Tag: holy spirit

Come and See: The Father Who is True

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So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” 

So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”  

He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”  

So they said to him, “Who are you?”

Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.  I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” 

 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. 

So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” 

 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
John 8:21-30

My Father God, in Heaven great,
We remembrance keep
Of fathers You have given us;
Today, though, many weep.

Countless tears right now are shed
For fathers in the grave.
Some the dirt atop still fresh
When life this week upgave.

Others in mind of fathers whom
Abandoned years ago.
Children who are missing them;
Their longing won’t let go.

Some have fathers who have failed
And brought unmeasured pain.
But their children love them still,
And love is ne’er in vain.

Then I think of men whose child
Left the fold of sheep.
These fathers’ hearts afflicted yet;
With prayer, they vigil keep.

What about the man who wants
To loving father be,
And share his overflowing heart
With one upon his knee?

Fatherhood has broken been
And touched on earth by curse;
But God His work continues still;
All will in time reverse.

On this day of joy and pain,
Hope is not all lost.
God in heaven holds the tears
Of those in suffering tossed.

Saints who ache for father love
Have One who fills their cup;
A Father faithful, kind and wise,
With love that won’t give up.

My Father God, in Heaven great,
Who His children keep
Hold tightly those today who mourn,
For Lord, so many weep.
~Gigi Ryan from “Many Weep”

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in—
the wild with the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.
~Danna Faulds “Allow” From Go In and In

On this Sunday solstice, on this day to honor Fathers:
we hear the Son tell the truth about our heavenly Father,
who made us in His image, to know and love us.

We have struggled to trust our belief
as the Son indeed rose up,
our doubts and sin taken upon Him,
so we would never be alone.

This is our Father who loves us from the beginning.
This is His Son who bears our darkness into the Light.
This is the Spirit embedded within us.

They are true, so we can believe.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

In Dazzling Darkness, An Epiphany

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newyearsice

Deep midwinter, the dark center of the year,
Wake, O earth, awake,
Out of the hills a star appears,
Here lies the way for pilgrim kings,
Three magi on an ancient path,
Black hours begin their journeyings.

Their star has risen in our hearts,
Empty thrones, abandoning fears,
Out on the hills their journey starts,
In dazzling darkness God appears.
~Judith Bingham “Epiphany”

It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A  pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.
~Malcolm Guite “Epiphany”

…the scent of frankincense
and myrrh
arrives on the wind,
and I long
to breathe deeply,
to divine its trail.
But I know their uses
and cannot bring myself
to breathe deeply enough
to know
whether what comes
is the fragrant welcoming
of birth
or simply covers the stench of death.
These hands
coming toward me,
is it swaddling they carry
or shroud?
~Jan Richardson from Night Visions –searching the shadows of Advent and Christmas

birchgold

Unclench your fists
Hold out your hands.
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is his Glory Manifest.
~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany” from the Weather of the Heart

newyearsice2

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
~T.S. Eliot from “Journey of the Magi”

futuremapletree3

The Christmas season is a wrap, put away for another year.
However, our hearts are not so easily boxed up and stored as the lights and decorations and ornaments of the season.

Our troubles and concerns go on; our frailty a daily reality.
We can be distracted with holidays for a few weeks, but our time here slips away ever more quickly.

The Christmas story is not just about
light and birth and joy to the world.
It is about how swaddling clothes became a shroud
that wrapped Him tight.
There is not one without the other.

God came to be with us;
Delivered so He could deliver.
Planted on and in the earth.
Born so He could die in our place
To leave the linen strips behind, neatly folded.

Christmas: a dazzling unwrapping of glory to free us from darkness.
Epiphany: the Seed of His Spirit takes root in our hearts.

An Advent Threshold: A Golden Pin in the Folds of Time

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Beyond the brimming ages Gabriel waits,
his foremost message burning on his breath.
Through time men slide, creeping through the gates
of birth and out again the doors of death.

He sees kings rise and kingdoms fall to dust;
he sees unnumbered souls unfleshed; to some
he gives slight hints, but the full knowledge must
wait, for his best words are not for them.

