The New Normal
Maxie took this photo while Mia was climbing on her chair. It accurately describes our current new normal.
“We sense that ‘normal’ isn’t coming back, that we are being born into a new normal: a new kind of society, a new relationship to the earth, a new experience of being human.”
(Charles Eisenstein)
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An old friend visited our family this week for the first time since his daughter was born 18 months ago. As we swapped stories back and forth filled with the familiar joys and challenges of becoming fathers, one thing that we both found ourselves laughing at was how little sleep we both get on a regular basis, and how even our sleep starvation is quite minor compared to the nightly sacrifice that our wives undergo as the primary caretaker of young little girls. Both my friend and myself share a need for downtime and regular sleep to simply function as normal human beings, as most men do to varying degrees. As we were talking about how drastically this reality has shifted as our daughters have grown over the past few months, my friend’s off-handed comment stuck in my mind: “I guess I’m used to it now, though. This lack of sleep and personal time has become the new normal.”
As I vigorously nodded my head in agreement, aware again of the universal disruption that society calls parenthood (What fodder for transformation and confronting our inherent selfishness as men!), my mind connected this phrase with another reality that we recognise at this time each year: the celebration of Pentecost, the Church’s “new normal.”
I find it astounding that Jesus felt it necessary to remind his disciples in the crush of the Last Supper that it was for their “best that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7, NLT). We rarely consider the implications of Christ’s perspective here; but throughout the Gospels, and in particular John 14-17, he is increasingly clear about the good that is coming with the Spirit’s promised, permanent presence within the followers of God who walk in the ways of Jesus. It is better that he leaves, and that his followers learn to stand on their own, relying on the presence, discernment, and advocacy that the Spirit alone provides – different than Christ’s counsel, but in many ways, better, closer, more permanent.
Have you ever considered the reality that even Jesus Christ himself lived on earth prior to the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit among men? While we could parse theological truth about the distinct nature of Christ as fully God and fully man, undeniable throughout the Scriptural text, the concurrent reality exists that even “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52, NIV). Jesus learned dependency on the Father through the counsel of the Spirit to his heart.
As we do. As we should. As we are invited to.
Pentecost ushers in a new normal for the Church universal – now, the Spirit no longer rests upon men, a la David, and thus could be removed, as David feared was happening in Psalm 51 after the mess he made with Bathsheba. The Spirit’s presence is permanent, as we “were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:14, NIV). The Spirit’s presence doesn’t leave us. The Spirit’s presence is here, now, within us, regardless of feeling or favour, position or title. A new normal has become our reality.
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“But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you.” -Jesus to his disciples at the Last Supper (John 16:7, NLT).