I'm sure
that we have all had times in our lives when we wished that we had someone to
speak up for us. Perhaps this came in
the form of a friend putting in a good word for you at work or for a team at
school. Maybe you were falsely accused
of something and someone had to come to your defense. Maybe it was when we were being picked on as
a child (or even older) and a friend came and stood up for us. With the national news saying that there is a
rise in bullying in schools, in the work place, and on the Internet, it seems
to me that we need more of that last example of standing up for each other in
the world. My hope is that we have all
had that joy of having someone stand up for us or speak out for us when we are
faced with confrontation.
When something
does go wrong in life it is really only fair to allow all persons involved to
tell their side of the story, especially if there are accusations against a
person. Quite often, the accused needs
someone to speak for them, to explain that why they didn't do it, or at least
didn't mean to do it. That's why even in our American legal system, even those
who cannot afford a lawyer are provided one.
Some worry with this system that a guilty person might end up getting off
Scott-free, but we don't want to end up punishing an innocent person
either. I mention all of this to simply
say, we all need an advocate from time to time.
You may
have noticed in the Gospel today that Jesus says that the Father, “will give
you another Advocate to be with you always”.
Jesus Christ is the first Advocate.
He speaks on our behalf to the Father.
We see this in the Gospels when Jesus reminds us of how He speaks the
words of the Father and when we heard last week that He is preparing a place
for us in His Father's house. We especially
see it as He dies for our sake on the Cross.
Jesus continues to be our Advocate in Heaven, He speaks to the Father,
pleading with Him to continue giving us that grace that makes it possible to
work on being His children. But as He
prepares for His Resurrection and eventual Ascension, Jesus knows that we will
still need an Advocate here on earth who will speak to us and guide us. That is the other Advocate that Jesus is
referring to: the Holy Spirit.
Just like a
defense attorney speaks on behalf of an accused person in court and counsels
the accused about what to do and say at different times, the Holy Spirit speaks
to the Father and the Father tells the Spirit what to say back to us. As we
hear else where in the Gospel of John, we are not to worry about what to say
when the world puts us on trial. Rather,
we are to listen to the Spirit and trust in His guidance.
Now I do
wish to point out an important point. We
are using an analogy here of comparing the Holy Spirit's counseling us to the
work a defense attorney does for his or her client. But please don't think that God the Father is
up in Heaven accusing us of crimes like a person on earth might accuse a
suspected criminal. God isn't trying to
come up with excuses to imprison us or give us a death sentence. He loves us too much for that. So God isn't a prosecutor or a harsh judge,
but we still need an Advocate to speak on our behalf. The reason is, we have sinned against
God. Remember, Heaven isn't a physical
place with clouds and harps and winged angels flying everywhere. Heaven is a state of being in which we are in
the presence of God Himself. There is no
room for sin in Heaven. God doesn't need
to accuse us of anything. We've done
this all by ourselves. God wants us to
be with Him. He mourns the fact that we
have sinned against Him. That is why He
sends the Holy Spirit to be our Advocate.
None of us is perfect enough to be sin free and to make it into Heaven
by our own merits. Sometimes I think we
assume that if we just work hard enough, we can get in by our own hard work of
being Holy. No, it doesn't work that
way. We need His help. That is why we have the Holy Spirit.
As Christians, therefore, our goal should be to live our lives in the Spirit. St. Peter’s First Letter tells us that Jesus “was brought to life in the Spirit” by allowing Himself to be put to death in flesh. We then are called to put our own sinful desires and habits to death and focus on allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us. That is, we are called to live our lives in the Spirit as well.
In order for any of us to have this life in the Spirit, we must truly accept the Spirit into our very selves. That means taking the gifts and graces that we received in Baptism and Confirmation and making that a part of our lives. It means allowing the spirit to move with in us. A priest friend of mine likes to use the analogy of making chocolate milk. If you just add chocolate syrup to a tall glass of milk and do nothing else, that isn’t all that tasty, but if you start stirring, then it mixes together into something good. Likewise, the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation aren’t going to do us much good, unless we avail ourselves of how the Holy Spirit is moving us closer to the Father.
You may have noticed that during this Easter Season, we hear a lot about the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles. This week, we hear about the Christians in the city of Samaria and how St. Philip (one of the deacons who were ordained in our first reading last week) preaches about the life of Jesus to them. It sounds as though these people had heard of Jesus before because they had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, but had never been baptized in the Spirit (In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit). The Apostles in Jerusalem send Peter and John to them so they may receive the Holy Spirit. They receive Him when the Apostles lay hands on them. They had heard of Jesus and maybe even of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t until later with the preaching of Philip and laying on of hands with the Apostles that they finally enter into the life of the Spirit.
We have the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, with us to help us. Let us continue on our pilgrimage towards Heaven, and the joy that we will find with God.
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