Today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter meaning that next Sunday we will celebrate the Pentecost of our Lord and we will rejoice in God’s sending of the Holy Spirit. You remember the Holy Spirit, the person of the trinity of which we rarely like to speak and I would suggest for good reason. Too often in our world today the Holy Spirit is misrepresented, misunderstood, and miss proclaimed. This morning in our text Jesus is preparing His Apostles for the sending of the Holy Spirit and is giving them a bit of a better understanding of the Holy Spirit before He is given.
Our text begins with Jesus teaching concerning the Holy Spirit, 26“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. 27And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
Jesus begins by telling us that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. Perhaps this image of Truth might remind you of Jesus’ response to the Jews, “31So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” (John 8:31-33).
Or perhaps this image of Truth might remind you of Jesus’ Jesus’ response to Thomas: “6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6-7).
Or perhaps this image of Truth might remind you of Jesus before Pilate when Jesus said, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (John 18:37b-38a).
Jesus is the Truth and as you may or may not have heard the adage, “No (N-O) Jesus, No Truth, Know (K-N-O-W) Jesus, Know Truth.” Indeed, apart from Jesus there truly is no such thing as truth. Have you ever wondered why our world has such a problem with truth? Today truth is said to be relative and there are no absolutes. What may be true for me may not be true for you and vica versa. Have you ever wondered why someone is more interested in truth than facts? Because facts can be explained away according to my own truth. It is no wonder we have such a problem because our world has become so Jesus-less it is quite truth-less.
Continuing on, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (and the Son), as we proclaim in the Nicene Creed. Of course we want to be careful so as not to misunderstand the Holy Spirit and our Triune God for that matter. We certainly believe that our God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three equal persons in one eternal Godhead. And we do not want to gravitate to any form of Modalism, such that God came first in the from of the Father, then the mode of the Son and now the mode of the Holy Spirit. Rather, Jesus is speaking of the fact that although the Holy Spirit was at work even in the Old Testament, now He will be the primary one at work in our New Testament times.
Moving on in our text, Jesus speaks of the persecution of the Apostles “1I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me” (John 16:1-3).
Jesus gives quite a warning to His Apostles and I might add, to us today. They will be put out of synagogues. Now, that might not sound so bad to us today, but in the days of the Apostles to be put out of the synagogue was tantamount to excommunication. Of course, the Apostles and we today understand that because of Jesus’ defeat of sin, death and the devil, because Jesus fulfilled all the Law and prophets perfectly, the symbol of the synagogue no longer had the meaning it once had. Even Martin Luther was excommunicated by the Roman church. Yet, for the Apostles to be put out of the synagogue could mean a separation from family and friends.
But their difficulties would not simply be being put out of the synagogue, but also the possibility and the eventuality of their being murdered. And we do know that all the Apostles, except John were persecuted and died a martyrs death.
Jesus tells the Apostles that people will persecute them because they will be believing they are doing God a favor. Very much like the Apostle Paul himself who was out persecuting the early Christian church because he believed they were a false church, that they were blaspheming God. And I would say, just like many people in our world today who are constantly bombarded with false, misleading lies about Christians and the Christian church there are Christians around the world who are being martyred for their faith. Fortunately, for us here in America our persecution is not necessarily so open. Today our persecution is more subtle and yet I would say it may get worse in the near future.
Thanks be to God that Jesus goes on to give words of courage, “But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you (John 16:4). We might say that Jesus is speaking to preempt the fears of His Apostles. Jesus is warning them of the persecutions they will be facing. His intent in not to discourage them because He has a great task laid out for them. He will be sending them out to bear witness of what they have seen, the initiation of the end times. They have seen Jesus as He lived the perfect life demanded of us, took our sins, paid the complete price for our sins and the sins of the world, and rose from the dead. And they will be taking that message to others, many who will reject that good news.
So, Jesus is offering encouragement now because as He tells them, before He sends the Holy Spirit He was with them, but when the Holy Spirit comes He will no longer be with them physically. Although He will continue to be watching over them, ruling over them, and interceding for them.
What does this mean? First and foremost it means that today we have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is with us. As we learn in catechesis the Holy Spirit is God with all the attributes of God. He is everywhere present. He is all powerful. He is almighty. And so He is with us, as we hear, where two or three are gathered together in my name I am with you.
The Holy Spirit is with us and He is working in and through us. How does the Holy Spirit work? First and foremost the Holy Spirit works through means, namely the means of grace, the Word, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Supper. This working through means is His usual way of working with us. Now, although working through means is His usual way of working with us that does not mean He cannot work otherwise, after all He is God and can do whatever He wants to do, but His usual way is through means, thus the importance of the means of grace.
Just to be clear, the Holy Spirit’s usual way of coming to us is through means. We call that mediately or through a mediator of sorts, Word and Sacrament. He does not usually come to us immediately that is directly as in a dream or vision or voice and again that is not to say He cannot come in those ways. However we are also told that we are to test the spirits to see if they are from God or not. Thus, when anyone speaks of an immediate speaking of the Holy Spirit my response is to test the spirit. If what is said contradicts what God says elsewhere, then that is not the Holy Spirit. If it is in agreement, then maybe. Yes, I will always be a skeptic.
One good test of the spirit, is the fact that the Holy Spirit always points to Jesus, never Himself, which is why we do not hear much about Him. The Holy Spirit points to Jesus through the Word, and in particular the Word in flesh, Jesus Himself. He points to Jesus through the Word in Holy Absolution as the one forgiving us, in Holy Baptism as the one who’s name is put on us and in the Holy Supper as we partake of Jesus’ body and blood.
How is this done? How does the Holy Spirit go about His work? The Holy Spirit works through means, in particular through the means of grace. Thus, first and foremost we should see the necessity of our coming to Divine Service and Bible Class so that we might be given the gifts the Holy Spirit has to give. Our desire as Christians is to making regular and diligent use of the means of grace, that is to be where and when the gifts of God are being given out. The gifts of faith, forgiveness, strengthening of faith, life and salvation. It is only as we are filled and refilled each and every Sunday, yes, each and every day through our own personal reading of God’s Word, our own personal and family devotions, that we are and can be filled. I liken this filling to God being a never empty vessel and we are cups who are filled every time we make use of the means of grace. However, should we be filled and then absent ourselves, just like a cup of water will evaporate, so when we absent ourselves from the means of grace our faith may evaporate as well. Indeed, it is only as we are filled that we will ever reach a point that we overflow and then we too become instruments to carry out the means of grace, the Word of God to others.
Which brings us to God’s desire that we are always ready to give an answer for the hope that we have. Paul says that we are to be ready to give an apology which means a defense. And yet, he tells us that this defense is not something we try to force on others, but is what we are to be ready to offer when we are asked. And he says to do it with gentleness. As we live lives of faith. As we live as priests in the priesthood of all believers. As we offer our lives as living sacrifices, other people see and notice that we are different. Ultimately they may ask, what is different about us. It is only as we have been filled with the gifts of God that we can be ready to give an answer. And as Jesus promised His Apostles so He promises us. He is with us. The Holy Spirit is with us. The Holy Spirit will give us the Words to speak, those words we heard in the Divine Service and Bible Class, those words we read in our devotions. The Holy Spirit will give us the words and the courage to speak those words. And the Holy Spirit will work and give faith, when and where He pleases. Ours is not to give faith, ours is simply to give an answer.
Next week we will celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit. This week Jesus is preparing us as He prepared His Apostles. We have the Holy Spirit. He is with us. We have the Truth, which sets us free. We live in a world in opposition to Jesus and thus in opposition to us. We have God’s Word which sets us free to be His people. And we have His promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. This morning we are thus encouraged as we continue celebrating Easter that we worship a living God who has taken care of everything for us and gives everything to us. And He even gives us the joy of sharing that message of forgiveness and salvation to others. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
