Gracious God, fill us with your Holy Spirit, that we may have the power to comprehend your word. Open our hearts to your presence. In Jesus name, amen.
I was driving with my family to have dinner with friends and we noticed a church sign that said, "Jesus, I wouldn't be caught dead without him." Now, that's pretty clever, but it also sheds light on a particular habit of the Protestant church in the evangelical South. The habit is talk about Christianity as if the primary focus is on death. That is, Jesus Christ primarily saves us to determine where we go when we die. Jesus is eternal fire insurance. This has two extreme expressions, one being the Reformed view that God already knows where we are going when we die before we are born and life has no effect on it, and the other being the extreme evangelistic view that its entirely up to us to accept Jesus into our lives and live without sin so we can go to heaven. Either way, Jesus is not particularly involved in our lives, and the Holy Spirit is kind of like Jiminy Cricket, reminding us to do the right thing.
Now, Mary Grace, having attended Methodist theology classes as a fetus in utero in seminary, truly a cradle Methodist, astutely offered us the Methodist alternative. Mary Grace knows that Jesus is alive and that Christianity is a faith of life, not death. So, hearing us discussing Jesus, she asked, "Where is Jesus house?" Of course, I quickly explained that Jesus makes his home in her heart and in the building in which the church gathers to worship. Satisfied that Jesus house was easily accessible, she continued, "I want to see him. I want to see Jesus."
Suddenly, all of my theological erudition seems inadequate to answer this basic question of a two year old. I want to see Jesus. “Well, he's ascended into heaven, but don't worry, you'll get to see him when you die.” But that doesn’t really cut it, when you’ve been telling your child that Jesus is alive. Mary Grace knows that, so she says, Ok, if Jesus is alive, resurrected from the dead, then I want to see him. Is that a crazy request of a child who really doesn't understand? Maybe it sounds like doubting, like poor old Thomas who gets a bad rap for making the same demand that I think any of us might make some time in our lives. I want to see Jesus.
But is it so crazy? Look at Paul's prayer. "16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love." By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ dwells in our hearts through faith! You want to see Jesus, then look no further! He's right here in our community gathered together, the body of Christ. Jesus tells his disciples in John 16 that the reason he ascends into heaven is in order to send the Holy Spirit to us. Even resurrected, Jesus is bound by some limits of his physical body, but the Spirit is not bound. The Holy Spirit lives in us, both individually and corporately. The Holy Spirit is God's grace working in our community. Grace is "activity of God's very Self in human life," according to Randy Maddox (Responsible Grace). The Holy Spirit is one with God, Father and Son, so in a very real sense, the Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ present in us. Jesus can be seen here by the power of God's Holy Spirit.
Jesus doesn't just leave us to our own efforts, a life of testing to see whether or not we are good enough to get into heaven. Jesus is working in the world by the Holy Spirit to root and ground us in love. The work of the Holy Spirit is organic. We are growing together in love, being made into a dwelling place for Christ. I've heard it said this way, "God loves you just the way you are, and loves you too much to leave you that way." Or John Wesley said it this way, " I believe the infinite and eternal Spirit of God, equal with the father and the Son, to be not only perfectly holy, but the immediate cause of all holiness in us: enlightening our understandings, rectifying our wills and affections, renewing our natures, uniting our persons to Christ, assuring us of the adoption as sons, leading us in our actions, purifying and sanctifying our souls and bodies to a full and eternal enjoyment of God" (Letter to a Roman Catholic). This is just a summary of the actions of the Spirit described in the gospel of John 16, 1 Corinthians, and Romans 8.
You want to see Jesus? Look around! No seriously, look around. God's sanctifying grace is turning all of us into little Jesus's. God's grace is the power of The Holy Spirit given to us to transform our lives into Christ's perfectly obedient life. As we talked about last week, God's justifying grace pardons our sin, restoring our relationship with God so we may participate in building together the temple, the church. Our new relationship with God, by the Holy Spirit, gives us the power to live as Christ lived, to be a people of sacrifice, giving, and healing. As Jesus says in our Gospel lesson, the power to be perfect.
I know, I know, that's impossible. We are sinners! We aren't Jesus! We can't be perfect! In the world today the power of God's grace and the love of Christ can be disturbingly hard to see. When bombs are dropping on civilian populations in Israel and Gaza, Jesus is hard to see. When children are dying from exposure on the side of a mountain in Iraq, surrounded by militants who want to kill them, Jesus is hard to see. When people we love lives are being destroyed by addiction, substance abuse, and illness, Jesus is hard to see. When we spend more money on prisons to incarcerate the undereducated than schools to educate them, Jesus is hard to see. When our families, both biological and church, hurt us with their words and actions, Jesus is hard to see. When sickness, pain, and death approach, Jesus is hard to see.
Listen to the words of Paul, "the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine." Of course we can't imagine being Jesus, and we certainly can't imagine the person sitting next to us being Jesus. But, God isn't giving to us based on what we imagine, God is giving grace in the Holy Spirit based on God's riches, which are more abundant and lavish than we can comprehend. God's sanctifying grace is healing us of our sinful nature and making us to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. What!? Can God make a rock so big God can't lift it? Can we know something that surpasses knowledge? Yes, because love isn't limited to knowledge, love is action. When I tell Mary Grace I love her, that doesn't mean much to her. But when I read her a story, I hold her tight, I swing her up in my arms, then she knows that which surpasses knowledge. And I can pray that in my love for her, she can see Jesus, God's love for her.
So if God's sanctifying grace is making us to know love, the work of the Holy Spirit is the work of community. As I said last week, the God's justifying grace given to us by the Holy Spirit pardons us of our sin, giving us power to participate in the church, the temple of God. So sanctifying grace is the work of the community. Growing in love requires more than one person. Paul returns to the building metaphor he had been using in chapter 2 to emphasize the incredible, possibilities of sanctifying grace building us into the temple of God. Only by the power of the Holy Spirit can we know the breadth, length, height, and depth. In the greek, the object here is undefined, but when read in the entirety of the letter, it seems that Paul is talking about God's grace as it is seen as the love of Christ in the church by the Spirit. God gives us the power to see the possibilities of living together with the love of Jesus in our hearts transforming us.
The next time Mary Grace says I want to see Jesus, maybe I'll take her to a hospital room where one of you is praying with a sick friend, your presence bringing hope and healing by the power of the Holy Spirit. Maybe I'll take her to visit a widow who is lonely, so Jesus can strengthen our faith by our faithful conversation. Maybe I'll bring her to a Sunday School class, where the Spirit is strengthening your faith by deepening your knowledge of the word of God. Maybe I’ll bring her to worship, where the body of Christ unites in love and praise. Jesus is here, visible for all who are looking to see. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
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