Bible Text: St John 15:26–16:4 | Preacher: Rev. Andrew Richard
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Easter greeting has taken on a different flavor since we celebrated the Ascension of our Lord this past Thursday. Jesus has not only risen from the dead, but has risen into heaven. When Adam and Eve sinned, Scripture says that “Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God,” but now in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man have come face to face once more. This is our comfort: that our Father in heaven is well pleased with His Son, who has forever become one of us. And since Jesus has united Himself to us in His Incarnation, and us to Himself in Holy Baptism, when the Father smiles on His Son He is smiling on you. We rejoice that Jesus ascended into heaven, because it so clearly proves the reconciliation of God and man.
Yet this Sunday commemorates what is easily the most uncomfortable and troublesome time in the Church’s history. Now we might argue that our day is that most uncomfortable time: The world seems to be at its worst, pairing unthinkable abominations with the latest advancements in science and technology. The devil is apparently having great success catechizing the world in the ways of rebellion and sin. Besides, we have a sinful nature that inclines us to every evil, we are mortal and must die, we experience all manner of tribulation, not the least of which are the pangs of conscience we suffer because of our sins.
And Jesus taught His disciples, both before today’s reading and in today’s reading, what they would suffer as Christians. He said, “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” (Jn. 15:19). And in today’s reading, “They will put you out of the synagogues” (Jn. 16:2), that is, you will be excluded from society, shunned, mocked, mistreated, and slandered by those who seek their righteousness apart from Christ. “Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (Jn. 16:2). This reaction to the Gospel makes no sense. “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it” (Eph. 5:29). Who would reject the thing that gives him life? And not only reject that, but reject and hate the person who even speaks of it? We preach Christ Crucified, and without reason the world sees that preaching as foolishness, and Christ is to them a stumbling block and a rock of offense, not that there is anything in Jesus that should make men scorn Him, but “men loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (Jn. 3:19). They don’t want to see that they have no righteousness of their own of which to boast. But by stubbornly remaining blind to their unrighteousness, men blind themselves also to their salvation. Jesus says, “But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause’” (Jn. 15:25).
Jesus doesn’t want us to be ignorant of how the world will receive His Christians. We think that everyone should believe in Jesus, that this is obvious, that it makes no sense at all to refuse the love of God, the mercy of the Savior, that it’s the height of folly to prefer hell to heaven and death to life. We’re right to think this. But Jesus sees a danger, and He heads it off at the pass in our reading. Yes, everyone should trust in Jesus for salvation, but if they don’t, we shouldn’t think that we’re therefore wrong. If we suppose that everyone is going to believe the Gospel―because why wouldn’t you?―then we might question the power of the Gospel or its truth when we see so many unbelievers. So Jesus specifically says, “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away” (Jn. 16:1). It doesn’t make any sense, but people are going to hate Jesus, hate the Gospel, hate the Church, hate you, and that’s just a fact. So don’t let it mislead you into thinking that the Gospel is wrong just because many people who should believe it don’t. Not man’s faith nor his unbelief can make anything true or false. Our faith doesn’t determine reality. Jesus determines reality, and man either believes rightly or wrongly about what is objectively true.
But returning to the previous point: while our day and age might seem like the most uncomfortable and troublesome time in the Church’s history, it’s not, but we remember that time today. It’s the time between Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, which we celebrated last Thursday, and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, which we celebrate next Sunday. That was the most uncomfortable time in the Church’s history, the ten days when Jesus had ascended into heaven, and the Holy Spirit had not yet come. The disciples kept within closed doors and were timid. But that time has come to an end. Today we dwell on our Lord’s words about the Holy Spirit, whom we have now received, and while Jesus makes known the hostility we will face from the world, He also makes us know that the raging of the world is no match for the Holy Spirit.
Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the “Helper” in today’s reading. We heard Jesus use this title for the Holy Spirit two weeks ago: “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” (Jn. 16:7). You’ve probably heard the word “Paraclete” before as a title for the Holy Spirit. That’s the Greek word which gets translated as Helper in the reading, and which also gets translated variously as Comforter, Mediator, Advocate. A paraclete is someone who stands at your side, who’s got your back, who’s got your front, who defends you, comforts you, encourages you, sticks up for you, fights for you.
