IN is for IN-Spired

We pray for the Spirit even though the Spirit, to get us where we need to go, cannot always be a gentle zephyr.

Our sailing buddies, the Nortons, tell about the time they were nonchalantly sailing in the Virgin Islands unaware of how strong the wind was because they were blanketed between islands. As soon as they came out from behind the island, as Jill describes it, "we took a hit," meaning the blast of wind knocked their sailboat over so far that the mast dragged in the water. Being quick-witted, they scrambled and hastily adjusted the sails and used the very same wind that had knocked them down to get them out of their predicament. Of course they had another option, and that was to take the sails down. That is a big temptation. But then they would have been left to the mercy of the waves.

I vividly remember the night I "took a hit." It was close to midnight when my father called with the shocking news that Mom had died. She had not been ill, she seemed perfectly healthy, but out of the clear blue sky she had a severe heart attack and died. For hours I sobbed and sobbed. Then in the wee hours of the morning my grief turned to fear. The judgment that is death confronted me head on and I "feared a great fear," like the Bethlehem shepherds when they thought Judgment Day had arrived. Am I saying that, as my friends "took a hit" from the wind, all but capsizing, it was the Holy Spirit from whom I took a hit when my Mom died? Yes, I am. As noted above, death comes at God's time, when he withdraws his Spirit and we ex-Spire. The Bible is not afraid to say that, nor should we be. We will only be afraid that saying so makes God look bad if we do not believe that we are more than conquerors through God's remedy to death, a super-remedy, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There is more to the story. For as my friends also then used the knock-down wind to sail to calmer water, so I too was propelled by the Holy Wind into peace. The Wind that in-Spired me that night was Martin Luther's explanation of the Second Article, memorized back in my catechism days. I repeated over and over "I believe that Jesus Christ.... has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from sin, death, hell and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death."

In addition to that assurance, the Holy Wind blew me into peace in her other ways: the forgiveness of sins (for my fellow-believer Mom and myself), the communion of saints, which enveloped me in their comforting embrace, and the hope of the resurrection. All of which is good training for my turn, when the hit I will take is my own death. As usual, the temptation will be to despair, take down one's sails and surrender. But death has been in the Holy Wind's game-plan all along, once and for all to put our flesh to death so that she can resurrect us with glorified bodies and "the life everlasting." Then finally she can say to the other two members of the Trinity "Mission accomplished!"