The Holy Spirit – Part 1
By( the late) Fr. Dawood Kawkabany
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
In order to address the topic of the Holy Spirit directly, and build on what we had said before on the Lord Jesus, I will start with 1 Cor 12. St Paul says: “Nobody speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be accursed.” And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
This is one of Paul’s oldest epistles – but not his oldest. The oldest would be the First letter to the Thessalonians. In Chapter 12 he talks about “gifts” and the Trinity who distributes these gifts. He simply says that no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
What does this mean? This means that no one says that Jesus is alive except by the Holy Spirit, and no one can experience the resurrection of Jesus Christ except by the Holy Spirit. In other words, the event of the resurrection reaches me and you through the action of the Holy Spirit, and this is what’s most important. God the Father and God the Son have given you the Holy Spirit so that you can experience the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This, I would say, encapsulates the whole topic of the Holy Spirit, and I have nothing more to add to it. All that I will say henceforth will only unpack this main idea. For the aim of the Holy Spirit is for me to meet and experience the Living Jesus, and to profess this Living Jesus as Lord.
The Holy Spirit needs to say nothing more to me. All He wants to teach me and tell me is that Jesus Himself is living, living in an absolute sense, and living in you.
The moment you try to crucify in yourself the Living One and not profess that He conquered death is the moment you shut out the Holy Spirit, and consequently declare Jesus accursed, and hang Him anew on the wood of the Cross.
After this short introduction, we will try to go through the Bible.
The first mention of the Holy Spirit in the Bible is in the first Chapter of Genesis: “And the Spirit of the Lord was sweeping over the water.” Some say this is not the Holy Spirit, because the Jewish Tradition has no concept of Trinity. It is true that the text of Genesis is relatively recent, but there was no faith in the Trinity even back then. It is true that a Jewish person reading Genesis would not interpret this spirit to mean one of the Three Persons of the Trinity, but rather the power or glory of God. However, when I read Genesis through the Spirit who showed me the Living Jesus, and in the light of the Living Jesus, I am able to see how the Spirit, at the dawn of history and through the power of the Living Jesus, brings life to nothingness through existence (not into existence, but through existence).
I am able to see what happened at the origins in the light of my experience of the Living Jesus through the Holy Spirit. God introduced life into the world as the “apex of existence.” Therefore, the act of creation is from the origin an act of resurrection rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
You may say this has happened millions of year ago. This may be true in human time. But, in the mind of the Father, the whole universe was designed with Jesus as its architect, the Word who called things to being and they were.
Therefore, right from the beginning, the Living Son of God, Jesus Christ, brings forth being and life through the Holy Spirit. This is how God accomplished this act of creation, but we only understood it later when the resurrection happened in human history.
I would like to draw here a first comparison with the Gospel of Luke. In two Sundays we will read chapters 4 or 5 back to back: the Announcement to Zechariah, the Announcement to Mary, the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, the Birth of John the Baptizer, then the Genealogy and the Revelation to Joseph in Matthew, and, finally, the Birth of Jesus, according to Luke.
Let us examine this sequence and pay attention to the following:
John the Baptizer: the Lord comes to Zechariah through Gabriel to announce to him the birth of a son named John. I will not go here into details, but I will simply mention this: “He will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah.”
Then comes the Announcement to Mary of the birth of Jesus: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
With Zechariah: the spirit of Elijah is in John.
With Mary: the Spirit of the Lord Jesus.
Jesus entered humanity’s world by the power of the Lord – the same Spirit by which He brought naught into being, low to high; the same Spirit by which He descended from high to low to meet with the one whom He elevated from naught to being.
The Spirit executes a double operation: 1- elevating naught to being; and 2- lowering the Absolute Being to relative being, so that, through this union, relative being may die and rise to infinite being.
That is why John goes before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah.
In Jesus’s case, “the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and the power of the Most High overshadows you.” Jesus was, then, born, incarnate, became man and rose by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let us accompany Him together. We shall walk with Jesus and make a few stops:
After the Annunciation, Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. And what happens there? “The infant leaped in her womb with great joy, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” That is why she was able to cry out: “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” This means that she was filled with the Holy Spirit and she professed Jesus as Lord.
Just as the Spirit enables me to know Jesus, this Jesus that I meet gives me the Spirit.
At the age of forty days His parents presented Him in the Temple; and who led Simeon and Anna the prophetess to the Temple but the Holy Spirit?
Jesus was baptized, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
It is significant that the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove hovering above Him. With Jesus begins a new world creation. Let us not forget that it was also a dove that announced the beginning of a new life after the Flood. It brought an olive branch back to Noah…
A rather challenging passage: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil!”
