James Alison on the Holy Spirit
I don't really understand about the Holy Spirit, and reading what Fr. Alison has to say about it in his book, Knowing Jesus, both confuses and excites me. That's why I like to read him :) Here's some of it .....
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I have been trying to fill out the density of the presence of the risen Lord to the apostles, so as to give some possibility of our entering into the experience which they had, to which they bear witness, and which is normative for any experience of Jesus which we might have .....
So what was the difference between the way Jesus was present to the apostles in his resurrection appearances, and his presence thereafter? Well, I've underlined two ways of Jesus' being present to them: his actual physical presence, by which he appeared, they could touch him, and he could eat fish; and, along with that, and as part of it, the gratuitous forgiving presence that called them out of themselves towards the other whom they found difficult to recognize, and which gradually transformed their lives. These two came together in the case of the apostles. They do not come together for us. The physical appearances of Jesus came to an end after an interval which Luke puts at the symbolic figure of forty days, though the surprise appearance to Saul was later. During that period, Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God (Acts 1.3), and helped the fullness of the novelty of the resurrection sink in. Then he ascended to heaven, and shortly thereafter, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles.
That's how Luke presents it. John's approach is rather different. He has Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into the apostles on the first evening of the resurrection. Then Jesus carries on appearing for a time, but there is no Pentecost in John ..... but in both cases the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the risen Lord, the Spirit that was in Christ. The Spirit constantly makes present the crucified and risen Lord, thus perpetually reproducing those changes of relationship which the risen Lord had started to produce as a result of his resurrection. What I'm trying to say is that outside the group of apostles who were physical witnesses to the resurrected Lord, no one gets to see the physically risen Lord. But instead, all the really important elements of the resurrection - the irruption into our lives of a gratuity as forgiveness, permitting a recasting of relationships - all that, is made constantly available to us by the Holy Spirit, so that we are able to become witnesses to the resurrection in our own lives ......
The Holy Spirit and the risen Lord are not simply identical, any more than Jesus and the Father are simply identical. There is in both cases a relationship to someone who is other than, and yet the same as, Jesus ... Suffice it to say that what the Holy Spirit brings is the whole life and death of the risen Lord, reproducing that life in the lives and deaths of the faithful, so that they become witnesses to that risen life and death. The Holy Spirit is the giving of himself by Jesus, to us to be killed, in obedience to the Father, and the giving back of his life to Jesus by the Father, simultaneously. That is what I think is meant by the Spirit that is in Christ. It is the Spirit of self-giving made present through the concrete human life and death of Jesus. To put it crudely, it is the internal workings of the life and death of Jesus. It is what informed his relationship with the Father, and with us, and the Father's relationship with him, and with us. The dynamic that was at work in all that: that is the Holy Spirit.
It is important to grasp that there aren't 'other bits' of the Holy Spirit which we might experience instead, that are separate from, and nothing to do with, the presence of the life and death of the crucified and risen Lord. The Holy Spirit is not some vague, numinous force that is somehow bigger and less exclusive than the crucified and risen Jesus - and rather nicer, perhaps, having to do with peace and joy and so on, rather than murder and violence. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the crucified and risen Jesus .... the Spirit was precisely made maximally present and available because of the crucifixion and resurrection. All the power and self-giving of God that went into the crucifixion and the resurrection is perpetually present in the Holy Spirit, and so is perpetually present to all of us who receive it ......
I've chosen to describe the Holy Spirit in a rather different way from what is usual. And this is for a firm reason: for many people, the term 'Holy Spirit' is a comfortingly benign and vague term, a term with no real content or bite on life. If you like, it's God at his most ethereal. If in doubt, attribute it to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will sort out our tangled petitions and desires and so on. Well, I don't want to deny that. I constantly hope and pray that the Holy Spirit sorts out my tangled petitions and desires. But I want to bring a little more down to earth, give a little more content to, what the Holy Spirit is about. The Holy Spirit is a divine reality who works on a human level, and our best approach to understanding what goes on is not to let go of the human level, but to allow that level to be deepened. It is not by fleeing the human dimension of our faith, nasty though it be, that we will find God, but by learning how God loves it and transforms it.
It is in the changes in human ways of relating brought about by the presence of the crucified and risen Jesus that we will find out about the Holy Spirit. So I have chosen to talk about these changes without using the word Holy Spirit, to prevent us from flying off into an ethereal realm, and to keep us more firmly tied to how the crucified and risen Lord affects us. It is only thus that we will find out how it is that exactly the same package is available to us with exactly the same force, leading to exactly the same sorts of conversion, or change of heart, as was present to the apostles. That means that just as the risen Lord irrupted into the middle of their lives, in exactly the circumstances in which they were, in the sadness and treachery, and rivalry and fear which characterized them, and started the huge work of their transformation with the materia prima that was to hand, so also does he do with us.
