Seeing What You Can't See

The Passover Pilgrims have all been celebrating, as have Jesus and His Friends.

Thanks to John, who recounts what went on during that last Seder with Jesus, we know what happened around their Table.

Without question the most mind-altering thing Jesus said, out of every sobering word He spoke, was that God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – would be with His Followers. Our Trinitarian, Almighty, eternally loving Creator God would soon be “in” these Followers.

Such things are most difficult to understand. His Friends didn’t understand them. “What’s He talking about?” they asked.

Some time ago Jesus had a conversation with someone just as perplexed. The man was a “prominent Leader among the Jewish people.” Like these men around the Table with Him that Passover night this man was finding it difficult to understand Jesus teaching. The Master’s response was pretty much “in your face.” “If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don’t believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can’t see, the things of God?”

Here, again, at the Seder Table, Jesus is speaking about “the things of God;” “Heavenly things.” By His own admission such things “can’t” be seen. So He simplifies what He’s trying to get through to His Followers. He goes back to what is as “plain as the hand before (their) face.” “The Friend,” He says, “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you.” He – the “Spirit of Truth, will guide you into all the truth there is.”

Bewildered as they were that night, John and the others finally got it. “At last” they exclaimed, “You’re giving it to us straight, in plain talk … Now we know that You know everything – it all comes together in You.”

“All the truth there is.” That is “Jesus.” He’d just said, at the very same Table, that same night, “I am the Truth.” If the “Truth” speaks those who hear … hear truth. When they’ve heard all that the “Truth” has said, they’ve heard “all the truth there is.”

John’s description of what went on and what was said this night in the “Upstairs Room,” is a fulfillment of Christ’s promise. He remembered the conversation they had in perfect detail. Fifty or sixty years later he wrote it down. Clearly he was inspired. The Spirit of Truth gave him Supernatural recall. Reading, now, his account, we too are hearing “the Truth there is,” because we’re hearing from Him, who is the “Truth,” the very things He taught.

So we too know “truth.”

We know that God is with us; “in” us.

Christ’s first Post-resurrection Sovereign Act was to give the Holy Spirit to His Followers – the Church. God Himself now lives in us; His “temple.” His primary work in us is to “teach.” And so He sets to work stimulating our minds, the deepest regions of our hearts, our wills, and values, tempering our feelings and unruly emotions; refining our conscience. He takes everything Jesus taught His First Century Students; things He’s reminded them of and inspired them to re-tell for us. He enlightens us through these instructions. Many of His Words are convicting. At the same time they’re compelling. We’re inspired to take the Way His words map out for us. As we step out in faith to walk with Him we discover that the Spirit of Truth is also an enabler. “The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead, dwell(ing) in us, bring(s) to our whole being new strength and vitality.”

With that we commence becoming “like” Him who “is” the “Truth.” People notice that we “have been with Jesus.” Folks see “goodness” in us. They notice that we are “Spirit-filled;” “Special Representatives of a new Humanity;” “tried and true;” the “invisible” “visible.”