And when he is come, he will reprove the world
It is a remarkable phrase that Jesus uses about the coming of “the Comforter, the Spirit of truth” who “will guide [us] into all truth.” What does it mean to “reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement”? The word runs a gamut of meanings from ‘convince’ and ‘refute’ to ‘examine’ and ‘question’, from ‘put to shame’ to ‘accuse.’ To reprove is about a kind of critical assessment of something that is not ethical. It implies a kind of judgement upon the world. Things are not quite as they should be nor even as we would like them to be. An understatement, to be sure!
We would all like Covid-19 to go away, perhaps even more for the fear of it to go away and never come again. And yet the language of the Epistle and Gospel for today is about the comings and goings of God which is somehow expedient, good or beneficial for us, whatever the times or circumstances.
Every good and perfect gift comes down from above, “from the Father of lights,” James tells us, while Jesus in the Gospel talks about going his way to the one that sent him, going to the Father, which means going away from the disciples such that they shall “see [him] no more” and “sorrow hath filled [their] hearts.” Yet that is said to be expedient or good for us because only so can the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, be sent unto us. What, we may ask, is going on in these readings? A confusion of motions, comings down and goings up? The comings and goings of God, the Son to the Father, and the Spirit as sent by the Son? What does it mean?
It all belongs to the radical meaning of Christ’s Death and Resurrection and to our participation in the divine life through these motions. The way up and the way down are one and the same. The ascent of our souls to God as the true end and desire of our being and God’s descent to us both in Christ’s Incarnation and in the coming down of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, are really one and the same, differentiated in time but united in the eternity of God. Time, as Plato famously said, is but the moving image of eternity (Timaeus). These Eastertide readings offer a wonderful commentary, perhaps, on that philosophical insight. It is simply and profoundly about how we are embraced and participate in the divine life. Our comings and goings are gathered up into the comings and goings of God to us and with us but, more importantly, as belonging to the comings and goings of God himself, so to speak, since we can only speak in these human ways. The mystery of Easter gathers us into the eternal dynamic of the love of God.
It is all about God and God in us. And that is to be recalled and returned to the truth of ourselves in God. It is, however, profoundly counter-culture with respect to our practical and materialistic concerns which paradoxically deny the truth of the material and its participation in God.
No one teaches us more about God the Father than Jesus the Son. No one teaches us more about God the Spirit than Jesus the Son. Such language and imagery belongs to the Christian doctrine of God as Trinity, to the divine self-relation which is the ground of God’s relation to his creation and to us, the human creation made in his image, made in the image of the Trinity, we might say. The language of God as Father and Son has little to do with the social and political structures of power however much it grounds all human relations in God’s own life. The language of God as Trinity spoken about in these intimate terms of spiritual relationship is the Christian way of talking about “the infinite power, wisdom and goodness” of God, to use one set of attributes of classical divinity. In another way of speaking, it suggests the unity of the eternal being, knowing, and willing of God which provides the ground for the understanding of our humanity as creatures who exist, who think, and who love. There are a host of spiritual and intellectual terms that connect to the Scriptural imagery of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are all about the way up and the way down, all about the comings and goings of God to us and us towards God.
The point in these Eastertide Gospels is about the radical meaning of our being with God through the motions of God being with us. Such is death and resurrection. It not only forms the essential pattern of Christian life in the liturgy and its outflowing into our lives of service and sacrifice in the world; it is also about God in himself, in the mutual indwelling love of the Trinity. God, not the world, is where “our true joys are to be found,” as the Collect for today puts it. Thus the world in our attachments to the world rather than to God is precisely what has to be reproved or corrected in us.
The Paraclete or Comforter is the term Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit. The Paraclete is the one upon whom we can call; he is the helper, the advocate, the comforter. The comfort is about being strengthened within just as the Comfortable Words in the Liturgy seek to strengthen us in our faith in God and especially so in times of uncertainty and adversity. And what is the comforting strength promised by Jesus in the coming of the Comforter? It is about being guided into all truth, the truth of the things of God. What is being shown, time and time again in the pageant of Easter? Simply the wonder of God in his love for us. That is our strength and our comfort in every time of need, the only counter to our fears and sorrows.
To be returned to God is to be returned to the truth of ourselves despite our “unruly wills and affections.” The world is “reproved of sin” which is simply our unbelief. Sin, after all, has to do with our thoughts, words and deeds when we act as if there was no God. As the Collect says, it is God “alone who can order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men.” God and God alone makes something good out of our evil and sin. But what does it mean to reprove the world of righteousness? “Because I go to my Father,” Jesus says, “and ye see me no more.” Righteousness is not found in the world but only in God and the world in God. We seek for more than what the world can provide. ”If ye be risen with Christ seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of the Father,” as we heard/read at Easter.
The judgment is not ours either about ourselves or one another. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,” as James notes. “The prince of this world is judged,” as John puts it, referring to the Devil who denies his creatureliness and exists in utter contradiction.
The Resurrection is not a flight from the world as if the world and the body were evil. Sin lies in our denial of God as our true good and happiness, substituting the world and ourselves for God. Christ’s Death and Resurrection signal our return to God, to his truth and righteousness. Such is the redemption of our humanity which changes our attitude and approach to suffering and death, to grief and sorrow. Love what God loves and bids us love, desire that which God promises and proclaims “that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world,, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found.” Where? In God and in our life with God here and now. How? “Of his own will he brought us to birth by the word of truth.” Such is the resurrection in us, a new birth and a renewal of spirit. To be reproved is to be returned to God.
“And when he is come, he will reprove the world”
Fr. David Curry
Easter 4, 2020
Posted not preached owing to the Covid-19 outbreak