“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

(Luke 11:13)

“Receive ye the Holy Ghost”

(John 20:22)

“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”

(Acts 1:8)

“I believe in the Holy Ghost.”

(Apostle’s Creed)

Some of the best fun parents ever have is in giving gifts to their children and grandchildren. I suppose that one of the things that distresses us most about our children’s and grandchildren’s growing up is the realization that we shall not be seeing much longer the light of wonder in their eyes and the wild excitement in their jumping up and down when we bring home a balloon or a kite or a bag of candy. Yes, one thing normal parents all have in common is their desire to give good gifts, their joy in bringing gifts to their children.

It was this obvious page from the common book of parenthood that Jesus took when he wanted to teach one of his most important lessons on how God gives His best gift to men. “If you parents,” he said, “limited in resources and selfish by nature as you are, nevertheless, delight in giving good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven, the infinite Creator possessing both everlasting love and unlimited resources, give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.”

Now there are two very interesting and paradoxical things here in Jesus’ words which catch our attention immediately: the first is the surprising twist which Jesus gives to the logical order of thought in this teaching: “If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give” — but He does not say “good things” or “better things,” which is the conclusion naturally expected in such a sequence, but rather — “how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” Jesus identifies the gift of the Holy Spirit as the superlative, the supreme gift life has to offer.

Do we put that kind of a price tag on the Holy Spirit? Is the Holy Spirit a reality whose value exceeds all earthly values? In the Apostle’s Creed we say, “I believe in the Holy Ghost.” What do we mean when we say those words? What image do we conceptualize? Anything more than an oblong blur?

Dave Garroway, one morning last week, was talking about the nine towns in the
U. S. A. which are ghost towns. That was what he called them, “ghost towns.” And in several instances it was not known that they were ghost towns until the 1960 census was taken and the census takers discovered there was nobody there. Isn’t that what the word “ghost” connotes in our thinking: “vacancy,” “spooky emptiness,” where nothing really is? I wonder if that is the vague value we place on the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit?

Such was not the evaluation of Jesus nor the experience of the early church. The Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit, was the reverent name given to the known and experienced reality of God, present and active in the lives of individuals and in the work and fellowship of the church.

The word most often associated with the Biblical accounts of the bestowal of this superlative gift of God in the New Testament is the word power. We read that the Holy Ghost came upon the disciples with power, and fainthearted, timid, beaten men felt courage rise in their hearts to proclaim boldly their faith in their condemned and crucified leader. Again we read that the Holy Ghost came with power upon the disciples and they overcame their natural greed and anxiety about the future and sold their lands and gave the money for feeding the hungry within their fellowship. The Holy Ghost came with power upon the church at Antioch and a small congregation of poor people dispatched their two pastors to embark on a world mission that, wonder of wonders, was so highly successful that a pagan empire was toppled in the space of a few hundred years.

There is nothing nebulous, mysteriously spooky, or capricious about the Holy Ghost. He is God, close at hand, even within the humblest human heart, ready, active, powerful to work His work in the world. As David Smith says, we don’t need to be in the dark about the nature of the Holy Spirit — the personality of Jesus Christ is normative for the Holy Spirit.

When you worship God, pray to Him, think of Him, how do your thoughts usually form?

Is it God the provider, of food and health and material things, of whom you think as you pray and give thanks and say grace — God, the source of life and health and your material prosperity?

Or is it God the creator of the vast universe — of whom you think — whose glory and majesty is being discovered in a vaster dimension in our time, who set the sun and stars in the heavens — God, who dwelleth in light unapproachable, possessing power almighty, who is from everlasting to everlasting, beyond the reach of infinite light years?

Or, when you think of God, do your thoughts grasp hold of one who is the source of moral law and order? Do you think of Him as moral and ethical perfection, from whose unchanging character the moral light of the universe streams forth to order the hearts and institutions of men in all ages, revealing Himself in the Mosaic commandments, the Hammurabic code, the Upanishads, the Veda — the God of the prophets of Israel — Holy, Holy, Holy, is His name?

Or is it the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom you think when you turn your thoughts to worship — the deity of infinite mercy and compassion, who stooped to ransom captives, who went through the welter of earth’s pain and shame to accomplish redemption for you, the sinner, — God, the suffering servant of His rebellious people, the mercy of whose glory we see in the compassionate face of Jesus Christ?

Or is it the God who is the source and sustainer of your inner spiritual life? God, your constant companion and comforter — God, that mysterious one who is at once creator, moral perfection, redeemer and yet your close comrade, who can make your heart strangely warm, as was Wesley’s at Aldersgate, or prepare you ahead of time for bearing the unbearable, as was Rufus Jones, when on ship board he felt strangely strengthened just before he was to receive the shocking news of his young son’s death.

