telling the story ~ Spiritus ecclesiae
Composition version: yes.
lyrics
Spirit of the new creation
pouring from Messiah's throne
all the voices of the nations
come to speak the voice of home
into one body
we've all been baptized
born of one Spirit
united to Christ
Spiritus ecclesiae
now that we've received you
Spiritus ecclesiae
grant that we not grieve you
born of the Spirit
but still flesh and blood
we are unfinished
we're still flesh and blood
but we are flesh of His flesh
we are bone of His bone
in the hope of righteousness
we are anchored to home
we are still looking
through this dark glass
grasping the future
in light of the past
but we have the witness
we're objects of love
we have the Spirit
the water and blood
Spirit of the new creation
Spirit of a better world
(our) royal seal and down payment
Spirit of a better world
Spirit of the newborn heavens
Spirit of the newborn earth
Spirit in your travailing
bring our redemption to birth
Spiritus ecclesiae
our anticipation
by this faith we look on high
eagerly we're waiting
narrative
Jesus is the representative Israel, the representative Man, the new Adam. But how does His triumph get to us? How does the death of His flesh and the resurrection of His body by the Spirit change things for others?
The change begins - and only begins, for the moment - when He ascends into God's presence to rule and sends the Holy Spirit to us. The Spirit is now the agent of community between Jesus and His people - indeed, between Jesus' people and each other.
Through the people of Jesus, that Spirit carries on the program that Jesus began - a program that widens the embrace of God to include people of all languages and tribes, as indicated on the day of Pentecost following Christ's ascension. On that day, Jesus' followers, miraculously, spoke the languages of the world as a great sign that Christ's triumph was being spread to all peoples.
Entry into this community is through baptism by the Spirit. Just as Jesus was anointed to His calling at His baptism, His people share in His anointing by baptism. (Remember what we said some time ago about human beings made to relate to physical things and embodied rituals.) Because Jesus has sent the Spirit who creates community and communion with Him, baptism is into Christ, so that His people participate in Him and all that He has. His triumph over flesh, the Satan, and death (and thus the guilt involved in that death) are all things which He shares with His people, although the fullness of that participation has not yet arrived.
The Holy Spirit is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. As we already noted, that resurrection was the beginning of the new creation. Jesus' new life is the start on the glory that God has promised to the created order. And therefore, the Spirit is rightly seen as the Spirit of new creation, and the gifts He now gives are down payments, an initial taste, of the coming day when by His power He will make all things new.
The good news of the triumph of Christ is therefore neither "other-worldly" (it is this creation which will be renewed, just as it was Jesus' own body that was raised), nor a "cop-out" regarding the uncomfortable realities of the present time. This good news of Jesus does not minimize the reality of present suffering, nor the necessity of responding to it with lives of love and community and compassion. Rather, precisely because the Spirit is new creational, His work is as broad as creation; and precisely because the Spirit provides a down payment on that new creation, the work of those touched by the Spirit aims at beginning the process of bringing wholeness and healing into the here and now.