How does the Holy Spirit do this? By telling the truth and by bearing witness about Jesus. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of Truth,” because He makes known what is true over and against every lie told on earth. And Jesus says, “He will bear witness about Me” (Jn. 15:26). This is how the Holy Spirit is your Helper. The Holy Spirit speaks the truth and bears witness to Jesus through the witness of the apostles, as Jesus says to the apostles, “And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning” (Jn. 15:27). We have the eyewitness testimony of the apostles in the New Testament, and the Holy Spirit works mightily through this Word to make truth prevail over the lie and to loudly proclaim Christ, which is His help to us and why Jesus calls Him the Helper.
You’ve experienced this help of the Holy Spirit amidst many lies that would bury Christ. The devil comes to you and holds up your sins before your eyes and rubs your nose in them and tells you that there’s no hope for you, that all is lost, that you’ve tested grace beyond all limits and none is left for you. But then the Holy Spirit testifies, “The blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin (1 Jn. 1:7). Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (Jn. 1:29). God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (Jn. 3:16). But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:11).” “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). Thus the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, speaks the truth and bears witness to Jesus inwardly to comfort the troubled conscience.
The Holy Spirit also speaks the truth and bears witness to Jesus outwardly in the world through the preaching of the Word. How many lies of the world have you heard exposed while sitting in these pews? The world tries to make you feel bad for not practicing its virtue signaling, finding fault with you because you won’t use its vocabulary, nor approve its sins, nor walk in its ways. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn” (Mt. 11:17). And the world lashes out and puts you out of the synagogue and thinks it would be doing its false god a service by ridding the earth of you. But the world fails. It might kill a Christian, but it can’t stop the Holy Spirit’s tongue. Jesus says, “He will bear witness about Me,” and He will. Satan has been trying to silence the Holy Spirit’s truth-telling and testimony for two thousand years, and yet “The Word they still shall let remain / Nor any thanks have for it” (LSB 656:4). The Gospel isn’t going anywhere, the Holy Spirit isn’t going anywhere, and it is one of the great comforts of the Holy Spirit to know that we will never lack the saving witness about Jesus Christ our Savior.
Now when you suffer the enmity of the world, you do well to remember what the Apostle Peter wrote, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Pet. 4:12-13). Jesus said the world was going to hate you, and it does. But the enmity of the world shouldn’t leave us pessimistic about life. The enmity of the world is actually a cause of hope and joy. Consider this: when mankind sinned, God could have simply consigned us to the devil and hell. We would have gone through life without any enmity from the devil, because we would have belonged to him. But our great hope of salvation is that God brought enmity, that He didn’t simply stand by and watch us depart to eternal death, but cursed the devil and said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15). That enmity was a comfort, because it meant that someone fought against the devil for us. If there hadn’t been any fight, we would have been lost eternally. But God put the enmity there because He desired to save us. So when you experience enmity and hostility from the world, tell yourself, “The only reason the world is my enemy is because Jesus came for my sake to be the devil’s enemy and fight him and conquer him, and He has. The world only rages because I have a champion, and He has redeemed me and made me His own.”
Now while we’re on the topic of enmity, I would like to point out a trick that the devil tries to pull on us, and it shows that we must understand clearly who our enemy isn’t. This is of great importance: We are not each other’s enemy. No one who is a Christian and loves the Gospel is an enemy. The unbelieving world is an enemy, who wants to excommunicate and kill you. The devil tries to get us horribly confused about this. He wants you to regard your brother in Christ with more hostility than you regard the world, and to regard the world as if it’s your friend. The world is blaspheming the name of Jesus, trying to kill us, trying to corrupt our children, and yet our sinful hearts care more about some mis-taken word or action from a fellow member of the body of Christ and find it easier to regard one of the redeemed as an enemy, and stew about him, than to see him as a dear brother. Lord, have mercy! But I’ll say it again: We are not each other’s enemy. We are built together as the living stones of God’s house in which the Holy Spirit dwells. We are blood relatives under the shelter of Jesus’ nail-pierced hands. We join our voices in calling ourselves poor, miserable sinners, in praying God for forgiveness, in praising the Lord for His grace, in kneeling at the altar. We stand together under the world’s death sentence, and at the last will stand together alive over the graves in which we were buried and will dwell with each other and with our God in blessed peace for eternity. That’s the truth of who we are in Christ Jesus, which blessedly contradicts the devil’s lie, and the Holy Spirit speaks to us that truth.
Next Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, and the occasion loses nothing when we hear about the Holy Spirit’s work ahead of time. But what you heard Jesus teach about the Holy Spirit today, and for the past couple weeks, you will see demonstrated next Sunday. May the Lord preserve you in His grace until then. Amen.