A good question for Lent raised vividly by today’s scripture readings is ‘How can we gain more of the Holy Spirit?’
In the reading from Exodus Moses sorted the grumbling of the Israelites by asking God’s intervention, striking the rock to gain water, symbol of the Holy Spirit. Mid-Lent is a grumbly time I find, sticking at your resolutions, yet a time to seek more of the Spirit.
The Romans reading reminds us how the death of Our Lord reconciles us to God through the Holy Spirit poured into hearts once they open to him. That gift, like Lent, is a character builder linked to cheerful bearing of hardship and building hope. To quote Chapter 5 verses 4 to 6: ‘Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for us’.
The holy Gospel from Saint John Chapter 4 has several themes including: Our Lord’s declaration that he is the promised Messiah, the way Jesus exposes our sin as we get into relationship with him, the transcending of religious divides through Christ as between Jews and Samaritans and the nature of worship as something offered in spirit and truth. The major component of the Gospel though, which I am picking up on this morning, is Our Lord’s request for water leading into his own offer of the water of life, the Spirit of God, to believers.
My wife Anne is an artist and sometimes produces sermon illustrations for me. With the tighter spatial arrangement in St Mary’s I thought it worth bringing four of these to underline the invitation to gain the Holy Spirit. The first one represents Our Lord’s invitation in John 4 verses 13 and 14
‘Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”.
Our Lord repeats his invitation later on in his Gospel, John 7 verse 37: ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit’.
In Lent we get a grand reminder of the grace of God, how Jesus came ‘that we might have life and have it to the full’ John 10v10.
How can we gain more of that life, more of the Holy Spirit?
We can do so because it's God’s desire for us to have that life within us, immortal life, preserving us body and soul for everlasting life. God’s desire is plain but it needs complementing by our own. We can only gain more of the Holy Spirit by building thirst for God to come more fully into our lives.
Which brings me to a second biblical image, that of spiritual thirst.
It depicts Psalm 42 verse 1: ‘As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God’.
In today’s Gospel Our Lord presents the satisfying of physical thirst as a pointer to his desire to satisfy our needs, top of which is to live not so much in our own power as in partnership with the loving power of the Holy Spirit.
As we heard in today’s second reading ‘God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’
How can we gain more of the Holy Spirit? In Lent many of us are taking time out to attend extra services, pray, study the Bible together, serve others and to reflect more profoundly upon the love of God for us and the shortfall in the way we love him back as individuals. Our priests, by the way, are always available to provide spiritual guidance and you can fix meetings with them to talk through your pursuit of spiritual empowerment in the run up to Easter.
I myself have benefited from listening to The Message paraphrase of the Bible on audio. It took me five months but was so worthwhile. Two weeks ago I went to Crawley Down monastery for three days pondering how to gain more of the Holy Spirit. I was praying, among other things, about the struggle we have at home with a family member diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. A remarkable insight came to me linked to the Holy Spirit which I thought I’d share.
When memory fades you live more in the present moment. This means being left behind somewhat by family and friends with busy diaries and work and recreational commitments. Santa Montefiore has published a best seller entitled ‘Here and now’ telling the tale of a family impacted by dementia and the book title says it all. Are we not meant to attend to every moment of life as best we can, to be present here and now? And God - this was my thought on retreat - God too is found in the here and now. Not by pondering the past or the future. I know we have to do that for all sorts of reasons. The Holy Spirit though has been defined as God in the present moment. Living with dementia is potentially living with God and others close to you and the joy of living in God’s presence is often manifest in those suffering this ailment.
As we deepen our thirst for the Spirit may we be guided to inhabit the present moment with less regret about the past or anxiety about the future. This brings me to Anne’s last drawing:
A drinking trough which has water coming into it and out of it. Would the water be safe for your dog? Yes because it has both inlet and outlet. Water pools go stagnant when they lack either an inlet or an outlet. So it is with our souls. They go stagnant unless they receive from God and give to God.
To gain more of the Holy Spirit this Lent mean’s our worshipping, praying, studying, serving and reflecting more, yes, but may Lent’s fruit be a fresh capacity to live in the present moment with God and whoever he puts in front of us.
‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit’.
So let’s attend to God ‘Here and Now’ in the present moment, for a minute or two, before we profess our faith, as the choir sings.
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