Scripture: John 14:15-21
15 “If you love me, you will keep
my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he
dwells with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as
orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no
more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day
you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever
has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me
will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
The Beatles sang words of truth in 1967 when they sang, “All
you need is love.”
Jesus asked Peter on the lakeshore after a post-Resurrection
appearance the same question, three times in a row: “Do you love me?” “Do you
love me?” “Do you love me?”
If there was one word we could use that would perfectly
describe Jesus Christ, and there are many words which do wonderfully and
marvelously describe Jesus- “Savior,” “Messiah,” “Lord,” “God,” “Master,”
“Redeemer.” There’s one word, however, which sums up the existence of Jesus,
the ministry of Jesus, and the entirety of Jesus’ message and commandments, and
that word is “love.”
Jesus loved humanity so much that He came from Heaven and
died in our place to atone for our sins and returned to Heaven to prepare a
place for us there. While He was here on earth, Jesus gave us the Great
Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and
all your mind and all your strength, and love your neighbor as you love
yourself.” Jesus said the whole of all of God’s Law for humanity depended on this
Commandment: to love. Love God with everything you are, and love people just
like you love yourself.
Here in John 14, Jesus tells the disciples, “If you love me,
then you’ll keep my commandments.” Jesus’ commandments are to love God and love
people, everyone, everywhere, so if we are to show Jesus that we love Him, that
we appreciate His great sacrifice on the cross on our behalves, that we honor
Him as King and Lord and God, then we will love God with everything we are and
we will love our neighbors just like we love ourselves.
Jesus, at this point was getting His disciples ready for the
time after His death and Resurrection. Jesus was preparing the disciples for
what life would look like once He had ascended back to Heaven, departed from
the earth, the victory won. Jesus knew the disciples had a difficult task ahead
of them. For the past three years, they had the power and protection of God in
flesh among them as they ministered, and through that power, the disciples were
able to cast out demons and heal and help people in need. Once Jesus was gone,
though, He knew that the disciples would have to figure out how to spread His
Gospel without Him there to lead them, personally, in the flesh.
The disciples were unsure about what Jesus was telling them,
where He was going when He told them He would be gone from them. They
anticipated Jesus leaving, but continuing in life with them somehow, somewhere,
at the very least knowing that wherever He was they could make a journey to get
to Him physically. They didn’t understand that Jesus was about to willingly lay
His life down, to be crucified. They surely didn’t know that Jesus was about to
send them on a mission to spread the Good News of His death and resurrection
all around the world.
(Can you imagine trying to spread a message that would
reach all over the world so important that people would not only continue to
pass the word, but also devote their lives to it? Right now we might think, “I
could use social media and the internet and cell phones and news and television,”
but even then, if we only had a team of twelve people, how daunting, how
difficult, how tremendous would that task be?)
Jesus knew all of this, and He trusted in the disciples to
figure out how to begin the task of building God’s Kingdom, the Church of Jesus
Christ all across the world, but remember earlier, we described Jesus as
“love,” love completely, love incarnate, love total and sure and true, and
because Jesus is love, Jesus trusted the disciples to carry out the task of
spreading the Gospel, but He wanted to give them help, too, even if He would
not be with them physically.
So Jesus tells the disciples: “I will ask the Father, and he
will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You
know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
This word here Jesus uses, “Helper,” here. In different
Bible translations, this word is “Comforter,” or “Advocate,” but the Greek word
Jesus uses here is “parakletos,” which means a helper, an intercessor, an
assistant, an advocate to plead on one’s behalf. (Earlier in ministry when I
was working with youth, we had a big weekend trip to a regional youth rally,
and my binder for that weekend with all the information and emergency contact
forms and the Bible study we went through together, I took a piece of paper and
wrote, “Parakletos” and put it on the cover of the binder so that all through
that weekend, I could look down at that binder, which I had to carry nearly all
weekend long, and be reminded- I have the Ultimate Help living inside of me.)
