“Now I am going to the one who sent me,
and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’
But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.
The disciples understood well enough the negative shape that things were taking. They were as clear about what Jesus meant as they desired to be, hoping that if they didn't clarify it further it might not come to pass. They understood this implicit prediction of the Passion well enough to be grieved, but not well enough to understand why it might be necessary or be in fact, as Jesus said, "better for you that I go". Sorrow at this level was only worldly sorrow, bearing the fruit of despair and hopelessness. Properly understood, however, the Passion could bring Godly sorrow leading to repentance. It was to this reality that Jesus desired to open the minds of his disciples.
But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.
The disciples had grown to love Jesus not just as a generic religious ideal, but as a unique individual with an distinct appearance, voice, with various idiosyncrasies just as any man would have. Saying that Jesus would not be with the disciples was much more than saying that they would no longer have access to a teacher or a religious leader. It meant that they would no longer have access to a friend for whom they had the deepest affection. Or so they imagined.
For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
However intimate was there relationship with Jesus when he was physically present on the earth they were told to expect that the coming of the Advocate would somehow be better. All of the good things they had experienced from being disciples would not be taken away along with Jesus but rather multiplied by the giving of the Spirit. Jesus, as an individual, lived a human life in a fixed location. When he spoke and taught it was as one speaking from the outside of the hearer. The Spirit could instead be everywhere, unbound by location, and speak from the very depths of hearts that had received him.
Because the Holy Spirit was to dwell in the hearts of women and men he could bring about conviction. That is, he could bring about a deep internal understanding and acceptance of all that Jesus said and did. Before the Spirit was given the disciples were at best ambivalent about the words of Jesus, sometimes enthusiastically in favor of what he said, and at other times staunchly opposed, or at least deeply confused and conflicted. The Spirit dwelling in one's heart, by contrast, would make it possible for her to be all in for Jesus. This power was so great that it could even unsettle and conquer previously held commitments to the world's ideas about sin, righteousness, and condemnation. Without the Spirit we would always attempt to keep ourselves a bit of wiggle room to define these realities for ourselves lest they impose too much upon us. But the Spirit within us would not permit that sort of compromise, and would make us restless, longing to embrace the full truth of the Gospel, to be judged by it rather than to judge it.
About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying
and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened,
there was suddenly such a severe earthquake
that the foundations of the jail shook;
all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose.
We can see that Paul and Silas were both so Spirit filled as to be all in for Jesus. They did not despair when they faced striping, beating, and imprisonment. But rather, as Daniel and his companions sang in the fire, so too did Paul and Silas worship in prison. And this worship was not a strategy of bartering with God to obtain freedom as it might have been for us, it was not seeking the giver for his gifts. The proof of this was that even when freedom was given they did not seize it for themselves alone but remained docile to the Holy Spirit, resulting in the salvation of the jailer and his household.
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus
and you and your household will be saved.”
The world can tell the difference between disciples who are empowered by the Spirit to be all in for Jesus and those who are still of two minds about him, those who are, as James wrote, unstable in all their ways (see James 1:8). We will not be able to embrace the Gospel as wholeheartedly as we are meant to do without the power of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit could be given in no other way than by being poured out from the Cross of Christ. This same Spirit now lives within the hearts of all the baptized. But he moves in power to the degree that we open ourselves to him. Let us go to the foot of the cross so that this living water can fall afresh upon us. Let us seek him with one heart in the upper room of prayer, so that, on this Pentecost, we may be filled more than ever before.
Because of your kindness and your truth,
you have made great above all things
your name and your promise.
When I called, you answered me;
you built up strength within me.
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