During singing a newer song in the morning service at the church I attend I saw and sensed a picture at the same time, of the Father embracing us. Many of us have lost loved ones, had things break, things haven’t been going quite as we’d like them too recently. I want to share with you that which is being impressed upon me. It is also a reminder that we are in a battle – not a losing battle I hasten to add.
Through a dream about a mother nursing a child, this embrace of the Father was impressed upon me again and about the work of the Holy Spirit. The phrase consolation of Israel came to me after the dream. This phrase appears in Luke 2 where it is written about Simeon the old man who was waiting for the appearing of the Messiah. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel.
The word behind consolation is the Greek word paraklesis. It conveys the idea of someone coming alongside. Someone who encourages, exhorts, comforts or consoles. A calling to one’s aid, summons, appeal, entreaty. This activity is very much like what a mother does.
Often when the Trinity is described it comes across to me like a top down structure. Father then son then Holy Spirit. I suddenly saw it differently. I saw Holy Spirit like a mother. Instead of the top down we have Jesus in the middle between the Father and dare I say it, the mother. It is almost like he’s their grown-up child and he’s holding their hands. That is more like a circle (Perichoresis – Now there’s a subject to explore in a whole number of post’s!) There is nothing in the Bible that says it clearly like that in one sentence but there is evidence in there if you look to suggest that Yahweh God has the attributes of a mother as well as a father.
The reason I’m saying this is more for practical purposes. Holy Spirit is comforting us in all our trials. I have felt that strongly this week in moments as I’ve considered the church generally and Emmanuel folk (the church I attend). Even though I have not been able to put this feeling easily into words I have been brought to unbidden tears and emotion at what we are going through. He wants to love us and is loving us. We need to open ourselves up to his love and receive this love. Love is not something to examine or analyse it is something to know and experience.
How do we or I increase our desire? I say this as I think this is what can spur us on into God. What drives us more than anything is our desires. Our inner person is being transformed as we contemplate the treasure that we have within us when we become followers of Jesus. In the book of Haggai it says:
For the Lord of Armies says this: “Once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of Armies. “The silver and gold belong to me”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies. “The final glory of this house will be greater than the first,” says the Lord of Armies. “I will provide peace in this place”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Armies.
Haggai 2:6–9 (CSB)
Jesus has come and inaugurated his kingdom the first time he came and he will bring it in again, when the Father says it’s time. We are much nearer now to that than when he came the first time. These days are known as the ‘last days’ and have been so since he came around 2000 years ago.
That word treasure can also be translated as desire in the Haggai passage. The desire of all nations has come.
But we have this treasure in earthenware jars, in order that the extraordinary degree of the power may be from God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying around the death of Jesus in our body, in order that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
2 Corinthians 4:7–10 (LEB)
The thing with treasure is one needs to look at it. Not just ignore it. Treasure needs to be picked up and handled and enjoyed. The idea of treasure in the above passage is also that of a storehouse where treasure is kept.
Psalm 34:8–9 (LEB): Taste and see that Yahweh is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear Yahweh, you his saints, for there is no lack for those who fear him.
Back to consolation – with all these things that bother us, in these days of anxiety we can find like the Psalmist did:
When my troubled thoughts were many ⌊within me⌋, your consolations cheered my soul.
Psalm 94:19 (LEB)
I love that. I see that the Holy Spirit is in the consoling business, coming alongside us. The word cheered in Hebrew found here, looks to be quite rare in the Old Testament as I can’t find it anywhere else apart from in a negative sense in Isaiah 29:9 where it means to be blinded or smeared over. I like to think that the cheering of the Holy Spirit has gladdened, delighted us within our anxiety by his presence being enjoyed in us. It’s like when Christians say when you focus or fix your eyes on Jesus everything else fades away. The problems are still there but they take on a different view.
The other thing that is conveyed here in the verse from Psalm 94 is played with, delighted in and loved. I include myself here when I write that. We all need to take that to heart.
As followers of Jesus we have been grafted into the vine which is Israel – the Israel of God (Galatians 6.16). We are now included in the Consolation of Israel as we are in the Son, in Union with him. We share in being consoled by The Spirit and also being ones who can console others in the same way.
2 Corinthians 3:17–18 (LEB): Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, reflecting (contemplating) the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory into glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Postscript
I came across this relevant podcast a few days after publishing the post, which touches on perichoresis and hungering after or desiring God.