Well. That sounds powerful, but in a sense too powerful to be convincing .....
****************************
:)
**************************
I have been trying to fill out the density of the presence of the risen Lord to the apostles, so as to give some possibility of our entering into the experience which they had, to which they bear witness, and which is normative for any experience of Jesus which we might have .....
So what was the difference between the way Jesus was present to the apostles in his resurrection appearances, and his presence thereafter? Well, I've underlined two ways of Jesus' being present to them: his actual physical presence, by which he appeared, they could touch him, and he could eat fish; and, along with that, and as part of it, the gratuitous forgiving presence that called them out of themselves towards the other whom they found difficult to recognize, and which gradually transformed their lives. These two came together in the case of the apostles. They do not come together for us. The physical appearances of Jesus came to an end after an interval which Luke puts at the symbolic figure of forty days, though the surprise appearance to Saul was later. During that period, Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God (Acts 1.3), and helped the fullness of the novelty of the resurrection sink in. Then he ascended to heaven, and shortly thereafter, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles.
That's how Luke presents it. John's approach is rather different. He has Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into the apostles on the first evening of the resurrection. Then Jesus carries on appearing for a time, but there is no Pentecost in John ..... but in both cases the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the risen Lord, the Spirit that was in Christ. The Spirit constantly makes present the crucified and risen Lord, thus perpetually reproducing those changes of relationship which the risen Lord had started to produce as a result of his resurrection. What I'm trying to say is that outside the group of apostles who were physical witnesses to the resurrected Lord, no one gets to see the physically risen Lord. But instead, all the really important elements of the resurrection - the irruption into our lives of a gratuity as forgiveness, permitting a recasting of relationships - all that, is made constantly available to us by the Holy Spirit, so that we are able to become witnesses to the resurrection in our own lives ......
The Holy Spirit and the risen Lord are not simply identical, any more than Jesus and the Father are simply identical. There is in both cases a relationship to someone who is other than, and yet the same as, Jesus ... Suffice it to say that what the Holy Spirit brings is the whole life and death of the risen Lord, reproducing that life in the lives and deaths of the faithful, so that they become witnesses to that risen life and death. The Holy Spirit is the giving of himself by Jesus, to us to be killed, in obedience to the Father, and the giving back of his life to Jesus by the Father, simultaneously. That is what I think is meant by the Spirit that is in Christ. It is the Spirit of self-giving made present through the concrete human life and death of Jesus. To put it crudely, it is the internal workings of the life and death of Jesus. It is what informed his relationship with the Father, and with us, and the Father's relationship with him, and with us. The dynamic that was at work in all that: that is the Holy Spirit.
It is important to grasp that there aren't 'other bits' of the Holy Spirit which we might experience instead, that are separate from, and nothing to do with, the presence of the life and death of the crucified and risen Lord. The Holy Spirit is not some vague, numinous force that is somehow bigger and less exclusive than the crucified and risen Jesus - and rather nicer, perhaps, having to do with peace and joy and so on, rather than murder and violence. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the crucified and risen Jesus .... the Spirit was precisely made maximally present and available because of the crucifixion and resurrection. All the power and self-giving of God that went into the crucifixion and the resurrection is perpetually present in the Holy Spirit, and so is perpetually present to all of us who receive it ......
I've chosen to describe the Holy Spirit in a rather different way from what is usual. And this is for a firm reason: for many people, the term 'Holy Spirit' is a comfortingly benign and vague term, a term with no real content or bite on life. If you like, it's God at his most ethereal. If in doubt, attribute it to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will sort out our tangled petitions and desires and so on. Well, I don't want to deny that. I constantly hope and pray that the Holy Spirit sorts out my tangled petitions and desires. But I want to bring a little more down to earth, give a little more content to, what the Holy Spirit is about. The Holy Spirit is a divine reality who works on a human level, and our best approach to understanding what goes on is not to let go of the human level, but to allow that level to be deepened. It is not by fleeing the human dimension of our faith, nasty though it be, that we will find God, but by learning how God loves it and transforms it.
It is in the changes in human ways of relating brought about by the presence of the crucified and risen Jesus that we will find out about the Holy Spirit. So I have chosen to talk about these changes without using the word Holy Spirit, to prevent us from flying off into an ethereal realm, and to keep us more firmly tied to how the crucified and risen Lord affects us. It is only thus that we will find out how it is that exactly the same package is available to us with exactly the same force, leading to exactly the same sorts of conversion, or change of heart, as was present to the apostles. That means that just as the risen Lord irrupted into the middle of their lives, in exactly the circumstances in which they were, in the sadness and treachery, and rivalry and fear which characterized them, and started the huge work of their transformation with the materia prima that was to hand, so also does he do with us.
Well. That sounds powerful, but in a sense too powerful to be convincing .....
****************************
:)
posted by crystal | 12:51 PM
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