Then at last, coming from afar
he sees, gleaming like a golden pin
in time’s folds, Mary, rising like a star
above the fretted seas of what had been;

bright hinge on which the gate of Heaven creaks,
to her he turns, inclines himself, and speaks.
~J.C.Sharl “Annunciation”

Be patient and without bitterness,
realizing the least we can do
is make coming into existence
no more difficult for Him
than the earth does for spring when it wants to come.
~Rainier Marie Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

And in all of this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last light off the black West wind went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”

Kings and kingdoms come and go, reduced to dust over time.

So the Word waited, like the earth waits for spring,
for a golden point of light to overwhelm the dark.

She says “let it be”, not “no, not me, not now.”

Transformed, simply by accepting Him:
a simple, but oh so difficult faith,
like a tender shoot breaking through
the crust of frozen earth
seeking the Sun, needing now to bloom.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

An Advent Threshold: Come and See the Lamb

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The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 
This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 

 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 

And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 

And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
John 1: 29-34

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
~William Blake from “The Tyger”

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild:
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee
~William Blake “Little Lamb”

Agnus Dei from The Collection from Museo Del Prado

He is the Lion and the Lamb.
Despite his high claims, he is never pompous;
you never see him standing on his own dignity.
Despite being absolutely approachable to the weakest and broken,
he is completely fearless before the corrupt and powerful.
He has tenderness without weakness.
Strength without harshness.
Humility without the slightest lack of confidence.
Unhesitating authority with a complete lack of self-absorption. Holiness and unending convictions
without any shortage of approachability.
Power without insensitivity.
~Tim Keller from Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

John the Baptist is the only one who actually calls Jesus a Lamb to His Face. It seems a curious label to put on the Messiah expected to bring the Kingdom of God to His people with great power, might, and fanfare.
A lamb?
A defenseless helpless lamb?
How could God send a mere lamb?

The label is particularly apt for this Messiah. This mere lamb is marked for slaughter, destined for sacrifice. The Jewish people well understood the age-old directive to find a “year old male lamb without defect”, the perfect lamb, as only that blood would demarcate their Passover rescue in Egypt. 

There would be no mistaking what “Lamb of God” implied to the Jews who knew their Passover history.

But John is even more revolutionary than simply calling Jesus a Lamb of God. He is not talking about a sacrifice meant only for his own people. He is talking about a sacrifice on behalf of the world…
for the Jews, for the Gentiles, for the enemies of the Jews, for the millions of people as yet unborn. His words cannot be clearer, ringing through to the unsettled times and people of today.

The perfect lamb is sacrificed, his blood spilling over the hands of the slaughterers, and washing them clean.

No mere lamb forgives the holder of the knife. 
Only would the Lamb of God.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year or so. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

Feast of Fire, Air, and Water

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Today we feel the wind beneath our wings
Today  the hidden fountain flows and plays
Today the church draws breath at last and sings
As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise.
This is the feast of fire, air, and water
Poured out and breathed and kindled into earth.
The earth herself awakens to her maker
And is translated out of death to birth.
The right words come today in their right order
And every word spells freedom and release
Today the gospel crosses every border
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace
Today the lost are found in His translation.
Whose mother tongue is Love in every nation.
~Malcolm Guite “Pentecost” from Sounding the Seasons

 I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.
~Acts 2:19-21 The Holy Spirit Comes At Pentecost

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
~T.S. Eliot from “East Coker”

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”

Today, when we feel we are without hope,
when faith feels frail,
when love seems distant…

We wait, stilled,
for the moment we are lit afire~
the Living God chose us
to be seen, heard, named, loved, known.

God forever burning in our hearts
in this moment
and for a lifetime.

