The Spirit-God In Us

Holy Trinity Sun.

John 16: 12-15

"The Spirit-God In Us"

I remember one vacation when I was in 6th grade my family and I flew to Greenfield Village near Detroit Michigan to see how people lived during the Colonial Days. This village was put together by the Ford family to help people relive some past history. Many of the shops, and houses had people who were dressed in original customs of that day. I remember very clearly the blacksmith shop. There was a big man there who was trying to get his fire going. He asked my and brother and I if we would like to pump the bellows. How enthralled we were when our pumping caused the coals to glow, the sparks to fly, and the steel to turn to cherry red and then to white with heat. We watched as he took a piece of straight metal, heated it to white hot, and then bent it into a horseshoe.

We left there to go look at some other things, but eventually returned later in the afternoon. Another group was watching, and some other boys were pumping the bellows , but this time something was wrong. All of their pumping would not get the coals to become hot. The coals, instead of glowing with heat, would turn cold and gray. The blacksmith knew what was wrong. The sparks of the fire had gone out. There were no sparks to get the fire going.

Today, as we celebrate Holy Trinity Sunday, our attention is drawn to the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, as part of Trinity in our lives. It is the work of the spirit to keep the sparks of faith, the sparks of love, the sparks of God’s presence in our lives going. Our fire of faith, our fire of commitment needs to be be continually pumped up with the breath of the Holy Spirit.

On this Holy Trinity Sunday, we need to look at the work of God, the creator in our lives, the work of Jesus as redeemer in our lives, and the work of the Holy Spirit who brings God’s presence, who brings God himself into our lives.

We are quite familiar with the work of God the creator, and Jesus the redeemer in our lives. We look all around us, and we are caught up in God’s creating work. God is still creating, still molding, still forming his creation. As we discover more and more about the workings of this world, God is unfolding to us more and more of his creative power. The more we discover, the more we believe and trust in a creative force behind the wonders of creation.

And we have no difficulty in understanding, and trusting in the saving work of Jesus. Sometimes, we get so engrossed in talking about Jesus and his redeeming efforts in our lives, that we forget about the creator, and the spirit who are also at work.

The average Christian refers to God. Then there are the lesser deities, Jesus and the Spirit. If God the Father is held exclusively, we become Unitarians. If Christ is supreme, we over-rate him to the down-grating of the Father and the Spirit. And for some, the Spirit overshadows the father and son. There needs to be a balance in our thinking, in our relationship to the three parts of the trinity, to the three manifestations of God in this world.

And it is the work of the Spirit to keep reminding us of this balance between the three parts of the Trinity.

From Emphasis comes the following: "Two sailors were shipped wrecked and had been clinging to boards for so long that they were near death. There was water all around, but ocean water being salty was worse than no water They moaned like the Ancient Mariner saying, ’Water, water every where but not a drop to drink." Then a passing boat came into sight. It came closer and closer. The sailors cried for fresh water, From the other boot came the reply, "Dip your hands and drink." They did and found they had passed from salty water to fresh water.

Those two sailors knew they were close to fresh water when their ship wrecked, but they forgot or hadn’t thought of the possibility they could of been in fresh water. They didn’t use the wisdom and knowledge they had. It was as if they forgot everything they had learned. They needed to be reminded about the truth, the knowledge they possessed.

Jesus says in our gospel lesson, "When the Spirit of truth comes. he will guide you into all the truth"

The Spirit gathers us together in a community of faithful people so again and again we can be reminded of all the truths we have learned about this God. We cannot understand everything, we cannot even understand a majority of God’s truth, but we have been given the faith to accept, the trust to believe and the power and courage to stand by our convictions.