Tuesday May 23
“It is better for you that I go away.” This is an extremely puzzling statement by Jesus. How do you feel when someone says, “I’d be better off dead!” But what Jesus said was, “better for you”, not “better for me”. Still, how could it be better? “For if I do not go, the Helper (Comforter, Companion) cannot come.” While Jesus was with them he could not be with them at every moment; he was limited by space and time. But the Spirit has no limitations. In John’s gospel, the Spirit, the ‘Paraclete’, is the continued presence of Jesus, but in a different way. He has to go away in order to be more fully present! This Companion will “convict” or “convince” the world about sin and justice and judgment. One thing is clear: the more the Spirit moves in our lives, the more we are aware of the sinful structures in our own lives and in the world around us. This is so, even in regard to details. We become aware of our own eating habits, for example, and sleeping habits; and we become less enslaved. And we become more aware of the many ‘decisions of death’ that we live with quite comfortably; and of ways we hold other people prisoner in our ‘fixed image’ of them. The Spirit’s work is to set us, and the whole world, free.