart of one of your listeners. A lot of things probably contribute to my own existential crisis: heart-wrenching realities that I mostly keep to myself these days.
My addict daughter turns forty in a few days. She and her boyfriend are unemployed, sleeping in past noon, and waiting for…what exactly? I know better than to ask them. When I see her name come up on my caller ID, I sigh. And then I wonder what I can say in this phone call that might remind her of who she is and what I can say that will stay true to who I am.
Yesterday I visited my parents in their new apartment in the retirement community we finally got them into. My mom turned to me and said, “I think I will introduce myself as Aunt Kate.” Her name is Mary. I have no idea what she meant. More and more I am having to translate sentences formed by her tired, frayed mind and help her remember who she is while not losing who I am. To say that these conversations are painful minimizes a lifetime of who we have been together.
It might surprise you given my professional background and accomplishments as well as my good grounding in the gospel. But like many people in these strange and difficult days— I know I’m not the only one, I have found myself frequently asking A.I. (Chat GPT to be precise) about these complicated relationships with my addict children and my disappearing mother. The A.I. keeps advising me to “hold onto myself in the turbulence of human relationships.”
Not only is this certainly not good news, it is about the worst advice a person— a sinner— could ever receive. You mentioned you were once a lifeguard so you know the truth of it: holding on to me in every storm will only end up drowning me.
I don’t need to hold onto me.
This scared, faltering woman— who definitely cannot walk on water— needs to grab ahold of a promise from outside of me, a word that gives me Christ, who does all the holding.
— Sharon”
I missed her email until a few days ago and I neglected to reply.
So Sharon, if you’re listening:
A few months before his Farewell Discourse, Jesus the Good Shepherd makes a promise about his sheep, “No one will ever snatch any of them out of my hand.” You don’t need to hold onto yourself or anyone else, Sharon. He’s got you. He does all the holding. Not only does he call you friend, the Son who sends the Spirit from the Father calls you his sister. More importantly, Sharon, this is not a sentiment based on a past statement from Jesus. Exactly because I offer you this promise in the power of the Holy Spirit, this is God’s word for you.
I cannot show you the dove.
I cannot make you hear the mighty rushing wind or feel the tongues of fire.
I have no signs or wonders to perform.
I may wear a collar and a robe but I am every bit as unspectacular as an old man in a Members Only jacket.
Nevertheless!
I can bear witness.
And in the Holy Spirit, this witness is God’s word for you.
No one, nothing, can snatch you from his hand. The Jesus, who forgives you to the cross and back from the grave— he’s got you. You cannot walk on water, Sharon, and you don’t need to do so. No matter if it feels like you’re treading water or running out of air or are about to pulled down by the undertow, Jesus has a hold of you.
The dove wants you to know that the Lamb has you.
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Because this is God’s word for Sharon, it is the Lord’s word for you too.
He has you— gratis.
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Beside the Sea of Galilee, Jesus promises, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
Abides.
But Jesus also says the Holy Spirit is how he abides with us. Therefore, to eat and drink is to receive the Holy Spirit.
Come, then, to this unspectacular table.
There will be no wind. No fire. No lions torn in two. Only bread. Only wine. Only a promise that is also a command, “Take and eat.”
By loaf and cup, the Lamb has you in the grip of your mouth. Just so, the dove will give you something to say.
