Apparently, we have needed a bit of work in what the theologians call pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit for those of us who prefer English. I have reminded us with a couple offhand comments that our experiences of the Holy Spirit make us as good a witness to the Resurrection as those early disciples who saw Jesus after the Resurrection. Modern Christians, and apparently modern Adventers included, will say things like “I need proof like Thomas” or “My faith would be great if I ate and drank with Him after the Resurrection” and other things like that. I get it. The world likes to keep everyone in darkness, and the Enemy seeks to undermine our faith constantly. But for us, the experience of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, is a consequence of Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension. We know this. Our friends with red lettered Bibles would tell us that in red letters their Bibles include Jesus telling His disciples that it is to their advantage that He go away so that the Holy Spirit can come and dwell in them, right? We remind ourselves at Baptisms and Confirmations that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever, right? You know this, even if you forget it from time to time.
Today, for those who want to follow along, I am going to be speaking a bit more about Jesus’ instruction about the Holy Spirit. In fact, as we near the end of the Easter season and get ready to celebrate the Ascension on Thursday, Pentecost on two weeks from today, and Trinity Sunday in three weeks, I am likely doing some foundational work. We will see where I end up on those days, but they are all related to our understanding about the Holy Spirit and are based in Jesus’ instructions. So turn in your Orders of Worship to John’s Gospel.
Our passage continues with the pericope that we began last week. Remember, Jesus told the disciples He is going to prepare a place for them and to follow Him. Thomas famously exclaims they do not know where He is going so how could they possibly be able to follow Him. I preached mostly on the fact that Jesus identified Himself with God and reminded those gathered that He and God were the way, the truth, and the life. Remember? Good! I see some nods.
Just to remind us, this pericope takes place at the beginning of what experts call The Farewell Discourse of John. In these few chapters, Jesus is giving His final instructions to HIs disciples, those whom He loved. Jesus’ statement begins with a conditional clause, “if you love Me.” If His disciples, you and me included, love Him, how will we demonstrate that love to Him? Right! By keeping the torah. Just to remind ourselves, successfully keeping the torah made Jesus holy; the best you and I can do is righteousness, which is achieved by repenting and, in those days, offering the appropriate sacrifice. If you are visiting today or have missed some of those other discussions over the years, I have greatly simplified our understanding. I recognize that. But that is not my real focus today.
If we love and keep the torah, Jesus will ask the Father and the Father will give us another Advocate to be with us forever. Who is the first Advocate. No, the Holy Spirit is the other Advocate described by Jesus here. Who is the first Advocate? That’s right! Jesus. It is not by accident that we call Him our Mediator and Advocate in our liturgy. Most of us understand, as well as one can understand that when we are speaking of the Trinity, Jesus is the One making intercessions on our behalf. Jesus is the Advocate for whom Job prayed when he was arguing with His friends about His righteousness before God.
But, the Holy Spirit is another Advocate who will be sent to us by the Father in response to Jesus’ request.
As an aside, this is one of those Scriptural citations to which some of our Orthodox brothers and sisters point when they are fighting with us about the Nicene Creed. Who sends the Holy Spirit? Jesus seems to be instructing us that He asks the Father, who then sends the Spirit. The western Church famously adopted the filoque clause, meaning “and of the Son,” in the Nicene Creed before the Orthodox bishops arrived. We have been arguing about that, at the levels that really care about such things, for 17 centuries or so.
Most of us probably care only about the outcome. How the outcome comes to be, we are not nearly as invested. Do we have the Holy Spirit? We do. Great.
Jesus instructed His disciples that He would ask the Father and the Father would send the Spirit to them. The Spirit has a couple of important roles. One, and this is poor terminology about a glorious Holy Mystery, the coming of the Holy Spirit allows us to experience the grace of God throughout the world. When the Incarnation condescended to become human, where was the grace and power of God focused? The quick answer is in 1st Century Roman Judea in the person of Jesus (bar Joseph) of Nazareth, right? At Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended and alighted on this Jesus of Nazareth, and the voice from heaven spoke. Everybody with me so far? Good.
Jesus spends the next three years doing the work that the Father sent Him to do, work that testified to His identity as the Messiah and, as we reminded ourselves last week, as God, right? Jesus reminds us that it is to our advantage that He goes back to the Father because He will be able to ask for this other Advocate, who will come and dwell with us as He is preparing that place for us. Again, everybody kind of recall this? If your brains are fuzzy, reread a Gospel. If you are unsure, be a Berean and reread a Gospel.
What is happening is a kind of distribution of God’s grace and power around the world in the heart and lives of believers. The words do not match the significance of what is happening to us. Our hearts and bodies become the living temple, made of living stones, where God is to be found. People are supposed to be able to look at us and notice we are different. Our perspective is different. Our behavior is different. We would say that it is the Holy Spirit that is in us and dwelling in us, something made possible only through the redeeming work of the Son and the will of the Father. We become, however poorly, little “i” incarnations of God’s grace in the world around us. How we manifest that in our lives differs from person to person. We each are given by God passions and concerns and abilities. We uniquely express God’s saving grace in different ways, but we recognize that expression, to be punny and say at its heart, is empowered by the Holy Spirit, giving us what we need to accomplish God’s will in our lives. How that looks is as different as we are in the parish level, Episcopalians in Middle Tennessee are on the diocesan level, Christians are in our country, and as different as Christians are around the world. But you know this because you realize at a fundamental level, His sons and daughters are stamped in His infinite image.
But there’s more. The Holy Spirit is also the One who guides us into truth. Maybe you accepted that the Holy Spirit came from the Father and the Son because you know the Nicene Creed by heart. Now, though, 1700 years later sitting 6000 miles to the west, you are thinking that they made a mistake. This is Jesus’ teaching, after all. But maybe sitting here 1700 years later and 6000 miles to the west you decide you think the Nicene Creed way is the correct way. I mean, can we ever think of a time where the Father is not interested in glorifying the Son? No. So if the Son asks that we receive the Spirit, can we imagine God ever saying to the Son, nope? For most of us, we are not dying on a hill of fully understanding or comprehending a Holy Mystery such as the Trinity. We may be giving thanks it is not on Peter’s admittance exam at the Pearly Gates, but neither are we consumed with plumbing as many details as possible. We are far more concerned with trying to live our lives in ways that glorify God and repenting when we fail.
There’s still more in Jesus’ instruction about the coming of the Holy Spirit, though. We are not abandoned by our Father. We remind ourselves during our Baptismal and Confirmation liturgies that God comes to dwell in us. In some denominations, they understand that God the Son comes to dwell in their heart. They speak of making their heart His royal throne. Good, I see some of you are familiar with that language. This passage combined with last week’s reminds us that Jesus is leaving but still coming to us. How is that possible? Through the Holy Spirit. To the extent that God is the Holy Trinity, is the language that God dwells in us wrong? Of course not. And whose life will our life resemble if the Holy Spirit dwells within us and we are attuned to that Spirit? Jesus’.
Again, do we think that God is going to withhold His grace or power from our lives because we incorrectly guess that the way He does it is through Jesus or through the Holy Spirit. Given the history of human beings’ relationship with God, He is probably just happy that we understand He is dwelling with us, even if we are unsure or even squabble about which Person of the Holy Spirit it is that is dwelling with us. You are laughing, but let’s face it, we do not do a good job of getting the basics right, never mind the depp dives or challenging instructions. Self-described Christians around us publicly express that Jesus’ teachings on the Beatitudes cannot work in this world, that He was too naive. Christians around us in our community express that the war in Iran is to help Jesus find His way back to earth or speeds up Armageddon. I think misunderstanding the economy or relationship of the Trinity dishonors Him far less.
This instruction at the beginning of His Farewell Discourse is bookended by Jesus’ instruction that those who love Him keep His commandments. Amazingly, those who keep His instructions are loved by the Father. It makes sense. If we love Jesus, we will seek to glorify Him. The Father clearly loved Him, the beloved, and glorified Him. That assurance of the proud Father’s love appears in the Baptism, is further named in the Transfiguration, is awesomely revealed in the Resurrection, and even more amazingly described in the Ascension, where the Son ascends to dwell at the right hand of God until His glorification is completed in His return. All this you know. It is steeped into our liturgies. It appears throughout our readings assigned by the lectionary. And we come to understand they are not academic ideas, but real Truth, as we experience the indwelling and power of God, however we understand and experience that.
But, my friends, this is about the here and now. We will not fully comprehend the Holy Mysteries of God until our re-creation. To use the words of St. Paul, we see dimly. But what we see is for this life, not the next. You and I are called by God into relationship with Him thanks to the work and person of Jesus Christ. We are sent back out into the world because of that relationship as adopted sons and daughters, heirs of those eternal pledges to use other language, to glorify the Son in our lives. To do that properly, we need the Holy Spirit to guide us, to instruct us, to lead us into truth, and to empower us. Our part is simply to love God, to do and to avoid what He commands, and to repent when we sin or stumble. If we love what He commands, Jesus promises that we will be loved by God and that God will reveal Himself to us. It is not easy work, to be sure, but thanks to God and His grace in our lives we can be sure that it is possible in and through Him.
In His Grace and Power,
Brian+
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