John 14.15-21

Easter Six (Revised Common Lectionary) | 05.14.2023 | John 14.15-21 | Carl A. Voges |

The Passage

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And 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 or knows him.  You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

“I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, you also will live.  In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 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.”

    [English Standard Version]

“Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.“                                                     [1 Peter 3.21-22]

  In the Name of Christ + Jesus Our Lord

As we continue to make our way through the weeks of this Easter season, the Lord’s people are aware of the different realities around them – young people preparing to confirm their baptismal promises as the Pentecost Festival draws closer; illnesses disrupting the lives of friends, leading to healing either in this life or in eternity; members taking the time and energy to consider the future of their parish’s ministry; political life in this country being roiled in ways with which we are not familiar; the Lord’s saving and sustaining actions continually making their way into his parish communities through his Scriptures and Sacraments.

The Lord’s people, along with those who are not aware of his activity, also recognize that the world in which we live is a tense, absorbing and frightening place.  The realities of which we are aware (whether they be political or economic, personal or cultural, powering or controlling) often force us back into thinking we can break away from the fear and tension they are generating in our lives.

Thankfully, as we make our way through these weeks, we also have magnificent passages such as today’s Gospel slicing through them!  As we step into it, we literally gasp as it dawns on us what our Lord has done for us through his dying, rising and ascending!

Today’s Gospel is a brief passage, but since it is so loaded with meaning we are going to work through it phrase by phrase.  It opens with Jesus saying, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  The Greek word that Jesus uses for “love” is “agape.”  Recall that this is the unique love of the Father, the Son and the Spirit; it is displayed most concretely in Jesus’ Cross.  This “love” is poured out on the people who are not deserving of it.

The Greek word for “keep” means “fulfill” or “complete;” it includes a deep listening to the LORD God along with a faithful obedience to him.  What does Jesus mean when he’s talking about “commandments?”  “Commandments” are not simply the Ten found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5; they unpack the Life given us by the LORD God.

This unpacking includes the following:

The Father commands Jesus what to say and do

The Father commands Jesus to lay down his Life and to take it up

Jesus fulfills and lives out such commands, remaining in the Father’s love

The believers who come to Jesus and are his followers live their lives under Jesus’

commandment

Their obligation is a self-less love, patterned on the love that binds the Father, the Son

and the Spirit

The command that Jesus received from the Father is specifically displayed in his death

for the world’s people

The commands that Jesus received from the Father concern an entire way of Life

The commandments given by Jesus to his followers are THE way of Life with his love

streaming through all parts of it

There are individuals, though, who pull away from these realities or ignore them!

Jesus goes on, And I will ask Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever.  To make it possible for us to live in his commands, Jesus promises us a Helper.  “Helper” is also translated “Advocate,” “Paraclete,” “Holy Spirit.”

This is the first of five times in the Farewell Conversation of John’s Gospel where the Spirit and his work are mentioned.  The Spirit first descended on Jesus at his Baptism.

His work was displayed throughout Jesus’ three-year ministry.  Since the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ Spirit, he now carries on Jesus’ work in the world through the followers who are gifted with him at their own Baptisms.  There are individuals, though, who pull away from these realities or ignore them!

Jesus goes on, Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  Remember that “Truth” is the “revealing” of the only Lord and God who can save the world’s people.  The world, however, cannot grasp this because it is so involved with itself; it can see nothing or anyone else of significance.

There are individuals, though, who pull away from these realities or ignore them!

Jesus goes on, You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

We know the LORD God because he establishes a relationship with us through Baptism.

This relationship continues to swarm us through his Scriptures, his Forgiveness and his Eucharist.  There are individuals, though, who pull away from these realities or ignore them!

Jesus goes on, I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  “Orphans” appears to be an accurate description of his followers because of Jesus’ approaching death, resurrection and ascension.  However, he promises to keep coming to us from and through the holy places of his Scriptures and Sacraments.  Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension will make it possible for us to realize the Life-giving and the Life-sustaining bond that runs from the Father, Son and Spirit to their people.  There are individuals, though, who pull away from these realities or ignore them!

Jesus goes on, In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  Jesus will no longer be visible to the world; he will be visible, though, to his baptized people through the faith given them by Jesus’ Spirit. Because Jesus lives permanently, the baptized are given the same Life – unending and indestructible!  Such Life begins at Baptism, it deepens as we mature in its Life and it is completed when we pass through death into eternity!

“Knowing” this is not just a reference to the brain cells and the data they accumulate; it describes the intimate and deep relationship between us and the Holy Trinity – Baptism imbeds us in that Life!  There are individuals, though, who pull away from these realities or ignore them!

Jesus goes on, 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 them and manifest myself to him.  The first two lines of verse 21 restate lines of verse 15, but in reverse.  Both verses show that the love of Jesus and the keeping of his commands are but two different expressions of the living Life we have in him.  Those drawn into Jesus’ Life will live that Life out, driven and sustained by the love (agape) he has given them.  Those living in such faithfulness will be loved by the Father.

Through the Scriptures and the Sacraments, the Holy Trinity will love their people and continually reveal themselves to them.  Once the baptized receive Life from Jesus, they are able to recognize it is THE Life mutually shared by the Father, Son and Spirit.  Such sharing rests on keeping Jesus’ commandments and loving him.  There are individuals, though, who pull away from these realities or ignore them!

They are the ones who forget that Forgiveness begins with the words, “O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a troubled and penitent sinner, confess all my sins and iniquities with which I have offended you and justly deserved your present and eternal punishment…”

Confronted with Jesus’ Life and commands, they are the people who are so imbedded in themselves they either return to the life in which they were born (often after having been baptized) or who never leave the life of their birth.

For the persons who have been crushed by the realities of sin, Satan and death, however, but now recognize they have been rescued by their crucified and resurrected Lord (having been brought into the brilliance of his eternal Life) this reality of remaining in the world’s life or returning to it is hard to understand.  Don’t such people realize the world is using them with its attractive and sensible pitches, that the world will throw them away when it’s done with them?  The world seeks to overwhelm such realizations by protesting it is guilty of no such thing; the world insists that the best life comes to those who focus exclusively on themselves and we buy it!  Or is it more accurate to say – we bought it?

Those of us who have been choked and broken down by the unholy trio of sin, Satan and death know what it is like to have our lives crossed by the only Lord who can redeem us!

These people are also loved by Jesus’ Father.  Through Jesus’ Helper the Father will continue to deepen their lives in him.  When tempted to pull away from the Lord’s Life, they instead let Jesus’ Spirit plunge themselves into it!

Today’s Gospel reveals that we can pull away from or ignore the Lord’s holy places, but such thinking and doing is destructive and deadly.  Through this passage the LORD God is teaching us to let his holy places pierce such pulling and ignoring.  For it is in that piercing where we, along with the world’s people, find redemption!  It is that piercing where we, along with all the baptized people, find that we have been brought into the Life and the Love running between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Now may the peace of the LORD God, which is beyond all understanding, keep our

   hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus Our Lord

—

Pr. Carl A. Voges, STS, Columbia, SC; carl.voges4@icloud.com