Holy Spirit?

One of the great mysteries of God’s three persons is the Holy Spirit.  

Which use to be known as the “Holy Ghost.”   

As I am sitting here, I am thinking that the term ghost might be more identifiable.  After all, we are in someways more familiar with what a ghost might be like.

Remember  Casper the friendly ghost, or Harvey the 6ft rabbit, or Clarence (What A Wonderful) who wanted to earn his wings and be an angel ?   

Or how about the movie Ghost, with Patrick Swayze, and Demi Moore, where Patrick’s character dies and comes back as a ghost to help his wife?  

Those are the only ones that pop into my mine.  I am sure there were others — probably more scary.

  

Because of the human imagination, and a history of haunted house stories,  we can at least imagine what a ghost can be like; and how it might play a part in one’s life.

So, now lets change the phrase to Holy Spirit.  

Using, our pretend, imagination imagine the Holy Spirit, as Casper the Friendly Ghost, moving about in our lives.  Helping us to manage those big and little challenges in our lives. 

Imagine the Holy Spirit who actually does “guide” us into all truth.

God’s Spirit who still, to this very moment, is active within each and everyone of us.

As Bruno Barnhart puts it: 

This divine energy that is Spirit or Sophia is the passion that has driven the entire search forward, as it drives forward the whole course of human development….Sophia is the Spirit, the immanent divine energy that moves through image after image, figure after figure, formulation after formulation  toward Fullness — a Fullness that cannot be described but only glimpsed.”  (Second Simplicity p.203-204)

This is what Jesus promise to all of his disciples.  (See John 14-16)

15 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. ¹⁷This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. ….25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. ²⁶But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.(John 14)