It is the dearest freshest deep down thing…

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Desiring Dawn and Dew

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Overcome us that, so overcome,
we may be ourselves:
we desire the beginning of your reign
as we desire dawn and dew,
wetness at the birth of light.
~C.S. Lewis from The Great Divorce

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving,
then at evening the dew comes down —
no eye to see the pearly drops descending,
no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass —
so does the Spirit come to you who believe.
When the heart is at rest in Jesus —
unseen, unheard by the world —
the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul,
quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne from The Love of Christ

The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people.
Zechariah 8:12

I have had opportunity to fly over a vast ocean to three different continents in my life. Each time, I adjusted my internal clock due to disorientation about what day and time it was.

But my reassurance came from the consistency of the sun rising and setting, washing the world with a refreshing dew the next morning.

Overcome that I could witness dawn wherever I awoke,
I felt the familiarity of home, even in far off lands.

I am reminded the Son rises over a vast Kingdom without borders, without corruption, without alienation, without end.

No matter where I sleep, I am covered by His cleansing dew.

Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above,
and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Latin lyrics:
Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

We Are No Longer Alone: Quickened

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Oh, then, on that spontaneous, light-filled day, the world 
will begin singing again after our dim, silent millennial waiting— 
—you and me and every one of us. After the dark days 
the sun will be no longer reluctant in his shining (we’ll 
lift our faces to him, believing him to join with us, jubilant, 
peering from behind the heaving clouds). Then will our old limbs run and climb again with new vigor, and even the ancient barns, 
settling deeper in their fields, will sway and creak their praise in 
unison with the thunder, and the storms of wind and hail, while 
the old horse nickers in his stall, shaking his white mane at us, 
we standing by the barn door to greet him, full of joy. We’ll even 
see fish leaping and eagles soaring, ascending the sun-glanced air.

At the autumn in-gathering, the ground will boil with fallen apples, 
their fermentation making the feeding cattle tipsy. And in the frost-whiskered creeks, swimming the in-creeping tide, wood ducks will 
once again nudge each other along, making beatific bird music. And then—Spring! When it is all, everything, thawing, leaping, calling us back in time, in tune, as we, with the whole passionate earth chorale, will practice our scales for the ultimate performance. We’ll be, every one of us, overflowing with a brilliant, unstoppable, alleluia joy, singing songs that we’ll need not rehearse, since by then we’ll know all the tunes and words by heart, with love brimming over our souls’ rims, like wine. And together, leaping, rampant with a vertical energy, and freshened voices and a brand-new score, and well-tuned, enthusiastic instruments, and our almighty Lord leading us, we’ll sing, and keep on raising heaven’s roof without ever needing to stop.
~Luci Shaw “The Quickening” in Christian Century

Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord:
quicken me according to thy judgments.
Psalm 119:156

…because of the tender mercy of our God,
    by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
 to shine on those living in darkness
    and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Luke 1:78-79 from the Song of Zechariah

So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”;
the last Adam, a quickening spirit.
1 Corinthians 15:45

Some women have described it
as a fluttery feeling,
the separate life announcing itself
with months to go before making its entry
into the outer world.

I like to pretend that I remember that sensation,
My womb, your chrysalis,
your new energy making its presence known
washing over my heart
like a silky wave.

Soon, you may wonder
what was that?
Mark that moment well—
it is the first of many steps that he will take
moving away from you.
~Marietta Calvanico “The Quickening”

photo by Lennart Nilsson from A Child is Born

There is a distinct and memorable moment in pregnancy, around 16 weeks gestation, when there is an undeniable awareness of movement within the womb–initially a fluttery feeling, but then over the next few days, there are irresistible tickly sensations, then rolling, then pushes.

This is referred to clinically as “quickening”–an emphatic evidence of life within–and a profound acknowledgment that one’s life is no longer one’s own. It is now shared.

Jesus is called the “second Adam” through his death and resurrection, a quickening spirit now shared with us, so much more than the simple life and breath of the first Adam.

The Spirit lives and breathes within us, fluttering and rolling, pushing us from inside. We are startled by its presence, amazed by its insistent touch from within. Pregnant with possibility due to God’s tender mercy, we will never, never be the same again.

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This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.

God comes.

