The lie and the coin.

I don’t know Holy Spirit well. I can admit it as I sit here in Jesus’ arms, my back to his chest in the aftermath of trying and failing to write about what happened to Ananias and Sapphira.

For the longest time I wasn’t sure I cared to know Holy Spirit. I didn’t know whether there was any point in trying to untangle her mysterious presence – this side of God that just seems so intangible, so wild, so inhuman. All I know of her from my childhood is that she was the voice of my guilt – quiet, inner promptings about something I did or didn’t do. I mixed her voice in with the idea of trying harder – and giving me a sharp, verbal slap to motivate me. The only other clues I have to her are the weird incidents and side effects of her presence in charismatic churches; speaking in tongues and people falling over; people prophesying weird, vague things. She speaks a language I can barely understand.

I huff a sigh at my own insecurities and snuggle against Jesus’ shirt, feeling his comforting presence remind me that I’m safe and I can trust in his love right now. Over a month ago I tried to write this story about Ananias and Sapphira – tried to analyze it. But I couldn’t. It’s a story from my past that mixes swirls of God’s wrath into his love. Making a blend of a God who used to both hug and backhand me at the same time.

Now, snuggled into Jesus, I find myself watching Holy Spirit curiously. Things I’ve been told about her don’t quite line up, and this story is full of those unmatched, jagged edges. Is it really all about the finality of what happens if we mess up with her? Cross God the Father – that’s old news – humans have done that ever since Adam. Cross Jesus, and we come face to face with gentle eyes revealing all of our misunderstandings about who God is or who we are – misunderstandings that led us to cross him in the first place. In the face of our failures and mess he puts on his armour: faith, truth, salvation, peace and his sword of the spirit – and walks straight down into hell and death to open our cage doors. Throw anything at Jesus and he only uses his keys to free us one by one… I know these things about him by heart now. But her?

If we cross her after all that? Holy Spirit? I’ve been told it’s straight to the abyss of nothingness. Like she’s the third and final straw in God’s patience. I’ve been told that’s why Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead – envy and disrespect and dishonesty towards her, after him. They become grim examples to the rest of the community of what not to do.

As I watch her I wonder, is fear one of her tools – the only way to really banish bad things? I’ve been told it’s not ok to be afraid of the world – but it’s necessary to be afraid of God. Fear of God is a phrase I’ve heard a gazillion times. Placed in scripture to remind us to respect God or else. For me it led to the implication that love, by itself, is too weak to hold onto God or to destroy sin. These are the lies that stopped me from writing this story out.

I keep trying to fix it – go back and make sense of it. But I keep getting drawn back here, to the end of the story. To Peter. In the quiet of the aftermath that burst the cocoon of purpose this camp lived in. And I look at the camp, how quietly they walk about their chores the next morning. It’s hit them all hard. Up til now, there’s been an air about these people, like the deep breath of relief that comes after something dark and awful has passed by. The death of Jesus is over. His miraculous resurrection and all that it means is still trickling down and through this group in delightful shocks of revelation. They thought they had levelled up somehow – further away from sin with Holy Spirit there. But now, fear is grabbing those that witnessed it happen, filling hearts with terror, with uncertainty, with caution. Sobering them up and making them look sideways at Holy Spirit, at Peter. They’re realizing perfection hasn’t come yet.

Jesus and I are watching Holy Spirit as she crouches next to Peter. “She’s not different than me, Ker.” Jesus tells me. “We’re one, and we share the same Love, the same grace.” I take a shaky breath and try to relax into his arms. But two deaths feel hard to get past. Ananias dropping dead could maybe be a coincidence, a heart attack or brain aneurysm, but Sapphira… I look at Holy Spirit, not able to imagine Jesus killing them for any reason. Life is a gift he treasures – no matter how much we screw it up it’s still worth it to him, for us to live, and if she’s like him… then how could she be a killer?

Peter is sitting here, after all is done and everyone has left, staring at a little bundle of coin. It’s all that is left of the couple. My eyes flick towards Holy Spirit as she leans her forehead against Peter’s. She is grieving, not just for the couple, but also for him I realize. So much trauma happening so quickly and all stamped by Peter with her name, with her authority. But her forgiveness, if it’s as big as Jesus’, means she’s still here. She cries with Peter, tears streaking down her cheeks as she watches him struggle through the chaos in his heart and mind. And now that no-one is looking, Peter’s exhausted. More than that, he’s destroyed by what happened. Had he just called Sapphira’s death into being?

He sits there, eyes glued to that bundle of coin and he aches for Jesus’s hand to clamp down on his shoulder. For Jesus to ruffle his hair and tell him off for losing his temper and then hug him tight, take the reins back and let him ride shotgun once more. He’s great at being Jesus’ backup. He wonders if Jesus had been there during it all, would he have said “Get behind me Satan,” again? Peter swallows thickly and leans into Holy Spirit’s comforting presence. Leading and listening to Holy Spirit is new, and it’s hard sometimes to discern what she’s doing, what she says. It’s so easy to tangle her voice up with Peter’s own, and he’s so scared of getting it wrong. She gives herself so freely, sharing her presence and gifts with him with so much generosity and power – power that can be misused – power that has been twisted by humans time and time again. I realize that even in my own past I’ve seen it happen.

I watch as Holy Spirit puts her hand on Peter’s heart, even as she struggles with her own grief at the ripples that this will cause about who she is, and at the loss of life, and rubs a gentle circle against Peter’s ache, breathes a soft warm breath that puts Jesus’s voice back into Peter’s ear. Softens the soil of Peter that wants to harden against the shock of pain and anger. She reminds him he still is riding shotgun, that Jesus is still here, Dad too, and so is she. Comforter, guide and truth teller. I feel Jesus’ arms tighten around me, resting his chin on the top of my head, and I feel his own tears drip on my neck as he stares at his Peter, willing him to listen to Holy Spirit. To remember.

Holy Spirit glances at me, spearing my heart with the love that glimmers there. Her enjoyment of Peter – his bigness – the way he throws himself at life so wholeheartedly. And that’s when I wonder. Did Ananias remind Peter of Judas? Were his actions, his and Sapphira’s lies and their efforts to buy status with money a trigger? Something happened here beyond and beneath the short tragedy, something that is threatening Peter’s heart right now. I can see it in the way he stares at that bag of coin, his fists clenched.

I wonder if a trigger inside Peter got punched – made a raw, dangerous memory surface. The lie and the coins – they acted like the slice of a scalpel opening a festering wound that’s been hiding in his heart. The quick condemnation in his words, the harsh judgement certainly sounded like someone triggered. Someone staggered.

I watch as Holy Spirit takes a fist in her hands, gently uncurls the fingers, laces her own through it as she walks Peter through the wound he’d forgotten until Ananias ripped it open. The memory of his friend, his brother – the jokes and the journeys together… the betrayal. The shocking sight of him standing with the Jewish council as they arrested Jesus. The way his actions tore the fabric of their found family.

A succession of images hit Peter – how Judas had horribly, awfully, kissed Jesus’ cheek. The way their eyes had met and clashed so briefly, so jarringly as their brother stepped back, away from them – as they all realized what he’d done. As his betrayal sank in. And then the knowledge that came out that he’d been stealing money from them. That he’d sold their Jesus for 30 silver coins. All of them spent time agonizing over it, how they hadn’t seen it coming. Hadn’t stopped it. There were conflicting emotions when they found out later that he’d hung himself. Anger and grief. No closure, no chance to hash it out. No chance to forgive and let go. It’s a wound that Peter buried – it didn’t matter then, not next to the enormity of Jesus’ death and then his resurrection. But now. The minute those coins clinked down in front of him; the minute when Ananias, a part of the camp, lied to his face and Holy Spirit let him see it with her discernment. It had all hit him too fast to understand – like triggers so often affect us. He’d reacted to the press of that wound without stopping to remember grace or forgiveness or his own past lies.

The memory of Jesus’ face in the flickering campfire that one morning; the sound of his voice when he told Peter to “feed my sheep,” is something he never forgets. Something that drives him. It made it difficult for him when something threatens those sheep. Peter is fiercely protective. He will give his all to keep this group safe, and healthy for Jesus. He will never forget the way Jesus trusted him to care for them. Peter. The denier and impulsive one. He wants to prove himself, to make Jesus proud. He doesn’t want to mess up in his role. He can’t let another Judas happen to this group. Not now. Not with how close everyone is, how united and… pure with love. He won’t allow it under his watch, under his care.

He thinks he’s done the right thing – calling them out in front of the crowd. Heaping shame on their heads with his words. Stopping the lie before it could spread like a disease. But now, the sound of them hitting the ground thuds in his ears, the finality of their deaths haunts him, the presence of his anger taunts him. His heart aches with it all.

I look at Holy Spirit, whispering to Peter of the 70×7 forgiveness, of the grace Jesus brought to mix with truth. As she squeezes him – reminding him of the feel of Jesus’s hug, of how good it felt to let go of his need to control. To set aside the things he can’t change and let Jesus guide him. He forgot it today. But she’s reminding him. I feel the tight grip of Jesus’ arms around me and I see and feel no satisfaction from either of them about Ananais or Sapphira’s deaths. No sense of something being put right or restored. Only love for Peter, enduring love and grief for what happened.

I still don’t have answers to what happened. Only theories. Maybe no one ever will. Like so many other tragedies. But I do know the enormity of Jesus’s love like the back of my hand – the height and breadth and length and width of it. The way it takes my breath every time I look at him. That that Love is where we are supposed to be grounded and rooted and grow. Not in fear. Not in death and punishment. And Holy Spirit… she told me once, she’s our nourishment, a quiet source of food for us as we grow in the ground of God’s Love. She’s not a harbinger of destruction. And I think I want to know her, since Jesus tells me she’s so much like him.

(Caveat: This, like my others, is a short story – I do not claim to be any theologian. It is a might have been. Check out Acts 5 for yourself. Though if you want a good resource, check out Brad Jersak’s blog on Ananias and Sapphira. I was spurred by some of his ideas. And in regards to Holy Spirit – I write her purposefully, with a slight wince for those it might cause offence. Believe me, it’s new for me and still raw to realize how belittling I thought using her could be – as if it took away God’s power – as if it was wrong. But God is not a him, nor even her, but more than either, and maybe, just maybe, “him” has been overused.)