The Fifth Sunday of Easter—The Promise of the Holy Spirit

As we approach Ascension and ten days later, Pentecost, this week’s Gospel reading draws our gaze to Jesus’s promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Just as Jesus himself physically demonstrated—was literally the exact representation (Colossians 1:15)—of the personality and character of God, so after his departure the Holy Spirit would make the living Christ real to his followers. The Spirit teaches. He instructs from within and recalls to memory what Jesus taught. His role is to impress the commandments of Jesus on the minds and hearts of his disciples and thus prompt them to obedience.