Jesus tells the disciples He will send another Helper, the
Spirit of Truth, who lives and dwells inside of them, and Jesus has sent this
Helper for us, too- the Holy Spirit, indeed that Spirit of Truth. Jesus began
this passage in John 14 saying, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” How can
we know love and what love is and how to love and be love to others? How do we
as followers of Jesus know the love Jesus gives us so openly and freely? How do
we understand love? Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, the Truth, which lives inside
us to show us the way towards the ultimate truth- the love of Jesus, and how we
can show that love to others and how we can share that love with the world. We
literally have the Spirit of God living inside of us, helping us, guiding us,
just as God guided the disciples and has guided His Church for over 2,000
years. How can we not know love if we have the Holy Spirit’s guidance?
And yet- look at the world.
If we look at the world of Jesus’ day, the Roman Empire,
which controlled the majority of the ancient world, people worshipped the
Emperor as a God, gave taxes to worship him, and Rome had a state policy of
honoring all religions, the older the better. The Romans wholeheartedly adopted
the pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses, merely renaming them in their own
language, but anyone could practice any religion or all the religions they
wanted, so long as they affirmed the Emperor as God, too. The Romans did some
wonderful things for the world, but they were also technically proficient at
state execution and violence- things like the precision and accuracy of
crucifixion, the fighting and murder of slaves in the Colosseum, and after
Christ’s death, the wholesale slaughter of Christians in a state which claimed
to honor all religions. It took 300 years before the Roman Empire finally heard
the Gospel of Christ and made Christianity the official state religion. 300
years of panic and chaos and calamity for those who followed Jesus.
Or if we look at the world today- during this pandemic we’ve
seen love abounding everywhere, from essential frontline workers who have
braved the virus to care for patients and keep the food chain open for all of
us to the love and care we’ve all seen and felt from one another as we’ve kept
in touch, even if by phone or text or video. But chaos and violence continue to
abound, all over the world, even as the entire world is shutting down to deal
with the coronavirus. Crime continues. Poverty continues. Injustice continues.
Racism continues. Hatred continues. Here in the world of 2020, just like in the
ancient world, so many people do not and can not understand love.
Jesus tells the disciples this, too. He said, “The world
cannot receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, because it doesn’t see Him
or know Him.” The world, then in the age of Rome and the world now, today,
doesn’t know the Truth, they can’t know true love, the love of Jesus because
they don’t see the truth, even when it’s shouted from the rooftops. This is why
evil continues throughout the world. But Jesus had a plan- when He left to
return to Heaven, He would send the Holy Spirit to guide us and direct us- our
Comforter, our Advocate, our Guide here on earth, who would live inside of us
so that we could experience the truth from the very Source.
Jesus’ plan is for us to love Him wholly and completely. By
doing this, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, the Truth, and that
Truth shows us who love is and what love looks like, what love means. Jesus
plan is for us to continue the work of building God’s Kingdom here on earth,
started by Him and His disciples. We do that through loving God with all that
we are, our everything, loving all people all over the world, our neighbors,
and loving people by sharing with them the truth of Jesus’ sacrifice for them
so they can finally see the truth and know the truth for themselves, the Truth
of God’s love for His Creation, a love so great the Father sent the Son to die
as a sacrifice, a love so great the Son sent the Spirit to live within our
hearts and show us truth for ourselves, the truth of love.
One thing that every single person alive needs is love. It’s
how God built us. We were formed to love and be loved. Because of this, God
sent Jesus in the ultimate act of love to redeem us from going astray, from our
turning away from love. And because of Jesus’ great and abiding eternal love
for us, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to help us as we endeavor to love God and love
people here on earth.
Jesus ends this passage with these words: “Whoever
has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me
will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” We
have the commandments: love God with all our hearts, love our neighbors as we
love ourselves, and tell the world about Jesus. Now, our mission is to keep
them: to love God over and above everything else in our lives, and in turn,
Jesus promises us that the Father will love us, and Jesus, the Son will love us
and that He will send the Holy Spirit to us, and one day, Jesus promises us- we
will see Him face to face.
What a better gift of love could there be
for someone than to give them the gift of knowing Jesus, that they too might
one day see Jesus face to face in Heaven? I cannot think of anything more
wonderful.
Go now and see the truth, know the truth of
the Holy Spirit living within you, allow yourself to be guided toward love and
into love and share that love of God as it overflows from within you out into
everyone you meet.
It's that simple- love God, love people, make disciples. And
we can do it, because we have the Ultimate Helper living within our hearts- the
Holy Spirit of God!
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