On the night of February 26, 1961, I had to run an errand. There was an unexpected delay. I waited in the dark and watched the stars. Without any outward change in my health or condition of finances, without any solution of my unsolved personal problems or let-up in the dangers attending the precarious world situation, I experienced a slow change within myself. Where there had been confusion a little while before, there was order. Where there had been fear and apprehension, there was trust and serenity. Where there had been resentment, there was acceptance and love. What had happened? Why again the Holy Spirit had been at work in my life and there were some of the fruits of His ministry.

In an interview, General Romulo of the Philippines was asked: “What is the greatest thing you have learned from life?” The famous patriot thought a moment and said: “‘The taller the bamboo grows, the lower it bends.’ This is an old saying among the Philippine people, which my father impressed upon me, by his words and deeds. ‘The taller the bamboo grows, the lower it bends.’” But as the bamboo does not of itself bend unless it is blown upon by the unseen, yet powerful wind, so the proud heart and towering frame of self-centered human greatness does not bend in the beauty and grace of service, unless the Holy Spirit blows upon the life of man.

The Holy Spirit is the superlative gift our Heavenly Father wants to give to every child of His, because until man receives this gift, He is not truly man. He is only half a human. “For in the image of God are we created and therefore are really men only so far as the image of God, the love and righteousness of God, are reflected from us. That is why we should pray to God that He may hammer us into shape — if necessary through misfortune, suffering, illness, loss, pain — that we may become such as He planned us when he said: ‘Let us make man in our image.’ Let us not pray that God will spare us the difficult, but rather that He will bless to us the difficult, that He will make us right. That is why the prayer with which we can never go wrong and which will always be the most important one for this life on earth is the prayer for His Holy Spirit.” (Emil Brunner — I Believe in the Living God — p. 113)

And this brings us to note the second surprising turn in the teaching Jesus gives us in this analogy between an earthly father’s giving good gifts to his children, and our Heavenly Father’s giving the superlative gift of all to His earthly children. Not only does He say that it is the Holy Spirit which God wills and wants to give His children, but He tacks on the condition: “if they ask for it.”

Did you ever try to make someone accept a gift he did not want? As Emil Brunner says: “try to put a gift in a clenched fist?” One of the saddest lessons life affords parents is that they can only offer — they cannot make their children accept — the best gifts they have to impart.

So our Heavenly Father cannot bestow His best gift, His Holy Spirit upon any of us — unless we really want, unless we ask for it. Just as a friend cannot give us his advice and counsel unless we seek it, so the guidance and counsel and inner power of the Holy Spirit is something we must ask for and be ready to receive, or God cannot and will not give it to us.

And how does the gift of the Holy Spirit come? Yeats, in his autobiography asks: “Can one reach God by toil? He gives himself to the pure in heart. He asks nothing but attention.” “He asks nothing but attention.” The only way to receive the Holy Spirit is silently and prayerfully to wait upon the Spirit. We live in an age that has a pathetic faith in administration, efficiency, new and better methods, more and more effort, a faster tempo . . . But the possession of the Spirit is a gift and not an achievement . . . ‘Stand still,’ said Moses to the fear-stricken people, when the avenging Pharaoh pursued them — ‘Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.’” (Barclay — The Promise of the Spirit). To the fear-paralyzed disciples in the upper room, after the debacle of all their hopes, the Risen Christ said: ‘Receive the Holy Ghost.’ It is the tragedy of life that so many of us are too busy to give God the chance to send His Holy Spirit to us.

But there is another condition of the Spirit’s coming. Waiting, trusting, wanting, is not all. Repentance is also required. Decramping of the heart before God is necessary. “As one can lay no gift in a clenched fist, so God cannot lay His love in an unrepentant heart.” (Emil Brunner — I Believe in the Living God — p. 117)

Repentance is not easy. One does not want to change. Everyone wants to go on in his own familiar, comfortable, selfish way. It costs too much to change. It costs one’s self. But the Apostle did not say to the people in Jerusalem: “Wait until it pleases God to give you the Holy Spirit.” No. He said: “You, now, repent, and be baptized; then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

And so the word for us today is: “Repent!” Talk to God about all that is on your heart. Then when He has talked to you about this or that in particular which is destroying your life and alienating you from those He has given you to love and serve, and that which is building a wall between you and Him, let go of all of that selfish, foolish trash and receive the best gift of all — His Holy Spirit.