When the Spirit of truth comes

‘I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.

‘I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

- John 16:1-15

So Jesus here continues his farewell to his apostles. He is explaining that as he is going out of the world, he is afraid he can no longer protect them for he will be with them no longer. Therefore, as Jesus himself will be treated, so will his apostles. There are people who believe they will be serving God by persecuting and killing them. This is a prefiguring of what is to come. So, he leaves them with sorrowful words that do not predict a perfect world, but rather a world in the process of judgment: where sin is revealed through response to his words and teachings, where righteousness is in the heart, and where the ruler of the world is condemned. By the ruler of the world, I assume Jesus is speaking of the "prince of this world" - evil, or the devil. For me this evil is exemplified by all that is contrary to his teachings: a belief in sheer materialism, efficacy, manipulation, a desire not to go with the heart and its yearning for depth of relationship and meaning, but for expediency and selfishness, self-centeredness in all its forms which includes rather paradoxically the narcissism that tells us that all we are is what is reflected back to us in the eyes of those around us, that image is all.

It is the advent of the Holy Spirit that Jesus here proclaims is the great illuminator - the great thing for which he must perish so that he can go to the Father and the Father can send this Spirit of truth to us, to the world. He does not promise a future life of rainbows and goodness and great material reward. He promises that they now have a job to do, that they will follow in his footsteps. Jesus promises a Spirit of truth that will baptise the world into the work of judgment and of illumination - but we should remember, in my opinion, that illumination also shines its light on that which is less than perfect, where before it may have been hidden. We are in a time of heightened understanding and contradiction and even conflict, the sword he proclaimed he would send.

And yet, the Church has declared, and the gospels tell us, that this period of the advent of the Spirit is what human beings have been waiting for. This great illumination period - in which we apparently still find ourselves - is that which the world has awaited. It's like the earth has held its breath waiting for this time. It's our time, and therefore still a time for us to see what we make of this time, of this Spirit that is here with us, and every day we should ask ourselves how we walk hand in hand with it. What do we do with it?