Wednesday after Epiphany

Lectionary: 214

Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also must love one another.
No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us,
that he has given us of his Spirit.

When I conduct a “spirituality group discussion” with Veterans, I define spirituality as “the development and maintenance of the will to live.” It helps if one has a “reason to live,” but the will to live is more adaptable. A terminally ill patient may want to live until Christmas, and then decide he wants to see Easter, and the graduation of his grandchild. The reason changes, the will remains.

“Spirit,” then, is the willingness to live. I think of it like “team spirit.” I’ve seen good teams lose because they lacked the spirit, and inferior teams win because they were full of the spirit. Sometimes the losing team was demolished but, because they scored one goal in the face of crushing opposition, they maintained their spirit. They won!

Jesus breathed into his disciples that spirit which binds us together like a team, an army or a church. In fact we are bound together far more intensely, like muscles to sinews to bones! Like blood and guts and brains! We are the Body of Christ.

The spirit that binds us together is very much like a winning team spirit but it is divine – the third person of the Blessed Trinity. It is, as Saint John said, the God who is love. This is breathtaking.

God’s spirit comes with great reassurance. The lover forgets her own merit, worth and salvation as she acts with compassion for the good of others. She simply hasn’t the time to worry about herself. It is that spirit which impelled Jesus toward Jerusalem and the martyrs to witness. The inspired think nothing of “taking one for the team,” whether it be one’s family, company or church. It’s just what we do. Congratulated for their courage or achievement, they don’t know what the excitement is about. “You would do the same!” they say; and we know we would not.

But we will when the Holy Spirit takes hold of us. Obedient, eager, ready and able, we will know what to say and how to say it.

“No one has ever seen God” just as no one can see the wind. But, as we see the trees and grass and waves blown about and know how to read the wind, we can discern the Holy Spirit moving in our hearts. We catch that spirit as it brings love to perfection in us.