Sermon for Saturday, May 18, 2024

“When the Spirit of Truth Comes”

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)

The text for our meditation this evening is the Gospel lesson read a few minutes ago. You are welcome to look at it, together with me, as it is printed in your bulletin.

In our text, Jesus, on the night before His death, is continuing to prepare His disciples for all that is to come. He says, “Now I am going to Him Who sent Me,” - the Heavenly Father. We do properly focus on Jesus’ words from the cross: “It is finished” - for through His suffering and death, Jesus paid the price for the forgiveness of all of our sins and the sins of the whole world. Jesus has done it all. We do not have to make partial payment for our sins, by ourselves, by things we also need to do.

But there was still more to happen before Christ’s saving work was completed. As Paul wrote later, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead” (I Corinthians 15:17-20). We have just spent seven weeks celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. His disciples and many others had seen Him alive, and later on, Paul had seen Him alive, as well. Jesus had conquered death for us, too, as part of His saving work. Death was not the end but the beginning of a whole new life for us who trust in Him.

That became evident in one last part of Jesus’ saving work - His ascension into heaven and return to His Heavenly Father. He ascended as a true man into heaven, showing that we human beings can also be in heaven with Him when we die, and we have His promise that on the last day, our bodies will be raised and changed and glorified for eternal life, as well, even as happened with Jesus’ resurrected body.

And, of course, Jesus ascended into heaven as the true Son of God, also, and had His full power and glory restored, that He had given up, at least partially, to come to this earth to do His saving work. That meant that though His specific work of saving us was now complete, He also had the power to pray for us and answer our prayers and continue to bring help and blessings and His forgiveness to us.

In our text, Jesus says that He knows that the talk of His going away would cause sorrow to fill the hearts of the disciples, just as the departing from this life of our loved ones brings great sorrow. Still, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away… for then the Helper will come to you.” Jesus now turns the focus to the work of God the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the one true Triune God, Who is that Helper.

At the beginning of our text, Jesus said, “When the Helper comes, Whom I will send to You from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me.” The Greek word for “Helper” literally means someone who comes to the side of someone else and gives that person help and aid. The word is sometimes translated in different ways, depending on the kind of help needed - as a Comforter, a Counselor, a Defender, and an Exhorter - in short, as a Helper in many ways, as needed.

And did you notice that what is said in the 3rd Article of the Nicene Creed, which we will say in a few moments, is very similar to what Jesus says in this passage, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from (comes forth from) the Father and the Son”? Jesus says, “I will send to you the Spirit of Truth from the Father.” The Spirit proceeds (comes forth from) both the Father and the Son. And notice that Jesus says, “The Spirit will bear witness about Me.” Jesus says it again later in our text: “The Spirit will glorify Me, for he will take what is Mine. and declare it to you.”

The Holy Spirit is not especially interested in telling us about Himself. He is more interested in our hearing about and knowing and trusting in the saving work of Jesus. This is the Holy Spirit’s most important work, as we shall hear.

This is also why I have a book written by a fellow Lutheran, calling the Holy Spirit “the Half-Known God.” We know what a human father is and can make some connection with God our Heavenly Father. We know that Jesus was a real man, a true man, while here on earth, and we have books with pictures in them, imagining what Jesus might have looked like. And we know what a son is in connection with a father. But the Holy Spirit is more difficult to grasp. He is a real Being or Person, the third Person of the Triune God, but He does not have a body and we cannot see Him except by evidence of His presence and work.

At the Baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove. At Pentecost, there was the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and tongues as of fire came upon each of the believers, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, evidenced by the fact that they could suddenly speak in other languages that they had never learned and could communicate the mighty Word and works of God, in Christ Jesus, to people from many nations, who were in Jerusalem for Pentecost.

And the presence of the Holy Spirit was clearly evidenced by the results of that day of Pentecost, as well. We read in Acts 2:41 that “those who received the Word of God, spoken by Peter and the other believers, came to faith and were baptized, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls to the Christian church, the body of believers in Christ."

This is exactly what Jesus had predicted in our text. He had told the disciples, “You also will bear witness (about Me) because you have been with Me from the beginning.” But these were still weak, struggling disciples. There was much that they still did not know and understand. Even Jesus says, in our text, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

The death and resurrection of Jesus were life-changing for the disciples. They understood much more of what Jesus had been saying and predicting, but even then, Jesus had to teach them and teach them for 40 more days. And when he returned to heaven, He promised, “I will send the Helper, God the Holy Spirit, to you. And when He comes, He will convict (and convince) the world concerning three things, especially - concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

The disciples could and would be witnesses, but they could never convert anyone to faith by their own power.  The Holy Spirit could and did, through the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. As Jesus said, “When the Spirit comes, He will guide you into all the truth,” which the disciples then preached and taught and wrote down in the New Testament.

The Spirit then worked (and still works) through that Word of God to convince people,
first, of the reality of sin and their own sin - sin so serious that they cannot overcome it on their own, no matter how hard they might try. The answer for them is never in their own efforts and righteousness.

Their hope is only through belief in Jesus and His righteousness, earned for them. Jesus could go to the Father because He did His Heavenly Father’s will and lived perfectly and paid for all sins. Now, all those who have been brought to believe this and trust in Jesus and His saving work will also go to the Father, through Him and His righteousness for them, and to eternal life.

The remarkably good news is that those who believe in Jesus as Savior, including us, escape judgment for their sins through Him. Instead, it is Satan, “the ruler of this sinful, evil world,” where so much is wrong - it is Satan who is judged and condemned, along with, sadly, all those who resist and reject Jesus and do not trust in Him and then continue in unbelief until they die.

Until then, of course, there is still time and opportunity for more to come to faith through the Holy Spirit and what we call “the means of grace” - the channels by which God brings grace and faith and new life through the Holy Spirit’s work. This includes the Word of God and the Word of God connected with water in Baptism and the Word of God connected with bread and wine and the promises and presence of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.

That’s why it is so important that we keep listening to and studying God’s Word and receiving the Sacraments and remembering our baptism so that the Holy Spirit can keep our faith strong; and then that we keep pointing others to Christ and His Word and His good gifts, as well.

But again, we don’t convert people. The Holy Spirit does. The Scriptures say, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ (and believe it and trust it) except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). And again, the Scriptures say, “The natural person (apart from the Lord) does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (foolishness) to him… for they are spiritually discerned (understood).” But we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit Who is from God, that we may understand (and believe) the things freely given us by God, through Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:12-14).

Though some may call the Holy Spirit the “Half-Known” God, how important He is for us all, for He has connected us to Christ and His saving work through the Word and Baptism and keeps us in that faith.

Let us pray: Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds safe, only where they are safe, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)