“Comfort of Christ’s Bodily Presence”
Saint John 15:26 - 16:4
Exaudi: 2 June Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
God is Triune. The Faith from God’s revealed Word—The Holy Scriptures, makes this mystery foundational and inseparable from The Lord’s love and sacrificial giving. God is Three in One. There is One God and not Three. There are Three persons in the Godhead. Each Person is God and each Person is not the other two Persons. God The Holy Spirit, or Ghost, is named The Third Person of The Trinity. But He is neither less than or inferior to The First Person or the Second Person of the Trinity. And though “spirit,” in the Greek pneumatos, means breath, wind, air, breathing in and out, The Holy Ghost is not an impersonal action, energy, emanation, or mere spiritual image or echo of Christ. The Holy Ghost is a person. The Holy Ghost is invisible. He is called by Christ the “Comforter,” the Paraclete (i.e. the One standing beside you) and the Counselor (for a good lawyer must stand beside his client in thick and thin).
What does The Holy Spirit do? What does God do? These are good question and one could, I suppose, simply re-read the explanations of the Three Articles of The Apostle’s Creed in the Small Catechism. The Lord creates and sustains and provides. The Lord Justifies and saves in Christ’s acts of Law-Keeping and Sin-Atoning on Calvary. The Lord keeps all the reclaimed and rescued “lambs” Holy, i.e. separated and secure from the Satanic world of predation by calling and gathering them into His Church—A Mighty Fortress indeed.
The Trinity is never pitted against Itself or works at cross-purposes. Shut off your imaginations and idle questioning and let Scripture reveal God’s Word as He chooses to do so.
Jesus says The Comforter will come. The Lord’s Words were made true on Pentecost…and thereafter. The Comforter is also called The Spirit of Truth by Jesus. This links the Third Person, The Spirit, to the Second Person, The Truth, in a way that is for your benefit and the benefit of the entire Catholic Church. The Holy Ghost testifies of Jesus, i.e. The Holy Ghost gives out Jesus in The Word of God. He gives out testimony, proclamation, by The Word of Scripture and those preaching said. So, the “12” and all other Christians who hear The Word of God as it is testified, declared, Gospelled, trumpeted, taught, lived, died in Martyrdom, TESTIFIED—will also “bear witness” in their own lives. One cannot be a Christian without subsequently living, acting, and behaving, like a Christian. One who Repents and Believes will do good works; will love God and one’s neighbor! You have a difficult, at times sad, but always exciting life in Christ, under The Cross.
The “12” had been in Christ’s presence from His Baptism by John, and His first miracle in Cana, all the way to His arrest, crucifixion, Resurrection, and then lastly His Ascension. They and their hearers would have Jesus, then, now, and forever in The Word They Preached; in The Word They Baptized in and with; and in The Word They gave to be eaten and drunk. You are their fruit. And by that, we mean, you are the fruit of The Word of God—The fruit of Christ. This is all by the power of The Holy Ghost, The Lord and Giver of Life—Who spake by the Prophets, and now in these last days, speaks to us by The Word of The Son. He gives you Jesus in The Word.
Do not be offended because of The Scandal of The Cross—no one comes to The Father but by The Son. Do not be offended or worried when you are tossed out of the “synagogues” of society. Do not be offended or frightened when the enemies of Christ seek to punish you and kill you. The Holy Ghost moves you, animates you, inflates your spiritual lungs and your chests for combat. The Holy Spirit moves you to daily pick up The Holy Scriptures and read them—even just one Psalm or a brief snippet of Matthew; a chapter of Exodus. When you refuse, it’s the “old Adam” telling your Comforter you’d rather not have comfort. Repent and believe. The Holy Ghost moves you daily to pray the Our Father, in The Son (His Name), by the self-same Holy Ghost. That urge to pray comes from The Comforter. When your fallen nature resists prayer, it is giving up the only comfort that there is—The Comfort of Jesus and His Word—Forgiveness and Peace. Likewise how could you ever neglect The Sacrament of The Altar?
You need not listen to a pastor as a man with an education, that is, a man as only a man—a hireling. You do listen to the Pastor as the very vehicle, the mouth-piece of God The Third Person—The Holy Spirit.
I tell you, He tells you, that you will remember Who Jesus is, what He has done for you, what He wants for you, what He will give to you, what you are and + Whose you are.
Where your heart is, there is your comfort. Where Christ The Word is—THERE is your Comforter.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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