Is it true that the Spirit leads me to temptation? If He led Jesus to temptation, it is plausible then that He may lead me or you to temptation. But pay attention, because no gospel pericope clarifies the message of Jesus more than the pericope about Jesus’ temptations.
“He was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil!”
Let us contemplate Jesus as he experiences His humanity, character, history and mission.
“Command this stone to become bread.” What did Jesus do? What was His answer?
He turned to God’s word for answer (“I will not listen to you. I listen to my Father”). The first test Jesus underwent is a test of “listening”: listening to God, and not to the Devil.
In the midst of temptation, He was envisioning His mission, and the Spirit gave Him clarity so that He can envision it.
The second temptation:
“Throw yourself down from here, and the angels with their hands will support you.” Satan plays at that same game, and uses the word of God. But he whose intent is to destroy, does not use the word of God for up-building, unless he repents. “Throw yourself down.” Jesus answers: “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” Why does our trust get shaken at times?
“Worship me and I will give you all these kingdoms.” Jesus says: “I have come to take these kingdoms away from you. They are not yours. You are a stealing thief. These sheep belong to my Father, and I have come to say they are not yours.”
Jesus came to free you from the Devil.
His mission becomes clearer as a result of temptation. Yes, the Holy Spirit may lead you to temptation, but He will give you the gift of discernment which Paul talks about, so you can discern what to do to remain on the path of Him whom you have known through the Spirit as Lord.
Let us move on to Luke, chapter 4.
The Spirit leads Jesus to Nazareth where He grew up. As was His custom, Jesus enters the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and gets up to read, and they give Him the Book of Isaiah. He reaches verse 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
Let us reflect on this: When He was done, He rolled up the scroll and gave it to the attendant. What a beautiful passage… “The eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at Him.” He calmly sat down and said to them: “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The Spirit is the one who realizes in your life today what Jesus accomplished definitively in His death and resurrection. Today!
Let us move on to Luke, chapter 10. Jesus sends the seventy-two disciples on a mission…and they return rejoicing: “Even the demons are subject to us because of your name.”
Indeed…but “do not rejoice…This is not what ought to make you rejoice.
Rejoice because your names are written in Heaven. Beware, however! You are stronger than Satan only because your Heavenly Father holds you in the palm of His hand. This is not your own might accomplishing these things, but the might of the Holy Spirit in you.”
Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.”
Then He said: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see…”
Today Saint Thérèse visits us; this person named Thérèse. Be mindful: she is a spirituality prodigy! Why? Because she, like a child, knows her truth. Believe me, a child knows her truth more than you and I, and professes this truth more than you and I. A child comes up to you and asks: what is this? How? And why?
Sometimes we, adults, when we study something difficult, we do not ask those younger than us, because we fear looking ignorant in front of them. But a child knows that she needs to ask, i.e., be open to the Spirit; and that is why God reveals to her. Some think they are smarter than the Spirit, or lack the humility to admit bravely that they are nothing without the Spirit, and that they need to be open to the Spirit. This is the crux of the childlike spirituality of Saint Thérèse.
A return to childhood is not about morality, or circumstantial or temporary situations. The goal is for you to reach in deeper, look at your life, admit that you are childlike, look at the Spirit and say to Him: fill me.
Be careful: You are not the Holy Spirit for others. All you have to do is lead a person to feel the need for the Holy Spirit, and then let him be.
The Spirit enables you to accept the other as he is, and to work with him in concord. Compromises and concessions are not the Spirit.
A child does not compromise. She may fear you and do what you want, but the one who is really open to the Spirit does not accept compromise, but accepts the other person unconditionally.
On the cross:
In Greek there are two wonderful expressions for the death of Jesus. The Greek does not say “He died,” but that “He surrendered the spirit,” or “breathed it out” (He expired). These expressions still mean death, but the Evangelists used them instead of the verb “to die,” because the crucifixion of Jesus is about much more than just death. Jesus’ death on the cross is His resurrection.
It is very important that we understand the meaning of the death of Jesus on the Cross: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The death of Jesus on the Cross means love, and the Spirit is this union of love between the Father and the Son, and the union of love between the Trinity and humanity. It is the manifestation of the utmost divine and human love.
The death of Jesus on the Cross delivers love to man, and delivers the Holy Spirit to humanity.
Amen.
Questions:
Start with the temptations of Jesus. No doubt you have known temptation in your life. Have you at times felt how the Holy Spirit was building you up through these temptations?
Were there times where you felt that you were fulfilled and satisfied? What was the result? Did you at times feel emptiness or void? What did you do?
Original Arabic Article
Wednesday, October 6, 2002
The Family of Saint Sharbel – Church of St Sharbel, Adonis.
