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When a man named Levi met Jesus, the first thing Levi did was hold a party for Jesus in his home. You can read about it in Luke 5:27-32. What makes this all the more remarkable is that Levi and his friends were tax collectors—social outcasts at the time. They were Jews who collected money for the occupying Roman state. So Levi was a collaborator. A traitor to his people. An enemy of God. And now—a friend of Jesus?!
The party he holds becomes a powerful demonstration of what Jesus is all about. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor,” Jesus says, “but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (v 31). For Levi, the presence of Jesus is life-changing; he later becomes an apostle and a Gospel-writer.
There’s no point in inviting Jesus to your next party. Where would you even send the invitation? And yet, his eagerness to enjoy our hospitality hasn’t changed. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). But how can Jesus be at home with his people now?
Consider the words of Jesus in John 14:15-20:
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
Jesus says in John 15:16-17 that the Father will give us an “advocate” to help us and be with us always. “Advocate” is a big word. It gathers up meanings that include strengthener, witness, helper and comforter. But the key thing is that the Spirit is “another advocate”. That’s because Jesus himself has been the first advocate.
Jesus has been the one to whom the disciples looked for support and comfort. Whenever they were in trouble, they could look up and see Jesus.
I like to imagine the disciples panicking when they get asked a tough question by the Pharisees and then feeling relieved when they look up to see Jesus poised to respond (e.g. Luke 5:30-31). Or I imagine them feeling utterly defeated by their failure to heal a demon-possessed child and then their relief as they see Jesus arriving to sort it out (e.g. 9:37-42).
With Jesus there, everything would be ok. Now, in John 15, he’s about to leave, and looking around the room for Jesus isn’t going to work any more. Yet Jesus promises, “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). Jesus is not leaving them on their own. He’s going to provide another comforter: the Holy Spirit.
But hang on a minute: Jesus says, “I will come to you” (John 14:18).
Jesus is leaving them, and Jesus is coming to them.
Here we meet the beautiful mystery of the God who is three Persons sharing one divine nature. Jesus and the Spirit are one being with the Father. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. So the Spirit makes Jesus himself present, even when Jesus is physically absent.
The Spirit is not just Christ’s representative, like an ambassador or a spokesperson. The Spirit doesn’t simply pass on messages, like a postman delivering mail. When the Spirit is present, Jesus himself is really and truly present because Jesus and the Spirit are one, sharing one being with the Father.
When you encounter the Spirit, you encounter Jesus. You have a real and genuine experience of Jesus himself. This is what Jesus means when he says that he and the Father will come to us and make their home with us (John 14:23). The Father sends the Holy Spirit to mediate Jesus’ presence to us. To make his home in us—to enable us to experience his welcome, comfort, joy, strength and help.
Jesus is absent in body, but Jesus is present through the Spirit—right here, right now.
This is an extract from Enjoying Jesus by Tim Chester, a book that explores what it looks like to enjoy a relationship with Jesus Christ here and now.
Tim Chester is a senior faculty member of Crosslands Training and has written over 40 books. He has a PhD in theology and PgDip in history along with 25 years' experience of pastoral ministry. He is married with two grown-up daughters and lives in rural Derbyshire, where he is part of a church plant.
