GOD’S BREATH
… leave us not comfortless, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before (from the Collect)
Let God arise and let his / enemies be / scattered :let those that / hate him / flee be/fore him. (Psalm 68.1)
WHAT WE PRAY in the Collect today doesn’t need to be prayed and yet it does. It is unnecessary because Christ has prayed it already for us and what Christ prays simply is. He is in the Father and the father is in him and… However, it is helpful for us to pray it still because in the praying we can begin to know what we are praying and so live the prayer/being of Christ here, now, in this life, not just in some future hope of “heaven”, which if we think about it too much just gives us philosophical headaches.
So what are we praying? That through the Holy Spirit, which we want God to send us to make us strong, we will be exalted to wherever Christ has gone before us. What? Does that actually mean anything? Then what about the quotation from the psalm? Let God arise? And who are these enemies and haters? Oh and then Peter, the Acts, John’s Gospel? What are we praying for? What is Jesus asking for?
We have inherited a hierarchical religion and the English language placed on the lips of Jesus reflects it and confuses us. Jesus is not stuck inside of this religion!
When Jesus says “Father” he speaks of the source of being, whom he knows is his, our, everything’s loving origin. The Spirit is the breath, life force, of and from the Source. We come from the Source and the Source is in us. To know this is to be awake to the kingdom (Way of Love) in us. To be awake is to “Let God arise” in us. The “enemies” are the thoughts and programmes that keep us living scared, asleep. Christ knows who Christ is and who we really are. Jesus is aware of what is real and what isn’t and he wants us to know it too. So Christ prays.
Tonnau Duw ('God's waves') Fr Tim Ardouin 