Sixth Sunday of Easter
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus has been showing us that He is truly risen from the dead. It is truly Him and He has conquered death under His feet. But in these last two weeks, we've been rewinding to talk about how Jesus spoke to his disciples before He suffered, died, and rose again. Jesus made it very clear to His disciples that He must go away.
But He goes away for a purpose. Like we said last week, He goes to prepare a place for you. And where is He going? And how can we know the way? He is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.
And then today, He tells us that it is to our great gain that He goes away. It's not great sadness that He will ascend into heaven as we will celebrate next week. It is our great joy. Jesus said in John 14:28, “If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father….”
And why can we rejoice? Why can we have comfort? Why can we have peace? Because He sends His Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper who will guide us in all of our ways. The Holy Spirit will bring to our remembrance all things that Jesus has spoken to us, as He promised.
And in this way, even though Jesus is gone from our eyes, He is with us as He promised His disciples at the end of Matthew 28. He is with us to the end of the age. He's with us in His Spirit. He's with us in His word. He is with us in His Holy Sacraments, the gifts that He gives to His Church. He said, "I will not leave you as orphans, but I will come to you."
And all of this He accomplishes through the work and power of His Holy Spirit, the Helper, the Comforter, whom He sends to you.
And that's the message we're going to focus on today from John chapter 14:
The Holy Spirit comes to you and brings you the Word of Jesus.
Who is the Holy Spirit? What does He do? And where do we find Him? Do I look for Him in some kind of ecstatic experience? Do I look to myself to find Him. There's often so much confusion in Christianity about the Spirit. But Jesus makes very clear in our reading for today who the Spirit is, what He does, and where we find Him. We definitely won’t find Him just be looking more deeply into ourselves. The Spirit comes to us in the gifts Christ gives His Church: the Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.
First of all, let's talk about who the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit is true God. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is not just the will or the power of God, but He is true God, as we confess in the Athanasian Creed, equal to the Father and the Son in respect to glory and majesty. He is eternal, just as the Father and the Son are eternal.
The Holy Spirit, as Luther tells us in the Small Catechism, is busy at work calling, gathering, enlightening, sanctifying His Holy Christian Church, and keeping us in the one true faith.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit, first that He calls us to faith. And this is necessary because like St. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, without the Spirit we are dead in our trespasses and sins. We have no power to rise to God. We have no power to come to Him or even believe in Him.
That's what Luther says in the explanation to the third article of the creed in the Small Catechism. “I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him.” It sounds like a strange thing for Luther to say in the Catechism, “I believe that I cannot believe….” What’s the point in saying that? Luther very intentionally makes this point because it shows that we are powerless to win our salvation or even come to faith by ourselves, and because it emphasizes God’s power in our salvation.
This is very important for us to emphasize today as well, because it is very common in modern American Christianity to exalt what I do regarding my salvation. Common phrases you’ll hear are, “Jesus did all this for you, and all you have to do is accept it.” or “Jesus did all this for you and all you have to do is make a decision to follow Jesus.” Doesn't sound too bad, does it? But when you realize what is actually being said here, you realize that even that accepting or making a decision to follow Jesus is giving yourself too much credit. It's taking a little bit of your salvation and making it your own doing. Saying that you accepted Jesus into your heart or made a decision to follow Jesus gives you the final responsibility and credit for your conversion and salvation.
To the contrary, Scriptures make very clear that you can accomplish nothing regarding your salvation by your own works. You can accomplish nothing regarding your salvation by your own power. What's your status before God according to your own work and power? Like St. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, you are dead. Like St. Paul says in Romans chapter 5, you are an enemy of God and opposed to His will.
So the Scriptures make very clear that if it were up to me and my own power, I would not accept Jesus. If it were up to me and my own power, I would not make a decision to follow Jesus. I would turn from Him and run the other way.
In reality, I need God to accomplish every aspect of my salvation. That includes even giving me faith. I need the Holy Spirit to call me to faith to destroy this stony heart and bring it to God. I need God to turn my heart to Him and win my salvation for me. I need God to give me faith to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. I need the Holy Spirit. And that is His work that He actively does in you and me and the entire Christian Church of all time.
Like Luther said, the Holy Spirit is calling us to faith, gathering us around the Word, and enlightening us by giving us understanding of the truth of Christ’s Word. The Holy Spirit actively works to guide you toward Christ, to take away errors from your understanding of who Jesus is, and to lead you into greater understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done for you.
The Holy Spirit sanctifies you. That means He makes you holy as the Lord your God is holy. And this is something that again we could not accomplish ourselves. By our own power, we cannot walk in the ways of Christ. It could only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit living and working in us every day of our lives.
And then finally, the Holy Spirit is busy at work keeping us and His whole Church in the one true faith. Because just like we would reject God without the Holy Spirit converting us, we would also leave God if it wasn’t for the Holy Spirit sustaining us in the faith. The Holy Spirit is living and active within you to keep you in the faith, strengthen your faith, and cause you to trust Christ and cling to Him every day of your lives. He strengthens your faith even as you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, and He takes you home to be with Him forever.
