United in His Name
St. John 14:23-31
June 9, 2019 anno Domini – Redeemer
We’re still feeling the effects of the Tower of Babel. The people wanted to make a name for themselves. They did not want to do what God had commanded them to do – be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. To be fruitful requires marriage. Marriage requires sacrifice. If God wills it, marriage results in children. Children require sacrifice. Who wants to sacrifice? Who wants to love others more than yourself? Who wants to serve instead of being served? Not them. Not us. Not me.
When you go against God’s Word don’t be surprised when you have trouble. God confused the language of the peoples. Maybe they all spoke German in the beginning, but all of a sudden some of them spoke Swedish, and Norwegian, and Finnish. The Germans could get anything done with the Swedes and the Fins couldn’t work with the Greeks. What God had originally joined together, their sin tore asunder.
We are a divided people. Children hate their parents. Husbands and wives shred each other within marriage. Employees complain about the company that gives them their paycheck. Politicians serve themselves instead of serving electorate. Sin divides us because sin is essentially “wanting to make a name for myself.” This is how perverted sin is. We imagine that if everything goes my way it will lead to peace and happiness. Instead it leads to division, loneliness, and pain.
For our divided families, divided land, for our isolation and loneliness Pentecost day brings us great joy. The Holy Spirit brings us together by bringing Jesus and His gifts. In the name of Jesus we are reunited with the Father and with each other.
On the night when Jesus was betrayed He said to His men “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25–26, ESV)
If you read verse 26 in different translations you would see a variety of words to describe the Holy Spirit. The ESV says Helper. Others say, “Counselor, comforter, advocate.” Some even leave the word untranslated and use the Greek word Paraklete. “Para” means alongside – like parallel lines – two lines beside each other. Clete is from the Greek verb callew – to call. Literally the Word means “Someone called alongside you.” Someone called to be with you.
Jesus is called a paraklete in 1 John. Saint John writes, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have (a Paraklete) an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (2:1) There the word is translated advocate and carries a legal connotation. You have been accused of breaking God’s Word. You are hauled before the judgment seat of God. There is nothing worse than being alone in your troubles, especially when you caused them. But Saint John tells us that you are not alone. Jesus is your advocate. His Father called Jesus to be with you. The Son of God is God with us – Immanuel. He becomes flesh. He is God with us – sitting with sinners when He walked the earth. God with us – healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead. He is most with us when He dies for our sins on the cross. For there He is more than a man like us, He is a sinner for us. He is the sinner for us. All the sin of the entire world is laid on Jesus. All of us and our sin are with Him on that cross and then He takes it away. Our sin is no longer with us. As far as the east is from the west so far is our sin removed from us in Christ.
Do you know what that means? You and I are never alone, never alone. Even if you are all alone in your life, God the Father is always with you, through His Son Jesus Christ. When you struggle with sin He is with you. When you doubt your faith He is with you. When the Devil is bothering and bullying you He is with you. Even in death He is with you. God is your Father through faith in Jesus Christ and that also means every believer in heaven and on earth is your brother or sister in Christ. When we are united to the Father we are also united to each other. What binds us together is not you becoming like me, but both of us becoming like Christ, Christians, sons of our Father.
When Jesus finished His work, He called another person of the Holy Trinity alongside of us – the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the helper, counselor, comforter and advocate.
How is the Holy Spirit with us? Interestingly He is not with us “spiritually” but physically. When people say they are spiritual, but not religious it really means they have no physical contact with God. They don’t pray to Him. They don’t hear His Word. They don’t gather with their brothers and sisters. They don’t see and hear Jesus. On that first Pentecost day the Spirit sent a mighty wind, flames of fire, took hold of 12 guy’s tongues, and gave them the miraculous gift of speaking in other languages. He used their lungs, their breath, and vocal cords to deliver Jesus into the ears and hearts of the people. The Spirit used a forgiven sinner named Peter, an impetuous, Christ-denying, sink in the water, cut off the ear man, to proclaim the death and resurrection of Christ to the Pentecost crowd.
That same Holy Spirit would be with those 12 men in a way that He is not with anyone else. Jesus said the Spirit would teach these men “all things” and “bring to their remembrance” all that He had said to them.” How do we know the Apostles write down the true and accurate Word and works of Jesus? The Holy Spirit was with them, called alongside of them for this. Note again – the physical nature of the Spirit’s work. You have God’s Word in ink, on paper. You have the story of God on your bookshelf at home. Jesus, the One who rose from the dead just as He said, sent the Spirit on these 12, so you would know exactly what He did and said for you.
In the days and nights surrounding His death, resurrection, and ascension Jesus gave His men some physical acts to do with the promise that the Holy Spirit would be with them and in them. These physical actions would deliver Jesus and the gifts of His cross to the world. He ordered them to baptize people of every age. He commanded them to preach repentance and forgiveness in His name to the ends of the earth. He told them to forgive the sins of those who repent and to withhold forgiveness from those who are impenitent. He told them to “eat His body” and “drink His blood” for the forgiveness of sins.
You brought your ears with you this morning, so you could hear the Word of God, spoken by the mouth of God’s man. You brought your mouth to eat and to drink Jesus’ true body and true blood. You brought your children to have water poured on their heads so they could be forgiven and adopted into God’s family. You brought your offering that the Holy Spirit’s work could continue in this place – so the pastor could eat and the building could stand and God’s house would be a fit dwelling for the Triune God and His children.
We’re a divided lot. Babel and our self-centered sin tell us why. What will bring us together? Jesus. You have been forgiven all your sins. Can you not forgive the sins against you? You have been loved into God’s family. Can you not love that stranger for whom Christ also died? Jesus gives you a peace that the world cannot give – He gives it by forgiveness, by His cross, by His love. You can give that peace to the world, by not making a name for yourself, but by confessing, forgiving, and loving. In the name of Jesus. Amen.