With You and Will Be In You

From the Gospel for the Eve of Pentecost. I don't think I got that verse till this year. The Holy Spirit is WITH the disciples because Jesus - He who is full of the Spirit and overflowing with Him - is with them. But the Spirit that is inside Jesus will be poured out into them. This is the very goal and meaning of life itself: to acquire the Holy Spirit, to breathe Him in more and more, to live in His life as He imparts to us the life that is koinonia with Christ and with the Father. This is a gift given not once, but which the Lord Jesus continually lavishes on us. If at our baptism we first start to "breathe" Him in, He continually imparts Him to us. As little as a person could say: "Oh, I breathed when I was first born; I don't need to breathe anymore" or "I was thirsty once, but now I don't thirst anymore" - so little can a Christian say: "I have the Spirit; I don't need Him anymore." As Kleinig said so memorably, we can ever receive Him, but never possess Him. Jesus, the Fountain of the Holy Spirit, pours Him out upon us ceaselessly that we might live in and through Him!