“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. [John’s Gospel 14.15-17]

There is a conversation in one of my favourite books of fantasy, first read in late childhood, and many times since. At the crux of the story, at the frontiers of death, the hero meets the anti-hero; they engage in a battle, at several levels, but first simply in identity.

What is life? Power.

What is love? Power.

What is light? Darkness.

What is your name? Where is the truth of you? … You have forgotten much, you have forgotten light, and love, and your own name.

Jesus has arrived at the crux of his life, washing the feet of his disciples and sharing a meal with them, knowing that one he serves will betray him in a few heartbeats’ time, another will deny him, and the rest abscond in fear.

Here is the truth at the heart of Jesus, that despite betrayal and denial and cowardice, he loves and serves, remaining faithful.

Right now, as always throughout history, despots from right and left are seeking to reconfigure truth to serve themselves. War is peace. Love is power. Darkness is light. Control is service. Lies are truth.

How easily we forget what these words mean. How tired we become with unrest, or protest, and move to silence and even resignation, then compliance. And our memories lapse.

Like scripture, anyone can quote Orwell to their own ends, but that is not this conversation. There is enough written and spoken about the tyrants of this generation, if we wish to find it.

I would like us to look elsewhere, at some of what Jesus has said, these few words in the moments before he steps towards the cross.

The measure of our obedience to Jesus is neither subservience nor fear. It is love. Our discernment of truth, engendered by this Spirit, this breath of God, is determined at the gauge of love.

These words of Jesus, as I mentioned above, are in the context of his friends’ betrayal and denial, not the security of a monarch, unassailable. They are not found in a theology which defines itself in convenience and safety, whispering comfort in the ears of the one who holds power, however ephemeral. They are spoken to remind us of what we have forgotten; where life and truth and love are truly found, where forgiveness is the gift we embody.

The glory of God in Jesus Christ is discerned on the cross, first and forever. There is the truth of God, to which the Spirit bears witness, and into which we are led. The truth of God, where sacrifice for our broken world, and solidarity with our woundedness are how God in Christ entirely comes, and addresses, each of us and all creation.

In a world, in a community, in a Church, which too easily forget, how shall we bear this witness? How shall we speak when the songs have been laid aside and the words misremembered?

There is cacophony in which we live and move, in which we must find our way and encourage people – each other – to remember. However, it is not in our hands.

We rely on the breath of this Spirit, who urges and guides, who advocates, who enables us to remember both our calling and the One who calls us.

Dare we inhale?