May 17, 2020 Sermon

John 14: 15-21                  May 15, 2020      “We Are Never Left Alone”          Rev. Peter Hofstra

                Our passage this morning has Jesus reassuring his disciples that they will not be left alone.  He has been preparing them throughout John 14. 

                In the first part of this passage, Jesus spoke of ultimate things.  “I go to prepare a place for you.”  “Where I am, there you will be also.”  And it has mansions (because dwelling places seems a little ‘meh’ honestly).  This is step one of preparing the disciples for his Ascension, which is this coming Thursday.  But now the second part, what are they going to do here when Jesus is no longer here.

                Jesus’ response, he will still be with them.  The world will not know him, they will not see him because he is ascending into heaven, but God the Father is going to take care of things.  Throughout John, Jesus lays out the divine waterfall for the disciples, the Father is in the Son (Jesus), and Jesus in in the disciples and the disciples are in Jesus, spiritually speaking.  Thus the power of God flows to them.

                What he has been preparing them for is the fulfillment of God’s plan.  The disciples don’t know it yet, and I have the feeling, reading the book of Acts, that they really did not know it until Pentecost, but while Jesus would save the world, they would be witnesses to it, and through them, salvation would come to everyone.  And understanding this is really important for us, because we are the heirs to the ministry of the disciples.  What they ended up doing, after Acts 2, is what is the work of God, what is the call to all believers.  What happened before outlines the steps of how Jesus got this motley band of people prepared to do His work.

                Maybe the most important piece is the sure and certain knowledge that we are never without the divine.  He says in the middle of this passage, “I will not leave you orphaned.”  I will not abandon you he says.  Such may be the single greatest fear we can have as people of faith, knowing God and then being abandoned by God.  There is one example of this in the Bible, when Jesus was on the cross and he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  In that moment was the ultimate expression of what Paul says, that Jesus did not consider his Godhood a thing to be grasped, but set it aside and took on the form of a slave.  What does a slave do?  A slave obeys.  And Jesus obeyed, even unto death on the cross.

                But that is NOT what is going to happen to the disciples.  Jesus tells them that the Father is going to send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit.  The pivotal word there is ‘another’.  Jesus has been their Advocate up to this moment and will be until the Spirit takes over.  But then we get into some Trinity language.

                Humans have, since the time of Pentecost, trying to share about who God is and what God does in our finite, limited vocabulary.  Yet can we really wrap our heads around the power of God who said, “Let there be light” and there was?  Can we understand the implication that if God SAYS “Let the light go out”, its done?  The Trinity is the best description we have, given what God has revealed.  God, THE God, ultimate and all-powerful, the Father according to a family metaphor.  Jesus, human, begotten, not made, very God of very God, but human and walking among us, the Son, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Reason for the Season of Christmas.  And now, Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the power of God, the essence of God, the Godliness of God that comes upon us and gives us the divine ability to transcend what we are.  It is not about being able to conquer everything, like Superman, but it is the ability to be at Peace with everything, knowing that God is truly in control.

                That’s how we have come to describe God as presented throughout the Bible.  There is no single declarative paragraph that says, “Now thusly we define God…”  Rather, this is how God interacts with us, to overcome the divide between Creator and Creation.

                Sometimes, we get so caught up in the Three, that we forget the other side, that God is One.  John, our Gospel writer, is very aware of the Oneness.  He leads off with it, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  The Word is Jesus, therefore, Jesus WAS God.  This is an important thing to understand in our passage, because Jesus’ language shifts over the course of the middle verses.

                Who is the Advocate?  The description is in verse 17: This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.  But then, there is a shift.  Verses 18 and 19: “I  will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.”  It is a seamless slide, talking about God With Us (which is one of the names for Jesus in the Bible, Emmanuel; God with us), Jesus to the Spirit to Jesus.

                But this passage is not about guessing which person of the Trinity.  This passage is about the absolute assurance that Jesus gives to his disciples that they will NEVER be alone.  Because at this moment, in the cocoon of Jesus’ leadership, they cannot grasp what it means that Jesus is leaving them.  And when it comes to Jesus’ death, they are not going to remember what Jesus said.  The gospels are very clear that it was not until after His resurrection that they remembered what he had said to them-after their memories were jogged by the personal appearance of Jesus in their midst.

