Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter - Jn 15:26-16:4

 

Easter 7

                                                                                      Jn 15:26-16:4

                                                                                      5/12/24

 

         

I think most people want to be liked.  I certainly do. There are very few people who really don’t care what others think about them.  Now it is important that we are authentic and genuine – that we aren’t simply trying to gain the favor of others.  But in general, it’s probably not a good thing if a person really doesn’t care at all. 

A person’s reputation – his or her name – is an important thing.  It is the blessing that is protected by the Eighth Commandment.  We should care about our reputation, just as we seek to protect that of others.  Where we have a good reputation, people are going to be positive toward us.  They are going to like us. And that’s a good thing.

However, in our Gospel lesson this morning Jesus tells his disciples that those who believe in him will not be liked by others.  In fact, he says that others will reject them in society, and even try to kill them.  Jesus tells us that we will experience rejection in the world.  But through the work of the Holy Spirit whom the Lord has sent, we know Jesus and therefore we know the Father.  Because of Jesus the risen Lord we have life with God that no one can take away from us.

The texts at the end of the season of Easter prepare us for Pentecost.  In this section of John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that he will be leaving them.  He will be returning to the Father. Of course, to the disciples, this sounds like a bad thing.  However, Jesus says that it is actually a good thing for them.  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.”

On Thursday we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord.  Jesus ascended into heaven as he returned to the Father and was glorified.  He was exalted as Lord over all as Jesus was seated at the right hand of God.  As he promised, the Lord has sent forth the Spirit.  And in our text today, Jesus tells us what the Spirit does.

He 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.” The work of the Spirit is to bear witness about Jesus. 

The Spirit does this through the work of the apostles.  Jesus says that they will also bear witness because they have been with him since the beginning.  The apostles were with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry until his death. Then they were witnesses to the resurrection as they ate and drank with the Lord.  They were with him in the area of Jerusalem, and they were with him in the north in Galilee. They were with the risen Lord for forty days, and then they saw him depart in the ascension.

The apostles were witnesses to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But we learn that their witness is not simply their own.  Instead, it is the Spirit who is at work through them in order to point to Jesus.  Our Lord said, “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.”

The Spirit has used the apostles to make Jesus known to us.  Jesus said, “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.”

The Spirit borne witness of the apostles has revealed the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to us.  John the Baptist had declared about Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes the sin of the world.”  The Son of God entered into the world as he was sent forth by the Father.  He became flesh in the incarnation in order to suffer and die for us.  Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” 

Jesus lay down his life as he was lifted up on the cross.  There he cried out “It is finished” as he won for us forgiveness and salvation.  John tells us in his first letter, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Jesus lay down his life. But then he took it up again.  On the third day he rose from the dead.  Because he has, we have life.  We have life with God that will never end.  We will have resurrection life on the Last Day.  Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”  And then he added: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”

You have that life now because you have been born again of water and the Spirit.  Because of Jesus, we now know God as our Father.  John said in his first letter, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

This is the blessing that we have.  Yet in our text, the Lord prepares us for what we will encounter.  He says, “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.”  Jesus tells us that we will receive opposition from the world – even persecution.

          Our Lord tells us that there is a reason for this. He says, “And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.”  We know the Father through Jesus the Son. Christ has revealed him to us.  But for the world, things are very different.

          Our Lord said that the world “hates me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.”  The Lord Jesus reveals God’s will.  Through his apostles he makes known how we are to live.  But John’s Gospel tells us, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

          The works of the world are evil.  This is a world that denies that truth exists.  It denies that God exists, or that he can be known as it revels in agnosticism and rejects faith.  It selfishly kills the unborn in abortion so that it will not be inconvenienced. It perverts the use of sexuality in every possible way. It holds marriage in contempt. It denies the basic difference between man and woman, and threatens all would disagree.

          In the previous chapter Jesus 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.”

          The Lord has called us out of the world through the work of the Holy Spirit.  We know Jesus, and therefore we know the Father.  We know God’s holy will for life.  Christ prepares us for the fact that the world will hate us because of this.  He said, “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” Then he added, “But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.”

          We must be ready for this.  We must expect it.  Being a Christian in this world is not going to get easier.  It is going to get harder. This will require us to have a firm faith in Jesus Christ.  We will need to put Jesus at the center of all that we think and do. Our faith in Jesus will have to guide our lives.

          Why can we do this in confidence?  We can because Jesus is the risen Lord.  He said, “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.”  Jesus overcame it through his death and resurrection for us.  As John tells us in his first letter: “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

          You have been called out of the world through the word of the Gospel.  The chain of sharing the Gospel began with the apostles.  In the next chapter Jesus prays to the Father for them.  He says, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  The Holy Spirit has used them as witnesses to Jesus. Many bore witness by giving their lives in the confidence that because of Jesus they already had eternal life.

          God loved you in Christ by sending his Son.  He called you out of the world through the Gospel.  Yet this action is part of God’s love for the whole world.  We learn in John’s Gospel, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

         Now, we who have received this love in Christ are sent to share the witness of the apostles with others.  We give witness to Jesus Christ by what we do.  At the Last Supper our Lord said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

        We also share Jesus by what we say.  Sometimes this will mean talking about how Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead in order to give us forgiveness and life with God.  But sometimes – in fact quite often – it is as simple as inviting someone we know to come to church. 

        In our text today, Jesus says that he will send the Helper – the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit will bear witness about Jesus, and he will enable the apostles to bear witness.  Through their witness the Spirit has called us out of the world.  Jesus prepares us for the rejection and persecution that we will receive because of him.  But we know the crucified and risen Lord who has overcome sin and death.  Because of him we already have eternal life now, and he will raise us up on the Last Day.  Confident in our risen Lord, we share him with others in what we do and say.