Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (John
14:23-31)
The
Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach
you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Prayer: May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your
sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today we celebrate the festival of Pentecost – fifty days
after Easter – and this is the day when we commemorate the event where the
disciples received the Holy Spirit in the form of fiery tongues on their heads,
they spoke in different languages in such a way that everyone could understand,
and Peter preached the first Christian sermon. Also, the first group of people
were baptised as Christians in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, just as Jesus had commanded them before he ascended into heaven. On the
first day of Pentecost, there were 3000 people baptised.
All this we read about in our Epistle reading today.
Usually when we have a church festival like Christmas or Easter, the main event
is described in the Gospel reading, because the four Gospels describe the life
of Jesus from the time of his conception and birth to his Ascension. But the
Day of Pentecost happened after Jesus ascended into heaven, and we read about
it in the second chapter of the book of Acts. So normally, the Gospel describes
the history of the event we celebrate and the Epistle reading draws our
attention to something of theological and spiritual significance about this
event. But today it’s the other way around – the Epistle reading describes the
main event, and the Gospel reading describes something about the event.
Our Gospel reading today is from a wonderful section of
the Gospel of John, where Jesus teaches instructs his apostles – the eleven
disciples: Judas had already gone out to betray him. They have celebrated the
Lord’s Supper, and Jesus has washed his disciples feet. Jesus is speaking to
them on the night he was betrayed, that wonderful night, Maundy Thursday.
Before Jesus goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane and prays to his Father and
before he is arrested, he stays in the upper room with his disciples and he
preaches to them a wonderful sermon. This sermon is found in John 14—16. Also
in John 17, we read a wonderful prayer that Jesus prays in the hearing of the
disciples, often called the high-priestly prayer. In the sermon, Jesus speaks
to his disciples many well-known words: In
my Father’s house are many rooms. I
am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
I am the vine; you are the branches. This is my commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved. You did not choose me, but I chose you. Ask and you
will receive that your joy may be full. And there are many other passages
that you would probably recognise. (It would be a good thing to read these
three chapters at home in one sitting.)
Just before our reading today Jesus says to his disciples:
He who loves me will be loved by my
Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
Manifest – what’s this word? I will manifest myself to him, says Jesus. We read that at the
wedding at Cana, that Jesus manifested
his glory. He showed his glory to the people who were there. He made his
glory know to them. It became public. But here Jesus says that he will manifest
himself to an individual person who loves him. Don’t you think this is strange?
Well, one of the disciples also thought it was strange. We
read: Judas (not Iscariot) said to him,
“Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” There
were two disciples called Judas. There was the one who betrayed him, and then
there was the other one. This is the other Judas talking. He wants to know: How
is it possible that Jesus can manifest himself, make himself known, to one
person, but not to everyone else at the same time? At the wedding at Cana, he
didn’t reveal himself to just one person. He revealed himself to everyone who
saw the miracle and who drank this wonderful wine. Jesus implies that he is
going to give some special wine to drink to just one individual person, the one
who loves him. How will he do that?
And so our Gospel reading for today begins:
Jesus answered him, “If
anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will
come to him and make our home with him.”
First of all, Jesus talks about love. He says: If anyone loves me. What a wonderful
thing it is to be given love for Jesus! Not everyone loves Jesus. Many people
would love to go to heaven, but they hate Jesus – they wish that Jesus weren’t
there! They would much rather be there without him. But people don’t realise
that Jesus did not come into the world
to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him. Jesus
only lets us come to him and only lets us be with him through his forgiveness.
He is always ready to forgive. He is standing at the front door, looking down
the road, waiting like the father waiting for the prodigal son. He’s waiting to
run out and meet us, to fling his arms around us, to put a ring on our finger,
to kill the fattened calf for us and throw a party for us. Look at the woman
who came and poured ointment on Jesus feet and washed his feet with her tears
and dried them with her hair. Jesus says: I
tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. He
says: Your sins are forgiven. Your faith
has saved you; go in peace.
Don’t you love Jesus? Can’t you see what a merciful and
forgiving Saviour he is? Even in his darkest moment, on the cross, he says to
the thief: Today you will be with me in
Paradise. There’s never a time to dark where Jesus won’t come and speak
these words.
But there’s something about these words that is so
special: they are Jesus’ own distinctive words. They are the Gospel. They are
the pure, 24-carat, unadulterated forgiveness of sins. They are the words which
tear up all the accusations against you. All the accusations are nailed to
Jesus’ cross. People might say: “Who is
this who even forgives sins?” But Jesus is the only man who can forgive
sins, because he is the only man who is also truly God. He has the authority to
forgive sins, and he has the desire to forgive them.
This is the joy of the church. This is the joy of the day
of Pentecost. When Peter had finished his sermon, we read: When they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and
the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them,
“Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Do you see there? The baptism they receive gives them the
forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit is
a spirit of joy because it comes with the forgiveness of sins. God the Father
looks at us as if we had never done anything wrong, as if there were nothing
wrong with us, as if it were only Jesus that he could see.
This forgiveness of sins is Jesus’ distinctive words. No
other person speaks these words. Not Moses, not Elijah, only Jesus.
And so Jesus says: If
anyone loves me, he will keep (whose word?) my word. My distinctive word. My words that calls you to repentance
and forgives you each and every sin. If
anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will
come to him and make our home with him.
Now this last part would seem very strange to many
Christians today. Many Christians (in fact, most Christians who call themselves
“Protestants” or “Evangelicals”) don’t believe that God the Father and God the
Son make their home in us. They believe that the Father and the Son are in
heaven. Only the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts.
