10-DAY HOLY SPIRIT CHALLENGE: Day 6 “I will not leave you orphaned, I will come to you”

 


Scripture text: Gospel of St. John 14.15-24

     How do you say goodbye?  If you knew that you had to leave your closest friends, what would your last words be?  How would you choose to spend your last hours together?  This was the situation for Jesus at the Last Supper.  Jesus often had difficulty getting his followers to understand what he was saying – either about the nature of his mission or about his impending death.  Try as he may to explain to his disciples that he was not destined for the kind of glory that they imagined, Jesus’ attempts to explain true greatness were often frustrated.  So, the first thing that Jesus did on his last night with his inner circle – after supper – was to…wash their feet.  Apparently, there was no servant to attend to the needs of Jesus’ dinner party; otherwise, this group of 13 men would never have sat down to dinner with dirty feet.  So, Jesus knelt, took the sandals off the feet of each apostle, and washed them clean.  We can imagine the silence and the growing sense of embarrassment as Jesus crawled around the circle, his arms getting more and more grimy, beads of sweat starting to appear on his forehead.  While the 12 apostles were often concerned with questions of status, power, and “glory” (just like us), Jesus had only one preoccupation: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn. 13.1).

     Jesus knows the disciples will need him after he “returns to the Father”.  He promises to ask the Father to send them another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, who will be with them forever.  Jesus swears not to abandon his friends, but to come to them by the Spirit and “abide” with them, to remain with them forever.  To receive the Spirit is to receive Jesus, to experience the living Jesus within you, beside you, before you, all around you.  Allow the Spirit of Jesus to guide you, to guide you into the truth, to guide you towards holiness and towards peace.

“Hard to get” (song lyrics by Rich Mullins)

You who live in radiance Hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin
We have a love that's not as patient as Yours was

But still we do love now and then…

Will those who mourn be left uncomforted

While You're up there just playin' hard to get?

And I know You bore our sorrows

And I know You feel our pain
And I know that it would not hurt any less Even if it could be explained
And I know that I am only lashing out At the One who loves me most
And after I have figured this, somehow What I really need to know is

If You who live in eternity Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time…
I can't see how You're leading me Unless You've led me here
To where I'm lost enough to let myself be led

And so You've been here all along, I guess
It's just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get.

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