Easter
7
Jn
15:26-16:4
5/21/23
The
last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity at the Surburg house. Matthew and Abigail graduated from high
school on Thursday. The weeks that
preceded have been filled with various award ceremonies, soccer games, a final
band concert, and Baccalaureate. There
was the preparation to have our whole family in town, and then the graduation
celebration that we held here at church yesterday.
All
of these events have brought the realization that it is time for them to go
away. Now don’t get me wrong, we love
having Matthew and Abigail around. They are a pleasure to have at home. I look forward to having them with us this
summer, as well as Timothy when he is not at Army training.
However,
as they finish high school and are about to turn eighteen, the time has come
for them to go. They have reached the
point in life when they need to leave home and begin to create their own lives. They need to go away to college so that they
can start to grow as individuals who will have the jobs to which they aspire,
and will be able to live on their own.
If
you have been listening to the Gospel lessons during the past two Sundays, you
know that Jesus has announced that it is time for him to go. Two weeks ago
Jesus said, “But now I am going to
him who sent me, and none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' But
because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.” Last Sunday he said, “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and
now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
Jesus
announced that he was leaving, and this past Thursday we celebrated that he did
this. We celebrated the Feast of the
Ascension of Our Lord, as Jesus was taken up into heaven. The ascension of Christ was the exaltation of
the risen Lord as he returned to the Father and was seated at his right hand.
In
our text, Jesus prepares the disciples – and us – for what we can expect. He
declares, “I have said all these
things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues.
Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is
offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father,
nor me.”
Our Lord prepares us for the fact that we will experience
hardship because of faith in him. He
tells us that the world will reject us because we believe in Jesus. Now thankfully we don’t face the threat of
imprisonment and death as do Christians in other parts of the world. But the social ostracism of being put out of
the synagogue is something that we do understand. We recognize that our culture is opposed to
faith in Christ and mocks those who believe in him. To speak about Jesus in many settings is to
invite rebuke or disdain.
In the previous chapter, Jesus has explained that this
should not be surprising. He said, “If the world
hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the
world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the
world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Jesus says that the world hates him. The world hates Jesus
because he confronts sin. He confronts
the darkness that holds the world. Jesus told the Jews who claimed they were
free, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a
slave to sin.” The world does not want to hear that it is not free. It
does not want to be told that there is sin.
Instead, it wants to be free to do as it pleases. It does not want a God who declares what is
right and what is wrong. Instead, the
world wants to be its own god.
The question we must face is whether the world recognizes
that we are different. Are we trying to
fit in with the world? Does our life look just like world around us? Do we keep
our faith hidden to avoid the world’s rejection?
Jesus announced, “The slave does not remain in the house
forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be
free indeed.” The Father sent forth the
Son in order to free us from sin. John
the Baptist declared about Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world.”
Jesus took away our sin by being lifted up on the
cross. He said, “And as Moses lifted up
the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that
whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Jesus was crucified for us as the Lamb of God – as the sacrifice offered
in our place.
But Christ
could not be the source of eternal life if he had stayed dead. And so, on the third day God raised Jesus up. In this chapter Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I
say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be
sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” The disciples sorrow did turn
to joy because on the evening of Easter the risen Lord appeared in the locked
room and showed them his hands and his side.
We are told that the disciples rejoiced when they saw the risen Lord.
Jesus has
risen, and Jesus has ascended. Now we
are left facing a world that hates Jesus and scorns those who believe in
him. That doesn’t sound like a very good
situation. But Jesus assures us that he
has not left us alone.
In the very
first verse of our text Jesus says, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will
send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the
Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear
witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.” Jesus says that he will send the Helper – the
Spirit of truth. The Helper will bear witness about Jesus, and we learn that
the disciples will bear witness as well because they have been with Jesus from
the beginning.
This is not the
first time Jesus has spoken about the Spirit as the Helper, or the work he will
do. In chapter fourteen Jesus said, “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.”
The
Holy Spirit would have an important work to carry out. But we learn immediately after our text that
this can only happen if Jesus returns to the Father. Our Lord says, “Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go
away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will
send him to you.”
Jesus
has been saying it is time for him to go.
Christ would not leave until he had cried “It is finished” as he died on
the cross for our sins. He would not
leave until he said, “Peace to you” to the disciples on the evening of Easter.
But after completing his mission of death and resurrection, it would be time to
leave. It would be time to return to the
Father so that the Holy Spirit could be sent.
Scripture
does not explain why things work this way. It only tells us that things do
work this way. The Father sends forth the Son to suffer, die, and rise from the
dead. The Son returns to the Father. The
Son then sends the Spirit. Certainly, we
can understand that whereas the incarnate Lord during his ministry was located
in one time and place, the Spirit now is at work in the entire Church all over
the world.
Jesus
recognizes the challenge that we face. In fact he states, “I have said all
these things to keep you from falling away.”
Our Lord wants us to know that he has not left us alone. Instead, he has given us the Spirit.
The
Spirit is the One who gives insight and understanding about Christ. A little later in chapter sixteen Jesus says,
“I still have many things
to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” The disciples could not bear
them. Yet the reason for this was more
than just the fact that Christ has not yet risen from the dead. What they needed was the Spirit.
Our Lord went
on to say, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you
into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority,
but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things
that are to come.
He will glorify me,
for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is
mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to
you.”
The Spirit guides the disciples into all truth in order to
understand who Jesus is. The Spirit
always works to take what belongs to Jesus and to make it known to us. In sharing with us Jesus, he also shares with
us the Father whose work Jesus accomplished.
It is this work that enables us to avoid falling way. It is this work that strengthens us to face
the opposition of the world.
It should be noted that the Spirit does not talk about
himself. Jesus says in our text, “But when
the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth,
who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”
The work of the Spirit is
to bear witness about Jesus. The Spirit always points us to Christ and helps us
to understand him.
This he now does through the inspired Scriptures. Christ
promises in our text that the Spirit will bear witness and that the disciples
will also bear witness. We have heard
how our Lord had already promised, “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.” We receive the Spirit borne witness
through the Scriptures – the witness of the disciples.
Through the Scriptures the Spirit
calls us to faith and sustains us in faith.
John says about the Scripture he has written, “Now Jesus did many other
signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this
book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have
life in his name.”
This morning we
hear the words of the Spirit that bear witness about Jesus. Through them the Spirit takes what belongs to
Jesus and makes it known to us. This
witness enables us to confess Christ before the world and to live in ways that
show this faith. This witness
strengthens us to believe in our risen Lord.
And because we believe in the Christ who rose from the dead we have what
we need to bring us through every challenge.
Jesus declared at the end of this chapter: “I have said these things to
you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But
take heart; I have overcome the world.”
No comments:
Post a Comment