Fr. Dawood Kawkabany.
In order to address the topic of the Holy Spirit directly, and build on what we had said before on the Lord Jesus, I will start with 1 Cor 12. St Paul says: “Nobody speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be accursed.” And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
This is one of Paul’s oldest epistles – but not his oldest. The oldest would be the First letter to the Thessalonians. In Chapter 12 he talks about “gifts” and the Trinity who distributes these gifts. He simply says that no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
What does this mean? This means that no one says that Jesus is alive except by the Holy Spirit, and no one can experience the resurrection of Jesus Christ except by the Holy Spirit. In other words, the event of the resurrection reaches me and you through the action of the Holy Spirit, and this is what’s most important. God the Father and God the Son have given you the Holy Spirit so that you can experience the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This, I would say, encapsulates the whole topic of the Holy Spirit, and I have nothing more to add to it. All that I will say henceforth will only unpack this main idea. For the aim of the Holy Spirit is for me to meet and experience the Living Jesus, and to profess this Living Jesus as Lord.
The Holy Spirit needs to say nothing more to me. All He wants to teach me and tell me is that Jesus Himself is living, living in an absolute sense, and living in you.
The moment you try to crucify in yourself the Living One and not profess that He conquered death is the moment you shut out the Holy Spirit, and consequently declare Jesus accursed, and hang Him anew on the wood of the Cross.
After this short introduction, we will try to go through the Bible.
The first mention of the Holy Spirit in the Bible is in the first Chapter of Genesis: “And the Spirit of the Lord was sweeping over the water.” Some say this is not the Holy Spirit, because the Jewish Tradition has no concept of Trinity. It is true that the text of Genesis is relatively recent, but there was no faith in the Trinity even back then. It is true that a Jewish person reading Genesis would not interpret this spirit to mean one of the Three Persons of the Trinity, but rather the power or glory of God. However, when I read Genesis through the Spirit who showed me the Living Jesus, and in the light of the Living Jesus, I am able to see how the Spirit, at the dawn of history and through the power of the Living Jesus, brings life to nothingness through existence (not into existence, but through existence).
I am able to see what happened at the origins in the light of my experience of the Living Jesus through the Holy Spirit. God introduced life into the world as the “apex of existence.” Therefore, the act of creation is from the origin an act of resurrection rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
You may say this has happened millions of year ago. This may be true in human time. But, in the mind of the Father, the whole universe was designed with Jesus as its architect, the Word who called things to being and they were.
Therefore, right from the beginning, the Living Son of God, Jesus Christ, brings forth being and life through the Holy Spirit. This is how God accomplished this act of creation, but we only understood it later when the resurrection happened in human history.
I would like to draw here a first comparison with the Gospel of Luke. In two Sundays we will read chapters 4 or 5 back to back: the Announcement to Zechariah, the Announcement to Mary, the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, the Birth of John the Baptizer, then the Genealogy and the Revelation to Joseph in Matthew, and, finally, the Birth of Jesus, according to Luke.
Let us examine this sequence and pay attention to the following:
John the Baptizer: the Lord comes to Zechariah through Gabriel to announce to him the birth of a son named John. I will not go here into details, but I will simply mention this: “He will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah.”
Then comes the Announcement to Mary of the birth of Jesus: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
With Zechariah: the spirit of Elijah is in John.
With Mary: the Spirit of the Lord Jesus.
Jesus entered humanity’s world by the power of the Lord – the same Spirit by which He brought naught into being, low to high; the same Spirit by which He descended from high to low to meet with the one whom He elevated from naught to being.
The Spirit executes a double operation: 1- elevating naught to being; and 2- lowering the Absolute Being to relative being, so that, through this union, relative being may die and rise to infinite being.
That is why John goes before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah.
In Jesus’s case, “the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and the power of the Most High overshadows you.” Jesus was, then, born, incarnate, became man and rose by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let us accompany Him together. We shall walk with Jesus and make a few stops:
After the Annunciation, Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. And what happens there? “The infant leaped in her womb with great joy, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” That is why she was able to cry out: “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” This means that she was filled with the Holy Spirit and she professed Jesus as Lord.
Just as the Spirit enables me to know Jesus, this Jesus that I meet gives me the Spirit.
At the age of forty days His parents presented Him in the Temple; and who led Simeon and Anna the prophetess to the Temple but the Holy Spirit?
Jesus was baptized, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
It is significant that the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove hovering above Him. With Jesus begins a new world creation. Let us not forget that it was also a dove that announced the beginning of a new life after the Flood. It brought an olive branch back to Noah…
A rather challenging passage: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil!”
