“I have said these things to you while I was still with you. But 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. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the
world gives, do I give to you” (John 14:25-27).
At the poignant parting of the Lord Jesus with His disciples, He gave them a gift and a promise. He left them His special peace, and He promised that the Father would soon send them the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is His partner in salvation. He will teach them and remind them—teach, meaning explain the implications of all that Christ had revealed to them about Himself and the Father; remind them, so that they would have emblazoned in their memories each event they witnessed in their precious period of training to be apostles and evangelists.
The true Christian is a tradition bearer. We have received as a precious heritage from our Hebrew spiritual ancestry the love of our salvation history. We know who we are because we remember the journey of our ancestors in the faith. “Do this in remembrance of Me,” our Lord Jesus said and we repeat at the Divine Liturgy. At the conclusion of each worship we hear a listing of the saints for that day. We do more than honor them; we recapitulate their lives and apply them to our own. As the Holy Spirit worked through those in Christ in the past, so too we emulate their commitment by our own lives.
The Holy Spirit “will teach you everything.” Until the minute we die, the Spirit of God draws us ever deeper into the mysteries of our life in Christ. Even as we die, when the priest prays at our side that our faith will be enhanced by the experience, we are learning something else about the Lord’s love for us. Never is there a time for taking a vacation from learning about that divine image within us. Those who say that they had learned everything the Church has to teach when they completed a parish school program learned nothing if they actually believe they know all about God and creation. We have no excuse for stopping Bible reading, prayer, contemplation and worship among the people of God. I recall the words of our seminary homiletics professor: “Young men, you must read the sacred scriptures every day of your lives, even when you have committed the Bible to memory. The words do not change, but you do.”
As Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, the Holy Spirit nourishes us on that Bread by conjuring up the Dominical phrases at appropriate times in our life, depending on the situation. Just as a computer screen shows all references to a word we type in, so the Holy Spirit brings to our consciousness the scriptural message suitable to the state of affairs that confronts us. We know right from wrong. It’s not the truth of the matter that befuddles us. When temptation comes, we require a gift from the Holy Spirit that will strengthen our weak will and draw us back from the edge of sinfulness.
Jesus Christ upon leaving the world and accepting the cruelty of the cross blessed His apostles with peace. It is not what the world means by peace, which is law and order on the local level and absence from warfare on the national level. His gift is more precious—His gift is inner peace. Just as He amazed the onlookers when beaten nearly to death, humiliated, mocked, forced to bear the cross and then suffer upon it without surrendering to anger, hatred, bitterness or despair, so too is it possible for His followers to bear their anguish, pain and grief by opening up the channel of peace that accompanies grace from the Holy Spirit. Peace is not flight. It is not avoiding pain and suffering. It is not a cowardly fear of danger or absence of problems. Christ’s peace is an ability to endure all that is laid upon us and eking out a meaning through the misery. All that happens to us in this lifetime is learning potential, and in that sense even the negative experiences have something to teach us as long as we keep alive the access to God’s Spirit within.