John 14:15-29
May 23, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When I turned 55 last week, I was officially recognized as a “senior citizen” at eating places like Denny’s and Fresh Choice! Now I can legitimately blame anything I forget to a “senior moment.”
We all have memory loss from time to time so if you are like me, I write little Post-It notes everywhere like on my desk, on the dashboard of my car, and in my calendar organizer.
When someone leaves us, we are often worried about how we will remember the person. “Make sure you write! Let’s stay in touch by e-mailing.” Sometimes, we put together a picture album of good friends so that we might return to it time and time again to remember as it was.
Jesus’ Departure
Today marks the seventh week after Easter and we see in John 14 that Jesus was preparing his disciples for his departure. Jesus has been with his disciples for awhile. Now that he is leaving them they were concerned about how they will be able to remember all that they have learned.
Until I looked it up in my calendar organizer, I couldn’t remember when Easter was! It’s April 11th. We so easily forget over just a few weeks.
Jesus is at the table with his 12 best friends for their final meal. Now he tells them that he is going away. He is going to his death on the cross. What ought to be a joyous Passover meal is becoming a sad last supper, a mournful last meal before a terrible departure.
As Jesus leaves his disciples, he tells them that he will not leave them comfortless, will not leave them alone, will not leave them to be orphans, will not leave them to their own devices.
He doesn’t say to them, “I’m going to leave you, but I want you to think hard and try to remember everything I’ve ever taught you. Each morning, get up early and go over the words of my Sermon on the Mount, word for word, so that you won’t forget it, so you’ll have all my teaching at your fingertips when you need it.” Jesus doesn’t say that.
He doesn’t tell them, “John, now I want you to get busy and write a book. Call it the “Gospel According to John.” That way, everyone will have all my words, just like I spoke them to you. Anytime you are in trouble, having some difficulty, wanting to know my take on any given situation, you can just open that book, turn to the right verse, and it’ll be just like I’m with you. You can look it up!” Jesus doesn’t say that.
He doesn’t tell them, “Now I’m going to appoint Peter as disciple number one. John, you can be number two. The rest of you will need to submit to and obediently follow number one and two. They are in charge when I leave. Anytime you have tough questions, just go and ask number one and he will make a ruling on the matter.” Jesus doesn’t say that.
Jesus says none of this as his disciples grieve his departure. What he tells them is that he is not going to leave them alone. They won’t need to try to remember word for word what he taught them. They won’t need to try to live according to a recipe book. They won’t even have to follow traditional lines of authority that humans are so quick to create.
What Jesus tells them is that when he leaves, he will give them the Advocate—the Holy Spirit. He promises the gift of the Advocate. Have you ever met the Advocate? I think you have.
The Advocate
In the Greek, the word for advocate is “paraclete.” It means “to call alongside.” An advocate is one called alongside of us. It can have a variety of meanings. And different translations of this passage from the Gospel of John translate it into English as “counselor,” “advocate,” “comforter,” or “instructor.” Each of these meanings offers us a fuller understanding of who the Holy Spirit is.
In John, we see that the “Advocate,” is capitalized because it is a proper name of someone. Jesus says, “I’m leaving you, but you don’t have to feel like orphans. Don’t be sad because I’m going to send you my friend, my presence, the Advocate—the Living Reminder.The Advocate will remind you of all that I have tried to teach you while I’ve been with you. The Advocate will explain it all to you. The Advocate is called to walk beside you and teach you.” Jesus promises that after he has departed, the gift of the Living Reminder will come.
As the instructor, what is the Living Reminder going to teach us? Jesus said in John 13: 34, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
When Jesus departs from his disciples, he wants them to not forget how they have been loved by him. And if they want to remain his followers, they are to continue to love others too. And if the disciples haven’t learned this the first time around or that after some time, they end up forgetting what Jesus taught them, he will give them the Living Reminder to remind them.
Jesus said, “The Holy Spirit will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Peacemakers
For the past few weeks, we have experienced as a nation serious concerns about the ongoing war in Iraq and the US military abuse of prisoners. The retaliation in the beheading of an American only adds to the escalating and troubling situation. All the images that we have seen are repulsive and inexcusable. We know that violence based on “an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth” only renders everyone blind or toothless.
Jesus’ teaching of loving one another because he first loved us seems to have been forgotten by us and many in the world.
Despite the fact that death and blood and soon the terror of the cross that Jesus was about to experienced, he told them that they will not be comfortless. They will not be left alone to their own devices, but rather he will send them a Living Reminder to teach them about loving one another in peace.
This legacy of peace or shalom is not what the world would understand. The peace that the world pursues is based on winning, self-interest, and security. The peace that Jesus lives and leaves for us is a peace that is rich and compelling and cosmic. It is a vision of a community where each and all of God’s creatures can experience abundance and justice and grace. Jesus’ promise is not primarily about personal peace. It is about communal and global peace too.
When Jesus was ministering and teaching his disciples, he showed them how to heal, love, and transform others. This way of living is the peace that Jesus leaves for the whole world. Not just for the disciples, but for the Jews and Gentiles, the Greeks and the Arabs—for the whole world who are God’s people.
In this tumultuous world in which we live, how is the Holy Spirit, the Living Reminder reminding us of the teachings of Jesus? We are to love one another with the peace that this world cannot give but only Jesus gives. Wherever men and women cherish this vision of shalom and peace—this vision of justice, respect, compassion and harmony for all of God’s people is when we are learning again Jesus’ teachings.
It is whenever we are able to submit our personal agendas to fulfilling and shaping of a global agenda that we share in the peace that Jesus gives. The vision is wherever we are willing to say that what is healthy and hopeful for me must also be healthy and hopeful for you—whether you are like me or not.
The Living Reminder is telling us today to not forget what Jesus taught us over 2000 years ago—Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34)
The Living Reminder
In the next few weeks, there will be many young people who will be graduating from high school to prepare for college in the fall or college graduates preparing for work. I have had in a number of occasions, when mothers and fathers would come to my office saying, “My daughter is going to college in a couple of months. I want you to sit her down and tell her what we believe and why, firm up her faith so that when she gets to college some unbelieving professor won’t shake up her faith. Is there a book that you can recommend to her?”
My response is, “Relax.” It’s usually not some professor that shakes up our faith. It’s life. The real questions about religion don’t come up in a classroom. The real questions come up in the middle of the night when you get that late night call, and the voice on the other end of the line says, “I’ve got some bad news to tell you.” The real questions come when we open up our morning paper and are too afraid to look at the pictures of torture and abuse and execution.
Whether it’s the disciples when Jesus was about to leave them or when we are troubled and horrified over the war in Iraq or when our young people graduate and prepare to leave us for college, Jesus is telling us that we are not left alone as orphans. He will send us the Living Reminder to continue to teach us what Jesus taught—to love one another just as he first loved us.
Spiritual Gifts
Next Sunday is what we call in the church, Pentecost. Pentecost is the day when we celebrate the coming of what is promised by Jesus as the Holy Spirit who reminds us of Jesus’ teachings. The Spirit reminds us that each person is given a spiritual gift for ministry.
Three Sundays from today, June 13, we will have a “Spiritual Gifts Faire” where you will have an opportunity to explore how your gifts for ministry may be used in the mission of this church. Before that day, you are invited to complete and score your own “Gifts Inventory” that is in the vestibule. Then on that Sunday afternoon, you will be able to learn about the variety of ministries that our church has and begin to possibly match your gifts with the ministries that we have. Perhaps by knowing about your gifts it might even lead you to initiate a new ministry that we currently don’t have.
Perhaps one of your gifts particularly in such a time as this is to be a peacemaker. I hope and pray that you will decide to participate and share your God-given gifts for the Lord.
“In Remembrance of Me”
I suspect that you have met the Holy Spirit—The Living Reminder in your life. There are those moments when you are reading a passage of Scripture, perhaps a passage that you have perused a dozen times before. And then, while reading, something in the text jumps out at you, shakes you, grabs you as never before. You say to yourself, “I’ve read this passage a dozen times and never saw that before.” But maybe you have seen it before. Maybe what you mean is, “Now I remember, as if seeing for the first time, what it means.” That’s the Living Reminder walking beside you.
Or you go through a tough time in your life. For days you have been in a dark, deserted valley. You have not known which way to turn. In your pain, you have asked questions like, “Where is God?” “Does God care about me?”
Then, in worship, through the music, or the Scriptures read, or even the sermon, you have said, “Yes, now I know. God loves me. God is not far from me! I can go on!” You could have truthfully said, “Now I remember! For a while, due to my troubles, I almost forgot. Now I remember, I am a child of God, precious to God, held by God in loving embrace.” Thank God that Jesus has called the Living Reminder to walk alongside of you.
We get dress, we come down here to church, in the Sundays after Easter, to remember, to recall, to recollect the risen Christ. We take the Lord’s Supper and read the carved words on this table, “In Remembrance of Me.”
Life being what it is, there are many occasions when we forget what we already know from Easter—that Jesus Christ is Lord, that Jesus Christ has risen, he has risen indeed. So we gather here on Sunday, we sing songs, we listen to the word read and proclaimed, and we ask the Living Reminder to remind us.
I may still have those “senior moments,” but Jesus has given me the Holy Spirit to remind me today that he is walking alongside of me. And when I do forget, I know that I can trust in the Living Reminder, the Holy Spirit to teach me how to love again.
“I will not leave you as orphans!” says Jesus. Thanks be to God for sending us the Counselor, Advocate, Comforter, Paraclete, the Living Reminder to teach us and remind us that God is love.
Let us pray.
Holy Spirit, come to us, walk beside us, stand with us, remind us. Call to our minds the word and work of Jesus. Remind us of his teaching. Remind us to put his teaching into practice in our daily lives. Remind us that Jesus taught us to be peacemakers. By your presence, show to us that we do not walk alone, that we are not left to our own devices when it comes to discipleship. Holy Spirit, remind us to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen.