Has anyone ever told you about the Holy Spirit?
Today, in the life of the church, we celebrate Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus. Before Jesus dies on the cross, Jesus promises the arrival of a Helper who would lead his followers in the same way that he was leading them. Fifty days after his resurrection, the Holy Spirit comes through on Jesus’ promise to his followers.

We’re starting a new preaching series for the next 5 weeks dealing with the person and work of the Holy Spirit. It’s hard to talk about the Spirit because the Spirit is so unlike anything we know in this world. It’s like trying to explain the nature of wind or the nature of love or the nature of why the Rangers can’t win games. The Spirit is just not tangible, like a rock, or a table, or a baseball.

Early on in my life my grandma told me about the Holy Spirit. For the first six years of my life I lived in Chicago, and often I stayed overnight at Grandma’s. Her parents were original immigrants from Austria and still spoke much of their native language. At bedtime, grandma would tuck me and my brother into bed, and would give us a little night time blessing. She would lean over, whisper her blessing, make the sign of the cross over us, and give us a nice little kiss before turning off the lights and leaving the room.

I couldn’t understand any of the blessing because it was in Austrian (and no, Grandma did not sound like Arnold Schwarzeneger). After many times of receiving the blessing in the shape of a cross, I began to make out some of the words.

One of those words was Heilige Geist, and I figured out that this meant Holy Ghost. I had heard that word in my Lutheran preschool that I attended – the Holy Ghost. From that I was able to piece together that the other words referred to Father and Son.

My first introduction to the person and work of the Holy Spirit was from my grandma, and in my tiny child world, I believed that the Holy Spirit was a ghost. And I believed that if this Holy Ghost was God’s Holy Ghost then it must be a nice Holy Ghost because I believed that God was nice.

In my little child world, I thought of other ghosts that I knew that were nice so I could have some comparison with the Holy Ghost. I came up with Casper, the Friendly Ghost, and for years, I believed that God’s Holy Ghost was like Casper, the chubby Friendly Ghost.

Some years later, when I started paying attention to sermons, I heard my pastor speak of the Holy Ghost at the baptism of Jesus. After Jesus’ baptism, the heavens open up and the Holy Spirit arrives in the shape of a dove. For days afterward, I couldn’t help but wonder if one of the doves that lived outside of our house was the Holy Spirit. I tried to look for one that didn’t potty so much, because I thought the Holy Spirit wouldn’t need to potty if it were a dove.

I tell you these stories because it shows us how what we believe when we’re little affects the way we look at life today. Two people told me two different things about the Holy Spirit that have stuck with me today, and I wonder what you may be thinking of when we sit down to speak of God’s Holy Spirit.

Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete. Not a parakeet … that’s the wrong kind of bird. But the Paraclete. This ancient Greek word can best be described with three words that we have in English.

The first word is “Advocate.” The Holy Spirit advocates for Jesus and his agenda in this world. An advocate is someone who partners with somebody else and represents them before others. I think of Child Advocates, adults who represent children when they are abused and neglected. Because they are so vulnerable and have little to no voice, an Advocate is needed so that they will not get lost in bigger systems, and that they will not be forgotten.

The Holy Spirit advocates for Jesus today since Jesus is with his Father in heaven. It’s so easy to lose sight of what Jesus was truly about because Jesus was present to us so long ago. The Holy Spirit advocates for the mission of Jesus in our present day when Jesus is not physically present.

When churches advocate to build themselves into country club type of settings, the Holy Spirit advocates that we take up Jesus’ call to follow him by losing our lives. When our own human spirits begin to build cliques, the Holy Spirit advocates that we welcome all people the same because we remember that God values us all.

When churches advocate to become organizations built solely around social justice issues, the Holy Spirit advocates for the worship of Jesus and how this worship is our basic witness to his total reign in our lives.
The Holy Spirit represents the spirit of Jesus and his Father in our midst when we’d rather advocate for something totally different. The Holy Spirit advocates to keep us on track when following Jesus.

Another good word to use for the Holy Spirit is “Counselor.” The Holy Spirit counsels us to keep us steadfast in placing our trust in God. When life looms large before us and we turn looking for direction, the Holy Spirit is present in our lives as a counselor.

The Apostle Paul mentions this role of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8. When we walk in weakness, the Holy Spirit, Paul says, supports us. When we can hardly pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with “groaning too deep for words.” When there seems to be nothing but a big mess in front of our lives, God’s Holy Spirit counsels us to make sense of it all and walk in God’s will.

Through the Holy Spirit, God uses any mess that we’ve made to his glory and can bring good out of it. I was watching a sitcom the other day; it’s called Scrubs. It’s a comedy based on the life of several interns at a Medical Hospital and their daily activities.

In a recent episode, one of the resident doctors began to take issue with a nurse who was serious about her faith in God. She was trying to show the doctor that many things happen for a reason in life. The overly cynical doctor tried many arguments to disprove her assertion.

A child patient came through their ER who had been stabbed at a robbery. The cynical doctor thought that he had finally found a case that could disprove the nurse’s faith that God can use any situation for good. What good can come from the stabbing of a child?

During the tests that were run on the child, the doctors came to discover a large tumor near her stomach that wasn’t causing any symptoms. This would have gone otherwise untreated. The doctor was frustrated, and the nurse stood vindicated that God can use anything for good.

Now, you may think this is Hollywood, but it happened for my mother-in-law. She was in a car accident several months ago, and after doing a scan on her head to check for any head trauma, they discovered a tumor underneath her jaw. Fortunately, it was the kind of tumor that is usually benign, but they wanted to operate and remove the tumor just in case.

The Holy Spirit counsels us when all we can see is the negative in life. The Holy Spirit counsels us to see how God works through the worse situations in life to make his presence known. When we can’t even speak from grief or anger or despair too deep for words, the Holy Spirit is our Counselor.

A final word that sheds some more light for us on how the Holy Spirit is the Paracleet and Jesus’ promise for us is the word “Helper.” Martin Luther spoke about the Holy Spirit as our Helper in this way—he said, “By my own understanding or strength, I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the one true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.”

You are not here today because you thought it was a good idea to come to worship. You do not dig into your pockets and give generously because you think it’s a good thing to do. You do not love your children, have patience with coworkers, or give compassion to those in need because they seem like the right thing to do. You do all those things because the Holy Spirit has brought you to Jesus and has made him known in your life.

In each of these cases, God is building his kingdom through the presence of his Holy Spirit here. They are glimpses of heaven that we are privileged to experience now, today, because God has given them to us through his Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit makes Jesus and his Father known in our lives. Without the Holy Spirit we’d no more know about God than we do about what exists at the furthest end of our universe.

Today is Pentecost, the day when Jesus comes through with his promise to dwell within us forever. The Holy Spirit is the down-payment on that promise. The Holy Spirit is here advocating, counseling, and helping us to know Jesus, to follow him, and to delight in him and his agenda for our lives always.
I’m praying for the Holy Spirit to be made known in your lives! Amen.

Notes:
“My Good Reason” Episode of Scrubs is found in the 2007 season.
Luther’s quote taken from his explanation to the third article of the creed in his Small Catechism.