Comforter

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Hello, I’m Bishop Joe and today we’re in the Chapel at Whalley Abbey for the final part of this four-part series, looking at the Apostles’ Creed – that great song of praise to God, proclaiming his mighty works. 

We’re looking at the Creed in four videos – Creation, Christmas, Cross, and Comforter.

Today, the Comforter. And we’re thinking about the Third Article of the Creed. Here it is:

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Well, you will recall that in Video 3, we looked just at one part of Second Article – who was crucified, died and was buried. So now here in Video 4, we shall look at just one part of the Third Article too – I believe in the Holy Spirit.

The Bible offers us a number of beautiful pictures of the Holy Spirit. Behind me here at Whalley Abbey, you can see two of these biblical images of the Holy Spirit – the dove and fire.

The dove, first of all, is the image of the Spirit when it descends on Jesus at his baptism. When John baptizes Jesus, Jesus “saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Remember back in Genesis Chapter 1 – the Bible uses a similar image when it speaks of the ‘the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters’ at creation – ‘like a dove which broods over her young’ as one later Jewish source puts it.

So, what we see here at Jesus’ baptism is the curtain being drawn back for a moment, and we see and hear the Father’s gentle love for the Son. This is how St Augustine, famously, describes the Holy Spirit – as the love which the Father and the Son share, the communion between them. And they send that same Spirit to us, drawing us into that love, enabling us to love God and to love our neighbour.

But then the second biblical picture of the Holy Spirit which you can see depicted behind me is fire. And fire is the image of the Spirit when it descends on the Apostles at Pentecost.

Pentecost is one of the great pilgrimage festivals of the Jewish faith, which is why there are so many people gathered in Jerusalem that day to hear Peter preach to them. At Pentecost the Jewish people give thanks for the giving of the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai. You’ll recall the story from the Book of Exodus. Exodus tells us:

Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.

God spoke with Moses, and then Moses shares with the people what he has heard the Lord say.

The disciples too have read this story from Exodus that very day in the Upper Room, when

[…] suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

So, we have the fire and the wind as pictures of the Holy Spirit, as God speaks his word to us and calls us to obedience.

But the Jewish festival of Pentecost has a further significance too. It is the festival of the first-fruits – the day when the people began to bring the first fruits of the harvest to the Temple in Jerusalem. They brought the first fruits of the seven species for which the Land of Israel is praised in the Book of Deuteronomy – wheat and barley, grapes and figs, pomegranates, olives and dates, they brought them all.

So too, in the Pentecost story in Acts, we see the first fruits of the Harvest of Easter, as Peter preaches and 3,000 people place their faith in Jesus and are baptised. They were the first fruits.

And when you turn to Chapter 5 in St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, you can find there further fruit. But now Paul is speaking about the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of God’s people. He says:

the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives gives us spiritual health – forming us into healthy trees bearing good fruit.

We find here surely an invitation to pray for the Spirit to come ever more into our hearts, and to bring forth fruit in our lives.

When we pray in this way, we are joining the prayer of Jesus:

I will ask the Father, [Jesus promises,] and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.

The word translated here as ‘helper’ is Paraclete – which most obviously means advocate, like a barrister in a courtroom: someone who is called in to plead our case. So, the Holy Spirit making intercession for us. But the King James Version of the Bible, together with Luther, and before that a number of ancient translations, chose the word ‘comforter’ instead – not so much someone who makes us feel better (like it tends to mean in modern English), more someone who strengthens us.

And that translation seems to me to sum up so much of what the Holy Spirit does for us – drawing us into the love which the Father and the Son have for each other, filling us with love for God and our neighbours, giving us words to speak to others about God, one whose presence in our lives makes us fruitful for the kingdom of God, one who intercedes for us.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people, and kindle in us the fire of your love.