But this isn’t true. So far in our reading, the Holy
Spirit hasn’t even been mentioned. But the Father and the Son also make their
home in our hearts and in our bodies. So on the Day of Pentecost, it wasn’t
just the Holy Spirit who came down, but the Father and the Son were also there
sending the Holy Spirit. We say in the Creed: The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; who together with
the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.
Jesus wants us to keep
his word. This doesn’t first of all mean obeying his word. Sure: Jesus wants to love him, to love our
neighbour and to be obedient to him. But he says: keep his word. Guard it. Hold
on to it. Keep it close to you. He means also his word of forgiveness.
Forgiveness isn’t something you can obey. It’s only something you can receive.
Jesus says: I forgive you. And you
just say: Amen. That’s what it means
to keep his word: to receive it, to hold on to it, and not to push it away and
reject it.
A person who loves Jesus keeps his word. If anyone loves me, says Jesus, he will keep my word, and my Father will
love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. What a
wonderful thing it is that our heavenly Father and Jesus himself – both in his
divinity and in his flesh – comes to make their home with us. Jesus is
intimately united to his Father because they share the same nature – they are
both God. But we also share our flesh with Jesus – he makes us like branches on
the vine of his holy body. We take all of the grape juice from him. And what’s
the juice? Jesus wants his words to abide
in us. It all comes back to his word.
Just to make sure we understand this, Jesus turns these
words around into a warning: Whoever
does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine
but the Father’s who sent me.
Here we are reminded of Jesus’ words: He who reject you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects the one who
sent me. There is no Jesus without his word. There are many people who talk
about Jesus today, and have no regard for his word. Don’t be deceived. They
don’t love Jesus – they love something else, a different Jesus to the one we
read about in the bible, and they are following a different spirit. Some people
say that Jesus is the word who has become flesh, so it’s not as important to
listen to his words, because he is the Word. This is also not true! Jesus is
the Word of God who has become flesh! And if this is the case, how much more should we actually listen
to what he says! And Jesus also says that his words are the Father’s words.
Now, here’s the part we’ve all been waiting for. Jesus
actually mentions the Holy Spirit. He
says: These things I have spoken to you
while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father
will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your
remembrance all that I have said to you.
Sometimes I hear people say that we need to talk about the
Holy Spirit more in the Lutheran Church. People think that the only people
today who are talking about the Holy Spirit are the Pentecostals and all those
big, loud churches!
I would put it to you that every sermon I have ever
preached mentions the Holy Spirit numerous times! Lutherans talk about the Holy
Spirit all the time. But the Holy Spirit works much more in the background than
most people would like! Many people are looking for the Holy Spirit in places
where he isn’t to be found. He isn’t to be found in the animal heat of a large
crowd full of sweaty bodies. People can jump up and down and carry on and say
it’s the Holy Spirit, and they can do the same thing at a rock concert where
they lyrics might be about all kinds of stuff: sex, Satan, or whatever. That’s
not the Holy Spirit. St Paul says: Even
the devil manifests himself as an angel of light.
What does Jesus say the Holy Spirit does? He says: The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your
remembrance all that I have said to you.
Do you see? The Father sends you the Holy Spirit so that
he will teach you.
The Holy Spirit is there to be found in the words of
Jesus. If there is no words of Jesus there is no Holy Spirit. Don’t even look
for the Holy Spirit outside the words of Jesus. You might find something, you
might even find a nice, pleasant, good feeling – but it won’t be the Holy
Spirit.
So where you hear the word of God taught, you know that it
is the Holy Spirit who is teaching you. Whenever you are reminded of the words
of Jesus, it is the Holy Spirit who is reminding you. And if you are going to
be reminded, you need to have heard the words first.
Can you imagine all the people in the Gospels – Mary,
Joseph, Peter, John, James – all the things that they saw? We read at the time
of Jesus’ birth that Mary pondered up
all these things in her heart. There were some disciples who there on Good
Friday and at Easter. And then on the Day of Pentecost, Peter preached about
the death and resurrection of Jesus. He reminded them of these things. And the
people remember! They are reminded! And we too go for years and we know the
words of Jesus and we hear more and more of them. But then one day something
clicks and we are reminded of a particular word or action of Jesus. And just
like St Paul, the scales fall from our eyes, and we realise something that we
never knew before, and something makes sense. This is the Holy Spirit’s quiet
unassuming work that he is doing all the time! The Holy Spirit will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance
all that I have said to you. And most of the time, the Holy Spirit does
this with very little fuss, very little excitement, very little panic and
rushing, very little jumping up and down, in secret, in quiet, with the simple
words of Jesus.
And this reminding of the people there on the Day of the
Pentecost was the thing that cut to their heart: not the tongues of fire, not
the rushing wind, not the speaking in tongues. It was Peter preaching to the
people of the life of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit himself coming to them and
reminding them that cut to their heart. And it was then the Holy Spirit that also
came upon these 3000 people as they were baptised for the forgiveness of sins.
And so Jesus says: Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
There is so much more that I would like to say about the
rest of our Gospel reading today, but this will have to do for today. We’ll
just have to come back next week and be reminded again of what Jesus said and
did.
Amen.
Come, Holy Spirit, our Helper, our Comforter. We thank you
for coming upon us on the day of our baptism just as you did upon those 3000
people on the day of Pentecost. Come and teach us the words of Jesus again and
remind us of all the things he has said to his church. Fill us with the joy
that comes with the words of Jesus, those words which speak the free forgiveness
of all our sins. Amen.
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