So, where do I find the Holy Spirit, and where do I receive all the gifts He wants to give me? Some people might answer that question and say that the Holy Spirit is found in ecstatic emotional experiences. Usually, I need to bring this about myself through extreme asceticism or by bringing myself into a frenzy of emotion through music or other experiences. Once I’m in enough of an emotional frenzy, then I’ll finally feel the Holy Spirit. That’s the bottom line in this view: the way I know the Holy Spirit is with me is by how I feel.
What's the problem there? The problem is that it's not really focused on the Holy Spirit and what He gives to us. It's really focused on me and how I feel. And dear friends in Christ, if my answer to the question of whether or not God is with me depends on me and how I feel, that's bad news for me and it's bad news for you. Because we feel different every day. There are definitely times when you feel great, and it seems like everything is going your way. And then you know as well as I do that there are times when you certainly don't feel that way. There are times when it feels like you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death itself. And maybe the question even creeps through your mind, how could God be with me here?
So, you don't want a Holy Spirit who's only with you on the mountaintop experiences when everything's feeling great. You need the Holy Spirit who's with you at all times and in all places. And if the Holy Spirit is going to be with you at all times and in all places, you need a stronger and sure foundation than just how you feel at any given moment. You need a stronger and more sure foundation than yourself. You need something outside of yourself. You need something objective, sure, and solid. And thanks be to God, that's exactly what you have.
Thanks be to God that that is exactly what you have in the promises of Jesus given to you about the Holy Spirit. How do I know that the Holy Spirit is with me? How do I know that God is with me? It's through the objective promises of Jesus. When Jesus was asked, “Lord how will you manifest yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” And then later He says of the work of the Holy Spirit, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” Whoever loves me will keep my word, and the Holy Spirit will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that Jesus has said to you.
So, is the presence of the Holy Spirit just dependent on how you feel? No. The Holy Spirit is given to you in the Word of Christ.
When you hear the Word of Christ, you know that the Holy Spirit, who is living and active, is working on your hearts and minds. When you hear the Word of Christ, you know that the Holy Spirit is calling you to faith, gathering you around the Word, strengthening you in the faith, and teaching you all truth.
Thanks be to God that it doesn't just depend on my ability to make myself feel the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God that the Spirit comes to me through the external Word of Christ because that's something that I cannot ever deny. I either heard the word of Christ or not. It. doesn't really matter how I feel about it.
And God is even more generous than this because He gives us these tangible ways that the Holy Spirit is placed upon us. In Holy Baptism, water combined with the Word and promise of Christ is placed on you, and the Holy Spirit is given to you in that baptism. And we heard in our Epistle reading from 1Peter 3 that Baptism not just a symbol. It's not just a removal of dirt from the body, but “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” In Baptism, God actually washes your sins away.
Like St. Paul says in Titus chapter 3, “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Holy baptism is the washing of the Holy Spirit, where the Holy Spirit washes away your sins.
Does it matter how I feel about it? No. Water was poured on my head, and I was baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I can't deny that it happened! I have the promises given to me in Holy Baptism of the forgiveness of sins and life forevermore. Thanks be to God.
In addition to this, we have the bread and the wine combined with the words and promises of Christ, making it His very body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. And the Holy Spirit is living and active and working through that to give you Christ to give you the forgiveness of sins to give you strength to life everlasting.
Does my feeling make it true or not? No. I received it with my own mouth. And Jesus said that it's his very body and blood for the forgiveness of my sins. So that's what I receive. Thanks be to God.
The Holy Spirit is living and active through the gifts that Jesus gives to His Church: The Word, Holy Baptism, and Holy Communion.
I don't have to wander around to find the Holy Spirit. I don't need to whip myself into some kind of emotional frenzy so that I feel the Holy Spirit. I need to go look for the Holy Spirit in the very places where he has promised to be the word of Christ, the gifts of Christ.
Sometimes people say that we don't talk about the Holy Spirit enough. And maybe you were thinking that even when you read the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, that it seems like He just gets that one line: “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” But then it immediately goes to: “I believe in the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints…”
Are we passing over the Holy Spirit when we do this? Dear friends in Christ Jesus, I don't think it's that we neglect talking about the Holy Spirit enough. I think it's that we talk about the Holy Spirit in exactly the way that He wants us to talk about Him. We talk about His role and work among us, which is to bring us to faith in Christ. As Jesus said, “He will bring to your remembrance all things that I have spoken to you.”
The Holy Spirit is always bringing you Christ, giving you the forgiveness of Christ, giving you Christ's life and salvation. So, do we talk enough about the Holy Spirit? Well, the whole reason that you're here right now is because of the Holy Spirit. Your whole life, from Baptism into Christ to holy death in Christ, is the work of the Holy Spirit. Everything that we do in this church service, from the invocation to the benediction, is the work of the Holy Spirit as he gives you the word of Christ, as He calls to your remembrance all things that Christ has done for you and said to you, and when He gives you Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The Holy Spirit lives to give you all things Christ has won for you. Thanks be to God for the gift, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
Amen.
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