Daily Manna · Day 76 · March 17
The Comforter
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
Memory in Scripture is almost always tied to something physical.
Twelve stones out of the Jordan, set up so that children would ask what they meant. A rainbow. A jar of manna kept in the ark. Bread and a cup. God appears to know something about human minds that we keep forgetting, which is that they do not retain much on their own and need to be handed things.
Which is worth holding when you read what Jesus promises here, because the promise is more specific than the way it is usually quoted. He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. That last clause is a boundary. The Comforter's teaching work is tied to Christ's words. He is not described as a source of unattached impressions that arrive with force behind them; He is described as bringing back what was said. Which is a comfort and a test at once. A comfort, because the thing you cannot summon at the moment you need it can be handed to you. A test, because a Spirit who returns what Christ said can only return what you have actually taken in.
And it was said to men who had spent three years listening to Him and were about to lose Him in twenty-four hours. They were going to have to remember accurately, under pressure, with no notes. That is what the promise was for.
The truth in it is plain and slightly humbling. You are not being asked to have a better memory. You are being asked to put something in, and to trust somebody else to bring it back at an hour you will not choose. A page read badly today is still deposited. A page not read is not.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 76 is Said Out Loud (Psalm 20:7).