Acts 14:8-18 Ps. 67
Rev. 21:22-22:5 John 14:23-29
The Psalmist prays, "May God be merciful to us and bless us, show us the light of his countenance and come to us."
The biblical witness is about the phases of how people believed in the blessing of God and how it become manifested to various people at various times.
For people of the many different New Testament communities, as well as those communities who respected the reality of God, the comings of God to them took many forms.
For the followers of the oracles of the Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospel, the coming of God became very particular in the person of Jesus as the Word of God made fleshly human experience affirming the anthropomorphic proclivities of humanity to valorize what is best about us as being definitive of what we regard to be truly divine.
The person of Jesus in the flesh left this world, as if God were saying, "I only showed you an intense example of divine presence so as to invite, inform, and coax you to know the alway already blessing of God's presence as an interior gene of the divine waiting to be known within you."
In the appointed oracle discourse of Jesus found in John's Gospel, the coming of God, the showing of the light of God's countenance, is expressed as knowing within us the presence of Divine Advocacy.
Another name for advocate in modern parlance is "lawyer." Having the personal sense that someone is making our case for the purpose of our existence in the morass of all is an important experience of poignant esteem.
Too many people in our external world are people who have no friendship in the form of advocacy on behalf their dignity and their right of justice and peaceful supportive circumstances to grow into full human potential.
External advocacy and interior advocacy go hand in hand; both are absolutely necessary for successful existence. The reality is that often external advocacy often does not happen in timely ways; the early communities of minority religious groups in the Roman Empire knew periods when they did not know significant social advocacy.
When social advocacy was missing the gathered associations of those who had Jesus Christ as their patron, channeled his words of the promise of knowing interior advocacy.
The interior Advocate is the Holy Spirit, who would be the divine presence residing in the body temples of those who were willing to engage the deep original blessing upon their lives.
The Gospel today for us is that the blessing of God is upon all; the favor of the light of God's countenance is upon all. Sadly, not everyone has come to realize this blessing. The commission for Paul to the people of Macedonia, and for people everywhere is to have the words of wisdom about knowing the wonderful reality of knowing the Residing Interior Advocate for our lives, and for the lives of all people in this world.
Let us today rejoice with the Psalmist for knowing the coming of God's blessing to us in knowing the Residing interior Advocate of the Holy Spirit. But let us also work to be advocates for all in this world who need to know that the divine is for them and on their behalf. Let us be a part of the Gospel program of helping people be aware of the Residing Interior Advocate of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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