Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
© 2025, Dr. Tamilio
The passage I just shared with you from John’s Gospel is often read at funerals. It is part of the passage in which Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” This is part of Jesus’ lengthy talk to his disciples just before he is arrested in which he tells them what is about to come: that he will be betrayed and crucified; that he will rise from the dead and ascend to heaven; that once he did, he would send the Holy Spirit to the Church. That is the day of Pentecost, which we will celebrate in two weeks.
We talked about the Holy Spirit at length at a recent Bible study. I started the discussion by sharing the following: when I was in seminary, I had the opportunity (and pleasure) of studying systematic theology with S. Mark Heim. Dr. Heim did a great deal of work with Christians in different denominations (the Ecumenical Church) as well as people of other faith traditions. He once told us a story about how he hosted a group of Christian scholars and clergy from China. He took them to visit different churches in America: Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Catholic… Their observation? American churches do not speak about the Holy Spirit that much. I think this speaks more to the elusive nature of the Holy Spirit as opposed to a lack of faith on behalf of American Christians.
Here’s part of the problem for the average Christian, not to mention the regular church-goer: when it comes to God and Jesus, we have images for us that are tangible — ones that we can relate to and understand.
- For example, in the Garden of Eden story, God is seen walking in the Garden after Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. Moses gets to see the back of God when he (Moses) is on the mountain. His voice is heard several times in the Bible. These are physical human-like traits.
- With Jesus, we have a human being in the flesh. Granted, he is also fully God, but the Gospels paint a very clear picture of Jesus. Even though he is God incarnate, his human qualities and characteristics are made abundantly clear. His image is so vivid that it has been captured by the words of the Gospel writers and has been depicted ever since in works of art.
This is far from the case with the Holy Spirit. As I have mentioned before, the Holy Spirit appears in five different ways throughout all of the Scripture: as fire, water, a bird (typically a dove), oil, and wind or breath. This makes the Holy Spirit difficult to relate to for many believers.
This does not mean that we do not believe in the Holy Spirit. It is simply to suggest that we have difficulty identifying with that which is either nondescript or with anything that does not have a hard and fast identity.
And yet, the Holy Spirit is the “part” of our Triune God who is with us now. In his book Faith Seeking Understanding, Daniel L. Migliore states that, “The Holy Spirit as attested in Scripture is the presence and power of God at work in the world to accomplish God’s purposes.”[1] Indeed, the biblical God has been at work since the beginning of time: creating the cosmos, entering into covenant with Israel, rescuing them from Egyptian bondage, leading them to the Promised Land, and sending prophets to warn them of their spiritual infidelity. In the fullness of time, God sent Jesus to reconcile a sin-sick world. Jesus taught multitudes about the kingdom of heaven: how it is not just something that is to come, but something that can be experienced in the here and now. After all, he repeatedly said that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” meaning it is right here in our midst, among us.
No one can easily object and say, “This world does not reflect the kingdom of heaven. If this is what heaven is like, then God must be playing some sort of sick, cosmic joke on us!” This world is riddled with hatred, disease, war, and natural and man-made disasters that tear people’s lives asunder. Drugs flow through the streets. Children are sold into the sex-slave industry. This is what the kingdom of heaven is like? It could be. It could be if we understood why we are here. As Rick Warren writes, “You were put on earth to make a contribution. You weren’t created just to consume resources — to eat, breathe, and take up space. God designed you to make a difference with your life.”[2] I would add to that you were not just put here for your own self-serving purposes. You were put here to make the Gospel tangible for others.
We were created not just to coexist in a Christian community but to serve those inside and outside of those communities. We are God’s ambassadors in this world. As the sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila wrote,
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
I know this sounds a bit trite, because you’ve probably heard this bit of verse many times before. But what I am suggesting here is not a surface explanation as to how you are to live your faith. This is not meant to be just an inspirational sermon that instructs you to go out and serve God in the service of others. Rather, my point is to explain how it happens. It happens because God’s Holy Spirit is working through you. It isn’t you who is ministering. It is the Holy Spirit working through you. You are a vessel of grace.
Let the Holy Spirit flow through you. Let it infuse every part of your being. Listen to its voice and where it is leading you. You have to listen carefully, because there are all kinds of other voices in this world clamoring for your attention and devotion. Listen. Feel. Then, respond with a life wholly dedicated to our holy God. Jesus gave us that Spirit so he could be here in our midst, guiding us and sustaining us. The power of God at work in the world is God made manifest as the Holy Spirit: the One we were promised.
C.S. Lewis put it best. I’ll give the final word to him. Lewis said, “The Holy Spirit is not a thing, but a person. He is the one who makes the presence of God real to us.” Amen, and Amen.
[1] Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 3d. ed. (William B. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014), 235.
[2] Rick Warren, “Designed to Make a Difference,” from Lifeway (online). Published January 1, 2014.