He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons

Come, O come, Thou quickening Spirit,
God from all eternity!
May Thy power never fail us;
Dwell within us constantly.
Then shall truth and life and light
Banish all the gloom of night.

Grant our hearts in fullest measure
Wisdom, counsel, purity,
That we ever may be seeking
Only that which pleaseth Thee.
Let Thy knowledge spread and grow,
Working error’s overthrow.

Show us, Lord, the path of blessing;
When we trespass on our way,
Cast, O Lord, our sins behind Thee,
And be with us day by day.
Should we stray, O Lord, recall;
Work repentance when we fall.

Prompt us, Lord, to come before Him
With a childlike heart to pray;
Sigh in us, O Holy Spirit,
When we know not what to say.
Then our prayer is not in vain,
And our faith new strength shall gain.

If our soul can find no comfort,
If despondency grows strong,
And the heart cries out in anguish,
“Oh my God, how long, how long?”
Comfort then our aching breast,
Grant it courage, patience, rest.

We Are No Longer Alone: Changed By Words

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All changed,
changed utterly:  
 A terrible beauty is born.
~William Butler Yeats from “Easter, 1916”


…just calm clean clear statements one after another,
fitting together like people holding hands...
a feeling eerily like a warm hand brushed against your cheek,
and you sit there, near tears, smiling,
and then you stand up.
Changed.
~Brian Doyle “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever”

In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, ad without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:1-5

Have you ever read words that made such a difference in your thinking that you felt changed? Words that hold on to you and won’t let you go?

The gospel of Jesus’ descent to earth is just such a story.

From the divinely inspired declarations of the prophets,
the joy and heartbreak spoken in the Psalms
~from His birth and ministry and death and rising~
Words linked from the very beginning of the universe,
to the here and now,
to what is to come.

Life can be a thick fog, leaving us lost without a sense of direction.
Scripture brings light and clarity in the darkness, so we might hold hands with all who have come before, and those after.

The Father immerses us in His Creation.
The Son, Word in flesh, walks alongside us.
The Spirit connects us when we feel alone and hopeless.

Changed.

Behold, I show you a mystery;
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye;
1 Corinthians 15:51

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This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.

God comes.

He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons

Unless the Heart Catch Fire…

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Unless the eye catch fire,
Then God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire
Then God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire
Then God will not be named.
Unless the heart catch fire,
Then God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire,
Then God will not be known.
~William Blake from “Pentecost”

The cows
munched or stirred or were still. I
was at home and lonely,
both in good measure. Until
the sudden angel affrighted me––light effacing
my feeble beam,
a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:
but the cows as before
were calm, and nothing was burning,
nothing but I, as that hand of fire
touched my lips and scorched by tongue
and pulled by voice
into the ring of the dance.
~Denise Levertov from “Caedmon” in Breathing the Water

Come, Holy Spirit,
bending or not bending the grasses,
appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame,
at hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow
covers crippled firs…
~Czeslaw Milosz from “Veni Creator” in Selected and Last Poems

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”

 I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.
~Acts 2:19-21 The Holy Spirit Comes At Pentecost

Today, when we feel we are without hope,
when faith feels frail,
when love seems distant…

We wait, stilled,
for the moment we are lit afire~
the Living God chose us
to be seen, heard, named, loved, known.

God forever burning in our hearts
in this moment
and for a lifetime.

It is the dearest freshest deep down thing…

Fill Vast Eternity: Being and Breath

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With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.
~Emily Bronte from “No Coward Soul is Mine” The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte

There is nothing else apart from God,
There is nothing apart from His Breath and Being.

Not even death sets us apart
in the already, but not yet.

Why then do we struggle to know Him
and to be known?

Our DNA pulses His image~
our very atoms designed to celebrate and worship Him.

So let us listen for a change,
to our atoms blossoming richly
with the Breath of His Spirit.

It’s time already.

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! 
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  
And with that he breathed on them and said,
“Receive the Holy Spirit…”
John 20: 21-22

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”