John 14.8-17

Pentecost | June 05, 2022 | John 14.8-17 | Carl A. Voges |

The Passage

Philip said to him (Jesus), “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?  Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells I me does his works.  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

“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.”                                                  [English Standard Version]

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.“                      [Romans 8.16-17]

In the Name of Christ + Jesus our Lord

For ten days now, the Lord’s people have been positioned between the festivals of Ascension and Pentecost; we have been waiting for and anticipating the gift of the Son’s Holy Spirit.  Because Jesus had promised the gift of his Spirit to his followers, the daily prayers of those ten days heightened that anticipation.  In those prayers we thanked the Father for glorifying his Son through the Ascension and for sending us his Spirit.  We also asked him to open the way to eternal Life with the Holy Trinity.  Further, we asked that, as we share in the gift of his Spirit, it would increase his agape (his unique love) in our lives, causing our faith and trust to grow more strongly.

Today this anticipation, this waiting, is over; throughout the Church the Lord’s people are exulting in the gift of the Holy Spirit!  This is a gift that, initially, pours from Baptism, then continuously from the Scriptures and the other Sacraments of Forgiveness and Eucharist!  This anticipated gift literally takes our breath away (the breath of the world’s oxygen) and fills us with the Spirit’s Breath (the oxygen that comes from eternity and runs on into eternity)!

This is the Day of Pentecost, the festival in which youth in their early teens from many parishes take part in the Rite of Confirmation.  This Rite confirms the promises that were spoken by the parents and sponsors of these young people at their Baptisms when the Holy Spirit was poured out on them.

After the opening section of John’s fourteenth chapter finishes in which Jesus is conversing with his followers, Thomas says they don’t know where Jesus is going and they wonder if they can determine his way.  Then, as today’s Gospel begins, Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father and that will be sufficient for them.  From another perspective, it is striking how the Pharisees argued with Jesus about his connection with the Father  (he was continually pointing it out; they were continually denying its reality!).  Jesus complains that he has been with his followers for three years and they still do not know him!  Philip is reminded that those who see Jesus have seen the Father.

Jesus asks if they do not believe he is in the Father and the Father in him.  He notes that the words he speaks are not on his own authority; the Father who dwells in him carries out his works.  Jesus encourages them to believe he is in the Father and the Father is in him; he also encourages them to believe because of the works they have seen.

He points out that those who believe in him will also do the works he is doing.  The works will be even greater because Jesus is going to the Father (his work of redemption for the world’s people is completed in his Ascension).  Further, whatever we ask in his Name, Jesus will do so the Father may be glorified in the Son!  Thus, if we ask anything in Jesus’ Name, he will do it!

Jesus goes on; if we love him (the Greek word here for “love” is agape), we will keep his commandments.  Jesus asks the Father to give his followers another Helper to be with them forever.  He is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him (the world is hampered because it is always wrapped in its own life).  Jesus’ followers, though, know the Spirit because he dwells with them and will be in them (this is what happens when those followers are surrounded steadily by the Lord’s holy places of the Scriptures and Sacraments).

This passage, then, details three significant realities about our lives in the Holy Trinity: first, if one wants to see the Father, one needs to look to Jesus; second, recognizing Jesus’ oneness with the Father (that is, believing and trusting them) leads to Jesus’ works; and third, the one who loves Jesus is enabled to keep his commands.

The years of instruction that result in the confirming of one’s baptismal promises is not easily done.  The lay assistants and pastors are attempting to communicate a reality from eternity to minds that cannot fully absorb the meaning and depth of this reality until they are ten or twenty years older.  Such attempts, though, are not futile and should not be scrapped.

Recall how these young people were baptized without being aware that they had been drawn into the Life of the Holy Trinity and yet, thirteen or fourteen years later, are having the impact of that day break in with fresh meaning (it ends up being the most important day of their lives!).  Remember, too, that a similar cycle will play out in their lives with the  confirming of their baptismal promises this morning; ten and twenty years from now this day will surround their lives with a great deal of meaning.

From Baptism until now their lives have been surrounded with parents and godparents who kept them mindful of what occurred on their baptismal day.  From Confirmation on their lives will be surrounded with significant adults who will keep them aware of what is happening today.  The conversations they have with such people will enable them to grasp more and more fully of how Jesus’ Spirit drenches our lives with the Life of the Holy Trinity.

This occurs even though the Holy Spirit is beyond our reach.  Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus described the Spirit like the wind, we don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.  This reminds us that we cannot manage or control the workings of the Holy Spirit.  In reality, the Spirit shapes, guides and powers the lives of the Lord’s people.  The Spirit comes only from the Lord’s holy places of the Scriptures and the Sacraments of Baptism, Forgiveness and Eucharist.  One does not look for him inside ourselves or inside the world or inside the significant people in the world.

The Lord’s holy places move us beyond the five senses of hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting to the eternal realities of the Holy Trinity (remember the world measures everything by the five senses!). The Lord’s places move us from the temporary life of this world to the permanent Life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The holy places move people from being full of themselves to being selfless!

The conversations these young persons will experience over the next ten or twenty years with those who are maturing in the Holy Trinity’s Life will not be the only ones.  They will also be in conversation with those whose participation in the Church’s life is uneven or doesn’t happen.  The world’s life is attractive, especially when we are making our way through our teens and twenties.  There are thousands of gods in such a world and their appeal is that they are always focusing on ourselves.  We naturally think, well, what can go wrong?  Plenty of wrong, my friends, plenty!

When we concentrate on ourselves and use only the world’s gods as our support, then the world’s life turns ugly and destructive.  It dawns on us that the world’s promises are not always delivered, that its satisfactions are, at best, temporary.  When we’re hammered by

such painful and disruptive reality, we find out it is the Church’s task to faithfully proclaim the Life of the Holy Trinity so that the attractive yet terrifying life of the world can be pierced and its people rescued from its numbing and horrifying realities.

Such a proclamation will occur in the vital conversations between the young persons confirming their baptismal promises today and the significant adults who will be an important part of their lives over the next ten or twenty years or beyond.  These conversations will be undergirded by the mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit.   What is said will not have to be created and maintained by our own skills and efforts.  The conversations, instead, will be driven by our exposure to the Lord’s holy places.  It is from them that the Spirit will work the Trinity’s Life into their lives along with our own.

As we participate in these Spirit-stimulated and Spirit-guided conversations, we will be led to see how all the messes in the world’s life, along with the messes in our own lives, have their origins in this instinctive desire to have all of life wrapped up in ourselves.

This sin has people choking on the gods the world dangles in front of them; these gods claim that suffering can be avoided, that the Son’s resurrection is a dismissive reality, that repentance from sin and forgiveness for sin is not needed.

Having been rescued themselves from such thinking and choking, the adults surrounding the lives of these young people can engage one another in conversations stirred by the Spirit.  Such a proclamation will give these persons a fresh look at the real Life of our Lord and God, enabling them to see the world’s life differently and to be drawn into the Life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

May today’s gift of the Holy Spirit stir all the Lord’s people to be mindful of the Scriptures and the Sacraments, increasing our exposure to them while deepening the conversations we are privileged to have with the LORD God and one another!

Now may the peace of the Lord God, which is beyond all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus our Lord

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