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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
In Greek literature, the students of the Athenian philosopher Socrates, who died from drinking hemlock, are said to have felt orphaned by Socrates’ death (Seesemann, TDNT 5:488). In today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord Jesus told His disciples, whom verses earlier He had called “little children” (John 13:33), that He would not leave them as orphans but would come to them. In our lives today, no matter what makes us feel abandoned or defenseless, including being bereft of a teacher or another loved one, such as a parent, we also can be sure that, when it comes to our Triune God, we are “Not orphaned but indwelt”.
Immediately following last week’s Gospel Reading (John 14:1-14), today’s Gospel Reading is again part of Jesus’s extended teaching on the night when He was betrayed, what is often called His “Farewell Discourse”, appropriate for us as we prepare for both the Ascension of Our Lord on Thursday and Pentecost ten days later. The Divinely‑inspired St. John records more than three chapters of Jesus’s talking with His disciples about such things as Jesus’s going to the Father and sending the Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus refers to with the Greek term parákletos, which the English Standard Version that we heard read translated from Greek into English as “Helper” (confer also NASB, NKJV), but which word is also translated as “Comforter” (KJV, ASV, AAT), “Counselor” (NIV), or “Advocate” (NEB), though perhaps the word is best left untranslated and instead transliterated as “Paraclete” (so, for example, Ridderbos, ad loc John 14:12-24, pp.500-504).
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus told the disciples and tells us that, if we love Him, then we will keep His commandments, and that He will ask the Father, and the Father will give us another Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, Who dwells with us and is in us. Not only will the disciples and we have the Holy Spirit, but Jesus also says that He will not leave the disciples or us as orphans but Himself will come to us and dwell in us, as also the Father will love us and dwell in us. So, we are “Not orphaned but indwelt” by all three Divine Persons of the one Blessed Trinity. However, as Jesus’s disciples’ emotional response to His telling them that He was going away kept them from appreciating what He was saying, so often our emotions can keep us from appreciating what Jesus said.
Under “normal” circumstances in the world, we might feel abandoned or defenseless, and the circumstances in the world right now seem anything but “normal”. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit continue to come as promised, but we may not always let them come to us individually, as they promise to do, or we may not always avail ourselves of their help, comfort, counsel, and advocacy. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we do not as we should “keep” Jesus’s “commandments”, whether we understand “keep” more as “obey” or “treasure”, or whether we understand “commandments” as His specific “precepts” or more broadly as His “teaching”. What should be outward evidence of our inward regard for Him can lead us to question whether or not we even love Him or believe in Him at all.
From those sins and from all of our sins, as from our sinful natures—which keep us on our own, like the world, from seeing, knowing, and receiving God—God calls and so enables us to repent. As St. Paul in today’s First Reading (Acts 17:16-31) told the men of Athens in calling them to repent, God has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness. For our sin, we deserve the judgment of eternal damnation, but, when we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, then God forgives our sin and judges us righteous in Jesus Christ.
The reason that Jesus at least initially was going to be separated from His disciples was because, out of God’s great love for the world, Jesus was going to the cross to die for the sins of the world, including for the disciples’ sins and for our sins. What we deserved on account of our sins, Jesus on the cross endured for us, in our place. Because God loved us, He sent His Son to be the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice, for our sins (1 John 4:10). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Peter 3:13-22), Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. The Son mediates between the Father and us, even interceding, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, for the Father to send the Holy Spirit. All three Divine Persons of the one Blessed Trinity are involved in our redemption, working together for us to have forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. And, we receive that forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation from God through His Means of Grace.
For example, today’s Epistle Reading, reminded us that, as Noah and his family were saved through water, so Holy Baptism now saves us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At the Font, with water and the word, God forgives our sins, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to us, as we believe His promises. There we are connected to Jesus and to the Father and the Holy Spirit; we are “Not orphaned but indwelt”! And, in the Sacrament of the Altar, we feed on Jesus—eating bread that is His Body given for us and drinking wine that is His Blood shed for us—and so we live because of Him (John 6:57). More than a sentimental subjective feeling of being united with our Triune God, here we objectively are united with Him and receive the Divine Majesty in ourselves (Smalcald Articles I:1; confer Stephenson, CLD XII:215). By God’s giving us the Holy Spirit through His Word and Sacraments (Augsburg Confession V:2), we with eyes of faith see God come to us and know that He lives in us. We personally experience Him especially as He deals with us through Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper.
With God so active in us who are forgiven, we love Him and keep His commandments. Despite suffering we might experience, we, in the words of today’s Epistle Reading, in our hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy and are always prepared to make a defense (or, to give an answer) to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us, and we give that answer so with gentleness and respect. Or, in the words of today’s Psalm (Psalm 66:8-20; antiphon: v.8), we tell what God has done for our soul, how we cried to Him with our mouths and how He truly listened and has not rejected our prayer or removed His steadfast love (or, mercy) from us. The sinful fallen world may well not receive our confession any more than it received Jesus’s confession. Our lives are bound up with His. We know as He said that because He lives, we also will live. The death of our bodies here on earth in time is but a step on the way in the ongoing life of our souls, both with Him in heaven in the interim and, eventually reunited with our glorified bodies, for all eternity.
Unlike Socrates’ students, but like Jesus’s disciples, no matter what, we are not abandoned or defenseless; we are “Not orphaned but indwelt”, by all three Divine Persons of the one Blessed Trinity. Here and now, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins, and we extend His forgiveness and our own forgiveness to one another and to the world. Our words and our deeds testify of His love for us and for all people. And, ultimately, as we sang in today’s Psalm, we bless our God, Who has kept our soul among the living and not let our feet slip; we let the sound of His praise be heard, now and for all eternity.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +