SUNDAY, May 25 6 Easter John 14:16. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. When we arrived in Sidbury, where I was to preach, the first thing we saw behind a screened fence across the road was a majestic lion. There are times I almost forget I am in Africa, but then something ushers reality back into my consciousness. The Anglican congregation meets in Sidbury once a month, joined by Methodists, whose church is located on the other side of the game preserve. My sermon that day was about the Advocate and God’s promise to be with us forever. A farmer in the congregation approached me after the service and asked why I found the concept of an advocate to be so comforting. Then it dawned on me: Lawyers are called advocates in South Africa. A legal understanding of advocate perhaps shows one dimension of the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t capture the comforting presence promised by Jesus. The name Comforter or Counselor, used in other translations, also didn’t work for the farmer or me. Finally we agreed that the more familiar term Holy Spirit helped us both understand and cherish the promise Jesus makes in this passage. PRAY for the work of the Anglican Centre in Rome x From ForwardMovement.org
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 14:15:50 +0000
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