                And it is very easy to judge the disciples with the benefit of hindsight and two thousand years of the Holy Spirit.  But remember that Sunday morning, Jesus had been gone three days.  And yes, Jesus had shown them that he was the master of death, he’d raised more than one person, but Jesus wasn’t there to perform the miracle.  The worker of miracles had been killed, most horribly. 

                Most of our lives, this may well be information that is nice to have, but unless we are actively practicing our faith, it will sit in the background.  Jesus is with us as the Spirit, but do we really pursue life changing goals with that information?  Or are we content?  Or have we given it any real consideration?

                Because it is in our face right now.  The proof is in the fact that you are watching me on a screen.  We are no longer in control.  Truth be told, we never were, but now it is pretty obvious.  If we are not firmly convinced that God is, in fact, in control, chances are, deep in our souls, we are looking at some grand chaotic force that is running reality at the moment. 

                It may seem counterintuitive to consider ourselves to be free in the love of Christ when Jesus tells us that he really knows those who love Him because they obey His commandments.  He opens and closes our passage with that affirmation.  It is an important consideration.  I know I have Jesus, the Bible tells me so.  I know the Spirit is within me.  How does that affect my actions?  By the power of love, a power that is outlined in the commandments of Jesus. 

                Since this quarantine has begun, a lot of people basically shut in to their homes are almost desperate to get back out into the world again.  But a lot of those who have to be out, our ‘essential’ workers, would like nothing more than to be those shut ins, at least for awhile.  Living into this passage at this particular moment can provide relief wherever we are.  Jesus is here, within us.  It is the Spirit of God, but Jesus and Holy Spirit are One, and One with no less that God the All Powerful.  Our salvation is assured by the miracle of Easter, what’s left is to live a good life filled with His presence.

                But not everybody does know this.  According to Jesus, the World does not.  What is the World left out of?  Well, the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth, because the world neither sees him nor knows him.  And, in a little while, the World will no longer see Jesus.  They are going to be left out of the miracle granted to Jesus’ disciples.  They won’t know what love can truly be.  They won’t know the comfort of our Savior.  They won’t have the abiding presence of God in their very being. 

                Do you feel that way?  Because I think that Jesus is having this conversation with his disciples because they were feeling this way.  To be without Jesus is to be, simply, without.  There is nothing shameful in that feeling.  Even for the most heartfelt Christian, doubt and worry still exist.  Then, for the person in Christ, we have the divine indwelling us to help us, to carry us forward once again, to rise up once again.

                This is salvation working out in our lives.  We do the best we can, but even in Christ, sin besets us.  But this was never designed as a mechanism of perfection.  It was designed as a mechanism of forgiveness.  It is why we invite people to give their lives to Christ in every service of worship.  It may be for the first time that they truly embrace Jesus.  It may be that their faith has gone cold, lying dormant somewhere in the soul, only to be rekindled.  It may be the spiritual discipline of weekly “charging up” again in the acceptance of Jesus Christ.

                This speaks to my heart because of the very metaphoric nature of the Trinity.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  That third person, that Holy Spirit, is the most nebulous of the bunch.  Its even worse when we use the older form, the Holy Ghost.  Its like the Church meets Halloween.  Or Worship meets Haunting.  Yes, it sounds silly as I write this down, but this is the most intimate, holy space in my life.  Silly can shake it up.

                But in God as One, Jesus is in my heart.  Yes, that is a saying of the faith, but this is the physical indwelling.  This is my friend.  This is the one who died for me.  It is as delightful for us today as it was for those disciples sitting at Jesus’ feet back in that day to know that Jesus was going to be with them. 

                Like I said before, we are never in control of our lives, but most of the time we can build up a pretty convincing illusion that we have some kind of control.  But our faith teaches us that God is in control, all the time.  That is a firm foundation on which to build our hope.  But it is so much more.  God came to us in human form.  And Jesus carried out the plan of salvation.  Then, when the human returned to heaven, God came to us in spiritual form.  So when tomorrow dawns and we are still at home and the Covid is still out there, and when will we hit a new balance…it can be rather depressing. 

                But Jesus is in here.  The love of Jesus is in our hearts.  The teachings of Jesus are on our minds.  The power of God is in Jesus and Jesus is in us, as the Spirit of truth.  This divine waterfall of grace passes from heaven to earth, from Creator to Creation.  We are not alone.  We are never alone.  May God’s grace lift us up.

Amen.