John
14:8-27
Scripture:
Philip
said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus
said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not
know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the
Father’? 10 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; but the
Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am
in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me
because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the
one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do
greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I
will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the
Son. 14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
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.” 22 Judas
(not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to
us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “Those who
love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to
them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me
does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the
Father who sent me.
25 “I have said these
things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate,
the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you
everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world
gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Sermon:
When I was thinking about my sermon over
the course of this week, I came to a startling realization. I didn’t know what
“Pentecost” was. Sure I knew that it was the day when we celebrate the story of
the Upper Room. A story where the disciples are gathered together, after Jesus’
ascension, and a strong wind breaks in through the windows and suddenly flames
of fire appeared above everyone’s heads. When I was a little boy I always
imagined that must have made some bald guy really happy!
So then, after everyone gets their
flame-on, a lot of them go outside and talk to people in languages that they
didn’t know before. Everyone is, of course, startled. But Peter gets up and
delivers a sermon and a bunch of people get saved. This was the coming of the
Holy Spirit. But as I was preparing for this week, I realized that I had no
idea why that had anything to do with Pentecost. I kept asking myself, “What
five things are costing someone something?”
So I did some reading and discovered some
pretty interesting things. One of the interesting things I found is that
there’s a sharp distinction between a Jewish Pentecost and a Christian one.
“The Jewish Pentecost was a harvest feast that commemorated the covenant and
was assigned to the fiftieth day after Passover.”[1]
The Passover is that time when the descendants of Abraham were stuck in Egypt
as slaves and God instructed them to make a sacrifice and put blood over the
posts to their front door in order to avoid a plague – story that symbolizes
God’s provision and work of deliverance for his people.
But to get back on point, the Jewish
Pentecost happens fifty days after Passover. So let’s think now… What were we
doing fifty days ago? We were celebrating Easter!
At the time Jesus was alive Passover
wasn’t just a one day thing. It went on for a while and that’s when Jesus was
crucified and resurrected. So it is perhaps quite understandable that early Christians
would draw a direct connection between Passover and the Resurrection. The
harvest feast that occurred fifty days after the Passover wasn’t really all
that important anymore, because the preceding and more significant holiday had
changed. For Christians it was Easter.
So by the time we get to the year 300 AD,
Pentecost had also become a Christian holiday. So much so that the Council of
Elvira prescribed that we should all celebrate it.[2]
But this new, reinterpreted, holiday was a bit different. Initially, it wasn’t
really separated from Ascension Sunday (last week) when we recognize Christ’s
ascension to heaven. But by the time we get a little further on it focused in
on the story many of us are probably familiar with – the account from Acts.
One thing we might not remember though, is
that Pentecost Sunday is the last day of the Easter season. You see Pentecost
literally means “fifty days” and for a couple thousand years now, or at least
1700, Christians have celebrated Easter as a season for fifty days following
the actual day we think of. In this time we’re supposed to be joyous and
reflective on how we too will be resurrected. And it concludes with this day,
today, where we in many regards recognize the birthday of the Church – the day
when the Holy Spirit descended and inhabited the Church.
Consequently, there are a number of
scriptures that are used on this particular occasion. As most of you probably
realize, there are some scriptures that fit occasions better than others. One
of the popular prophecies that’s used refers to the time when the church will
become the anti-Babel, an assembly of formerly divided human beings who have
been united by the work of the Spirit. As one early commentator wrote, “the
Spirit brought all the estranged races into unity and offered to the Father the
first fruits of all the peoples.”[3]
The second Old Testament text that’s usually used refers to the time when the
Spirit will write a new law onto the hearts of human beings. The third,
prophecies to a day when the gift of the Spirit will cause a new people of God
to rise from the dead.
The passage I decided to have read before
us today records Jesus’ promise that the disciples will not be left alone. Its
words of encouragement tell us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to
you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” We hear about peace precisely because
Jesus wants to alleviate any tension or anxiety about a lack of guidance
following his ascension into heaven. He wants to console his disciples and let
them know that they won’t be alone – that the Spirit of God will reside with
them and guide them in obedience and in truth. To my eyes, the passage seems to
imply that obedience and truth exist together simultaneously – codependent,
interrelated, and dialectical. To be obedient one must think, but to think
clearly one must be obedient. But in both cases, we will fail unless we are
given outside help – the work of the Holy Spirit.
So it seems to me that this passage is a
message of comfort precisely because it’s a moment when Jesus tells his
disciples that they don’t need to fret or worry over their ability to follow
and be obedient once Jesus is gone. God’s presence and guidance never leaves
our side. Instead, we can rest assured that the Holy Spirit rests with us and
helps guide us towards the best decisions we can make, so long as we open our
hearts to a state of obedience and searching.
In some ways, I think that a theology of
the Holy Spirit inevitably leads to a theology of humility. When we learn and
think about the work of the Holy Spirit, we learn about our own incapacities to
live a righteous life apart from grace both individually and collectively. We
learn about our limits and the way God acts in our lives to overcome of
deficiencies and heal us. The Holy Spirit dwells with us precisely so we can
grow into and participate within that weird thing Jesus always referred to –
the Kingdom of God. If we let it, the Holy Spirit will lead us towards a place
within God’s continuous work of recreation and rejuvenation.
As some of you know, my father’s family
has deep roots in the Assemblies of God. My father and I went to the oldest
Assemblies of God college in the country –Bethany University. When he went
there it was called, Bethany Bible College. So I would say that I’ve spent a
lot of time in Pentecostal chapel services and services. As the name even
implies, Pentecostals take Pentecost very seriously. They celebrate it because
they think it can be a call to revival. If you’d like, we can have a
conversation about ‘tongues’ and all that rather eccentric stuff a later on.
But needless to say, I don’t consider
myself Pentecostal. I was always the kid who sat in the back of chapel and
cracked jokes with the debate team. For many people, it’s a tradition rich with
emotional appeal – it brings the heart into a wondrous cornucopia of feelings,
both highs and lows. But for me, I also tend to think that it’s a tradition
that lacks a life of the mind. Some within it are trying to become more
thoughtful and many others are trying to take the Bible seriously. The details
of their internal fight between Evangelicals (who are driven by the missionary
community) and the Fundamentalists (who are driven by American mega-churches)
is their own thing and something we could talk about later if you’d like.
But there’s one thing I think the
Pentecostals get right and that’s the significance of Pentecost. I think that
focusing in too much on the flames of fire and tongues thing might miss the
point a bit, but the recognition and reorientation around the event seems
appropriate to me. It’s the day when the Spirit of God descended to dwell with
humanity. It’s the day when the Church gained the guiding voice, not just of
the scriptures, but of the Spirit which propels us – if we let it – towards all
things good. It’s the day when peace came to dwell in our hearts because we
know that God stands within and among us. So in this respect then, I think that
it’s a glorious holiday – the last day of the Easter season. It’s a time to
celebrate.
So I’d like to conclude with a poem from
T.S. Eliot entitled Little Gidding:
. . . The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one dischage from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire . . .
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire . . .
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