I have always been struck by the thought that the second Person of the Trinity, the Logos who was all glorious and powerful from eternity, should choose to empty himself completely of his divine omnipotence and take the form of a servant, totally dependent on God. Indeed the words Jesus uttered on the cross - Father, into your hands I commit my spirit - do not reflect a one-time decision he took but rather an attitude he had throughout his whole life. Jesus therefore presents to us the most perfect example of a total and uncompromising yielding to the Holy Spirit, on whom he as man depended right from the start of his earthly life until today, for it is to the working of the Spirit that he has fully entrusted his body, the church.

This attitude of Jesus, resulting from his kenosis1 reflects two special qualities in Jesus' personality - these are his humility and his trust in God. At different episodes in Jesus' life we can clearly see how he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. This contrasts with Adam's pride which moved him to seek divine qualities through independence from God. From the very start, namely from the incarnation, it was the Holy Spirit who, by his own power, caused the Logos to become flesh (cf. Lk 1,35), and it was the Spirit who sanctified Jesus' humanity. The Son of God entered the world fully trusting the Father that he would give him the Spirit - for Jesus himself had testified: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself."2 Matthias Scheeben points out that in the first man, Adam, God has made body and soul into one, when breathing out over him the breath of life. In like manner also he breathed the divine Word into the humanity of Christ; and that breath is none other than the Holy Spirit.

"Lo Spirito Santo, che riposa sul Figlio dal quale è diadicamente inseparabile ed inconfondibile, lo porta in sé e con sé. . . Il Figlio non è disceso solo, ma lo ha fatto con lo Spirito Santo, inseparabile da lui; la diade del Figlio e dello Spirito all' annunciazione è inviata dal Padre nel mondo. Qui l' incarnazione e la pentecoste dello Spirito sono inseparabilmente ed inconfondibilmente identiche: con lo Spirito ipostatico, discende anche il Logos ipostatico."3

As Jesus grew he became increasingly more aware of his identity as the Son of God and of his messianic mission. Once again he left it to the Spirit to bring this consciousness to his mind for it is through the Spirit that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man (cf. Lk 2, 52); it is the Spirit, the divine principle of unity, who brought to Jesus the knowledge of his relation to the Father.

"We hold that the historical stages punctuated by events pointing to God's work are true qualitative moments in his communication of himself to and in Jesus Christ. There were successive events in which the Spirit descended on Jesus as Christ the Saviour. . . Jesus only realized his relationship with the Father in and through the acts of his spiritual life as a son, the Spirit being the source of these in him."4

One moment in which the Spirit's action in Jesus' life was extremely decisive was at his baptism in the Jordan. By his power and grace the Holy Spirit had moved Mary to freely pronounce her 'fiat' so that the incarnation would be possible. Now, at the Jordan, he stirred Jesus to proclaim his own 'fiat' through which he accepted the Father's salvific plan which he would accomplish through the anointed Jesus. And just as at Mary's 'fiat' the eternal Logos became Jesus, so at his 'fiat' at the Jordan Jesus became the Christ (which literally means anointed). It is here that Jesus received that divine anointing from the Spirit necessary for the accomplishment of his mission in accordance with the Father's will (cf. Lk 4,18 ff).

"To have the Gospels without this initial episode of Jesus' baptism would be like having the Acts of the Apostles without the initial account of Pentecost: the interpretative key for an understanding of the rest of the book would be missing."5

Thus the Spirit ushered in the messianic time, and John the Baptist's time came to a close.

This divine unction was not a one-time event. Jesus continued to receive from the Spirit all the power and wisdom he manifested in his ministry. In fact "Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit."6 It is not of himself that he worked all those wonders for through his kenosis he had surrendered everything to the Spirit of his Father.

The most significant moments in the life of Jesus were precisely his death and resurrection. Little could he be recognised as the Son of God, yet this ill-treated and tortured man did not fail to walk each step with the Spirit. As the writer to the Hebrews wonderfully attests, it was Jesus who, "through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God."7 By the Spirit's strength he abandoned himself into the hands of him who seemed to have had abandoned him.

Through the working of the Spirit, Jesus' body did not see destruction. God had not abandoned him. The Holy Spirit indeed accompanied Jesus beyond the thresholds of death for he never ceased to dwell in him. The Spirit then actively participated in the resurrection of Jesus (but Jesus also rose in virtue of his being God-man) which presented Jesus as the Son of God (cf. Rom 1, 3-4).

Christ's work of redemption was completed through his death and resurrection yet he has left it to the Spirit to mediate to us the redemptive benefits of his salvific work. Without the Spirit's action in our lives, Christ's saving power resulting from all he accomplished for us would still be inaccessible to us. And the very message of salvation too, that is the good news, was entrusted to the Spirit.

This had a historic beginning on the day of Pentecost, the day on which Christ, having received the Spirit himself beforehand, now asked the Father to pour that same Spirit upon the church.

"L'incarnazione di Cristo e la discesa dello Spirito Santo sono due momenti di uno stesso atto: la teantropia. . . L'incarnazione, che ha una potenza universale, poiché si effettua nella persona di Cristo, non esaurisce l'opera della Dei-umanità; quest' opera continua dopo l'incarnazione, appunto nella discesa dello Spirito Santo su tutta l'umanità, su tutta la creazione."8

Jesus, as it were, took the first step to bring humanity close to God, even as he became one with it in the incarnation, but it was necessary that the Spirit should take possession of humanity, that is make it the body of Christ. Christ's work of redemption demanded the Spirit's work of divinisation, a work he accomplished at Pentecost but which he perpetuates as Christ sustains all things by his powerful word.

It is the Spirit who inspired Scripture so that Jesus' words and deeds would be recorded and so that believing them we might have life in his name (cf. Jn 20, 31), for Jesus sent his disciples to preach and not to write Scripture. And it is the Spirit who today still sustains the church, which is the body of Jesus. It is he who spurred on the disciples of Jesus all through the ages and who brings us to the awareness that Jesus is the Lord of all (cf. 1 Cor 12, 3).

It has been claimed that in the personal life of Jesus the Holy Spirit inspired every moment of thought and will9. Indeed Jesus had a very special relationship with the Holy Spirit, a relationship we can all learn a lot from. We can never simulate such a relationship both because of its uniqueness and also because it is the Spirit who works in each person as he desires. It was not my intention to merely produce a somewhat scholarly piece of work, but I meant rather to propose a reflection on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus which would be accessible to our hearts. And indeed I believe I will have reached my goal if this article helps those who read it, again by the Spirit's grace, to walk in the footsteps of Jesus by yielding more fully to the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is himself, and to daily seek his anointing and guidance.

Notes: 

1 Kenosis, which is the attitude seen in Phil 2,7, refers to the complete emptying of the Logos, but not of his divinity, of course.

2 John 5,19

3 Sergej Bulgakov, Il Paraclito, EDB, Bologna, 1971, p.365-366.

4 Yves M. J. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, Vol. 3, Geoffrey Chapman, London, p.166-167.

5 Raniero Cantalamessa, The Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus, The Liturgical Press, Minnesota, 1994; p.12.

6 Luke 4,14

7 Hebrews 9,14

8 Sergej Bulgakov, Il Paraclito, EDB, Bologna, 1971, p.400-401.

9 Quoted in Sergej Bulgakov, Il Paraclito, p.369.