Sundays with CWM (12 June): The Holy Spirit as our Guide

by CWM Communications Team

Trinity Sunday

John 16:12-15

Reflection

On this Trinity Sunday we want to reflect on the Holy Spirit as our Guide. Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost that focuses on the unique relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons but one God. The Gospel of St. John 16:12-15 begins with Jesus telling His disciples, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (12). In the preceding chapter Jesus said, “I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” One would ask the question then, how can Jesus have made known “everything” to the disciples and yet “Still have many things to say” to them? Jesus’s words in (16:12) cannot mean that there is new content to his revelation. There has got to be something else going on.

The clarity is here in verse 13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” In other words, it won’t be Jesus doing the talking but the Spirit. The disciples “cannot bear” certain things now but will through the guidance of the Holy Spirit “into all truth”. We should try our best to seek guidance from the Holy Spirit in everything that we do. Allow the Spirit to guide, allow the Spirit to speak and allow the Spirit to declare truth.

The question we are left with is whether we will listen to the Spirit and be open to newer and deeper understandings of our faith and to the implications of Jesus’s revelation for us today. The internet, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle now give us a more immediate awareness of local, national, and global crises that challenge us for a Christian response, such as immigration and racial disparity in police treatment, to list just two examples. What is the Christian response to such realities? What response is truer and more faithful to Jesus’ revelation? Can we, like John, trust the Spirit to guide us in discerning what it means to live out Christian faith today?

-Roy McGregor, United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands

Prayer

that on this Trinity Sunday and onwards Your Holy Spirit will guide our feet, our decisions, our thoughts, everything we do. Stand by us Triune God, search our hearts we pray because we are your children.

(Image credit: He Qi)

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