Sixth Sunday after Easter – May 17th, 2020 | John 14.15-21 | Richard O. Johnson |

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹ In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” [NRSV]

In our adult Bible class, we often run into interesting questions about translation. The Bible, as you know, was written originally in other languages—the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Translating these ancient languages into modern English is always a challenging task, since any given word or phrase in one language can often be accurately translated into another in several different ways.

And so sometimes I find it to be the case that a Biblical text I committed to memory years ago, maybe in childhood, when either the King James Version or the Revised Standard Version were commonly in use, is translated quite differently in more contemporary versions. That was true this week with a verse from the gospel lesson: “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says to the disciples. I was pretty sure that this verse used to say, “I will not leave you desolate.” So I started looking at different translations of the verse—a very easy task in the world of the internet. Sure enough, the Revised Standard Version—my Bible for many years—had it that way: “I will not leave you desolate.”

As I scrolled through several translations, I saw that there were generally three ways scholars have translated this verse: “I will not leave you orphaned,” “I will not leave you desolate,” and then “I will not leave you comfortless.” Sometimes when we are trying to discern just what the Biblical writer meant, it is helpful to think about all the possibilities. These three words are not all that far apart, really, but each has a particular shade of meaning, and the shades taken together help us understand what Jesus is saying here. So let’s consider them, each in turn, and see what we can learn.

Not as orphans

We’ll start with the most modern: “I will not leave you orphaned.” An orphan, of course, is a child whose parents have died. It isn’t a word you hear too often anymore, and it has a bit of Dickensian aroma to it—David Copperfield and all that. When I hear the word, I think of my great-grandfather, whose birthday was just a few days ago. When he was just a toddler, his father went off to fight in the Civil War, and he never came home. His mother died not long after, leaving grandpa, then age seven, and his two brothers. There was no family living nearby, and they were taken in by a neighbor until their uncle could come from California to fetch them. He brought them back to California by covered wagon; my great-grandfather recalled that he had to walk most of the way because there was no room in the wagon to ride.

It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it, a boy of seven, who has lost his parents, now being taken on a seven-month journey by an uncle he had never met to a place thousands of miles from home. That’s what it meant to be an orphan: to feel as if everything you love and know is gone.

There are times in life when that is how we feel, times when it seems that everything familiar has been taken away. Maybe it happens when a parent dies, or a spouse, or a child. Maybe it happens when a job is lost, or a home. But we know what it is to be orphaned.

And because we know it, the promise of Jesus is so very precious to us. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” There is that word of hope: you are not alone, however it may feel right now. I am coming to you. “Though he giveth or he taketh, God his children ne’er forsaketh.”

Desolation row

Or another translation, the one I remember: “I will not leave you desolate.” This next week is the 79^th birthday of Bob Dylan. Dylan was the poetic voice of my “baby boomer” generation, the one who perhaps most eloquently expressed the anxieties, the fears, the hopes we felt in our hearts in our youth.

And one of his most profound songs was called “Desolation Row.” It isn’t one that you ever heard much on the radio; it was anguished and rather difficult to understand. But there was one line that I think captures the meaning of that word “desolate”: “And someone says, ‘You’re in the wrong place, my friend. You better leave.’”

“You’re in the wrong place.” I imagine most of us know that feeling, that sense that we just don’t fit, that there’s no room for us where we are. It is a feeling of intense loneliness. And often on the surface everything seems to be OK; we go about our business, deal with life as it comes. But in the darkness of the night, we are overwhelmed by the feeling of not belonging—and worse, the feeling that all is for nothing, that all is lost.

The classic Biblical picture, of course, is Christ on the cross, and especially the anguished cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cross was indeed a place of desolation. And we know that place, too. Maybe we hesitate to compare our own experiences to the crucifixion, but we need not hesitate. When we are in that place where it seems even God has forsaken us, then we are participating in the desolation of Jesus.

And because we know that feeling of desolation, the promise of Jesus is so very precious to us. “I will not leave you desolate . . . In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” There is that word of hope; as Paul puts it in our first lesson: “He is not far from each one of us.” “Neither life nor death shall ever from the Lord his children sever.”

Comfort ye, my people

Or yet another translation: “I will not leave you comfortless.” Comfort is a concept that may lead us just a bit astray. We so often think of comfort in terms of physical well-being. “He makes a comfortable income.” “She has a comfortable home.” Or “that’s a comfortable bed.”

But that, of course, is not quite what Jesus means. The word originally meant “to strengthen.” You still get that sense if you think about “comforting” someone—it means to reassure them, to strengthen their emotions, to console them.

And we know that often the very best way to console someone who is grieving is simply to be there, to be present. A little girl was late getting home from school. When her mother asked what had kept her, she replied that her friend had lost her doll. “I had to stop and cry with her,” she said. She had it just right, of course. Often just having someone to cry with you is the very best consolation imaginable.

In verse 16 of our text, Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate.” There’s another translation quirk. The word translated “advocate” could just as well be translated “comforter.” He’s referring to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter with a capital C. What he means is that when we have sorrows, when we are lonely, when life seems tough, there is a Comforter, one who does whatever is needful. Perhaps it is to weep with us, perhaps it is to embrace us, perhaps it is just to sit quietly beside us.

And because we know the need for comfort, for consolation, this promise of Jesus is so very precious to us. “I will not leave you comfortless. The Father will give you another Comforter.” There is that word of hope, as we heard in this morning’s Psalm: “In truth God has heard me, he has attended to the voice of my prayer. You have brought me out into a place of refreshment.” “From all evil things he spares them, in his mighty arms he bears them.”

Orphaned, desolate, comfortless: it doesn’t matter how you translate it, the promise is still the same: “In him we live and move and have our being.” “He abides with you, and he will be in you.” “You will see; because I live, you will live also.”

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Grass Valley, CA

roj@nccn.net