That first reading, a beautiful poem from Isaiah,
is a voice of confident hope,
hope in the face of adversity, oppression, and disorder.
Isaiah anticipates a future leader:
a leader on whom the fullness of the spirit of the Lord,
the fullness of the Holy Spirit, rests.
A leader who brings justice for the poor and the downtrodden, and profound peace to creation.
Jesus is the fulfilment of Isaiah’s hope;
he is the anticipated leader, anointed with the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus’ earthly life his humanity is sealed with,
and ‘powered’ by, the Holy Spirit.
He initiates the kingdom of justice and peace
that will be come to its fullness, in which we too hope,
at the end of time, when Jesus brings everything to its completion.
In today’s gospel, John the Baptist says Jesus
will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Baptise might suggest ‘pouring a little water’….it shouldn’t.
Literally, the Greek word means to immerse, to submerge,
and metaphorically it means to overwhelm…
John is saying:
Jesus will surround you with the Holy Spirit.
God wants to overwhelm us with love…..
and wants us to respond.
The Holy Spirit within brings repentance,
turning mind and heart to recognise and to desire the will of God,
bringing sorrow for sins, and great confidence in God’s mercy.
The Holy Spirit within is Jesus’ winnowing-fan,
separating out what is good,
and destroying the rest to the fire of God’s consuming love,
if we cooperate.
How do we cooperate?
By taking time in God’s presence, in prayer,
to make an honest appraisal of who we are and what we do.
Repentance is just one outcome of the Holy Spirit’s presence:
it is a starting point for much, much more.
Isaiah’s poem was the stimulus for
the traditional list of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit:
wisdom, understanding, right judgement, courage, knowledge, reverence, and wonder and awe in the presence of God;
gifts that found their full expression in Jesus in his life on earth.
Gifts that are particularly associated with the sacrament of confirmation; gifts for living the Christian life.
On Thursday, at 7pm Mass here, Lucy will be confirmed.
She will sealed, marked out, sacramentally,
with the gift of the Holy Spirit,
and we will pray for her to live the rest of her life
drawing on the fullness of that gift.
Do come along and pray for her if you can.
Like Jesus when he walked on earth,
we too are to be powered by the Holy Spirit,
allowing the Spirit to work in us and through us:
that is precisely what it is to be Christian.
Let us give thanks
today for the great gift of the Holy Spirit
leading us to repentance
and shaping us into an image of Jesus.