Is it true that the Spirit leads me to temptation? If He led Jesus to temptation, it is plausible then that He may lead me or you to temptation. But pay attention, because no gospel pericope clarifies the message of Jesus more than the pericope about Jesus’ temptations.
“He was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil!”
Let us contemplate Jesus as he experiences His humanity, character, history and mission.
“Command this stone to become bread.” What did Jesus do? What was His answer?
He turned to God’s word for answer (“I will not listen to you. I listen to my Father”). The first test Jesus underwent is a test of “listening”: listening to God, and not to the Devil.
In the midst of temptation, He was envisioning His mission, and the Spirit gave Him clarity so that He can envision it.
The second temptation:
“Throw yourself down from here, and the angels with their hands will support you.” Satan plays at that same game, and uses the word of God. But he whose intent is to destroy, does not use the word of God for up-building, unless he repents. “Throw yourself down.” Jesus answers: “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” Why does our trust get shaken at times?
“Worship me and I will give you all these kingdoms.” Jesus says: “I have come to take these kingdoms away from you. They are not yours. You are a stealing thief. These sheep belong to my Father, and I have come to say they are not yours.”
Jesus came to free you from the Devil.
His mission becomes clearer as a result of temptation. Yes, the Holy Spirit may lead you to temptation, but He will give you the gift of discernment which Paul talks about, so you can discern what to do to remain on the path of Him whom you have known through the Spirit as Lord.
Let us move on to Luke, chapter 4.
The Spirit leads Jesus to Nazareth where He grew up. As was His custom, Jesus enters the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and gets up to read, and they give Him the Book of Isaiah. He reaches verse 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”
Let us reflect on this: When He was done, He rolled up the scroll and gave it to the attendant. What a beautiful passage… “The eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at Him.” He calmly sat down and said to them: “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The Spirit is the one who realizes in your life today what Jesus accomplished definitively in His death and resurrection. Today!
Let us move on to Luke, chapter 10. Jesus sends the seventy-two disciples on a mission…and they return rejoicing: “Even the demons are subject to us because of your name.”
Indeed…but “do not rejoice…This is not what ought to make you rejoice.
Rejoice because your names are written in Heaven. Beware, however! You are stronger than Satan only because your Heavenly Father holds you in the palm of His hand. This is not your own might accomplishing these things, but the might of the Holy Spirit in you.”
Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.”
Then He said: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see…”
Today Saint Thérèse visits us; this person named Thérèse. Be mindful: she is a spirituality prodigy! Why? Because she, like a child, knows her truth. Believe me, a child knows her truth more than you and I, and professes this truth more than you and I. A child comes up to you and asks: what is this? How? And why?
Sometimes we, adults, when we study something difficult, we do not ask those younger than us, because we fear looking ignorant in front of them. But a child knows that she needs to ask, i.e., be open to the Spirit; and that is why God reveals to her. Some think they are smarter than the Spirit, or lack the humility to admit bravely that they are nothing without the Spirit, and that they need to be open to the Spirit. This is the crux of the childlike spirituality of Saint Thérèse.
A return to childhood is not about morality, or circumstantial or temporary situations. The goal is for you to reach in deeper, look at your life, admit that you are childlike, look at the Spirit and say to Him: fill me.
Be careful: You are not the Holy Spirit for others. All you have to do is lead a person to feel the need for the Holy Spirit, and then let him be.
The Spirit enables you to accept the other as he is, and to work with him in concord. Compromises and concessions are not the Spirit.
A child does not compromise. She may fear you and do what you want, but the one who is really open to the Spirit does not accept compromise, but accepts the other person unconditionally.
On the cross:
In Greek there are two wonderful expressions for the death of Jesus. The Greek does not say “He died,” but that “He surrendered the spirit,” or “breathed it out” (He expired). These expressions still mean death, but the Evangelists used them instead of the verb “to die,” because the crucifixion of Jesus is about much more than just death. Jesus’ death on the cross is His resurrection.
It is very important that we understand the meaning of the death of Jesus on the Cross: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The death of Jesus on the Cross means love, and the Spirit is this union of love between the Father and the Son, and the union of love between the Trinity and humanity. It is the manifestation of the utmost divine and human love.
The death of Jesus on the Cross delivers love to man, and delivers the Holy Spirit to humanity.
Amen.
Questions:
Start with the temptations of Jesus. No doubt you have known temptation in your life. Have you at times felt how the Holy Spirit was building you up through these temptations?
Were there times where you felt that you were fulfilled and satisfied? What was the result? Did you at times feel emptiness or void? What did you do?
Original Arabic Article
Wednesday, October 6, 2002
The Family of Saint Sharbel – Church of St Sharbel, Adonis.
Fr. Dawood Kawkabany.
