Never Alone!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio this morning.]

John 14:15-21
Two stories, both true.

In the first parish I served as pastor, a member was badly hurt in an accident. For some time, his life hung in the balance, meaning many hours waiting in the hospital for his family and friends. His wife had just given birth to their third child and was breastfeeding him. Because she needed to be at the hospital with her husband, this meant that she often retreated to a janitor's closet there, usually with her sister-in-law, to use a pump to get the milk to be sent back home to her son. While she did this, her sister-in-law read to her from the Bible, Christ in Our Home, and Guideposts magazine. Between readings, they would pray together. The women came to see the janitor's closet as a cherished spot, a place where they were sure they met God. They even gave the small closet a name. They called it The Pump and Pray Room.

As I’ve told some of you, the first time I came to Saint Matthew to speak with the Call Committee, I did so almost on a lark. I felt little inclination to actually come here. I loved my former parish and though I sensed that it might be time for me to leave there, I was far from clear about where God wanted me to go. But after that first interview, I wondered whether what might be a lark for me was actually a call from God. I phoned Ann on the way home and summarized my impressions in two words: “Maybe. Maybe.” As the weeks passed, the sense grew stronger that this was where God wanted me to be. But I wanted to be sure. “God,” I prayed, “if I’m supposed to be at Saint Matthew, grant that Ann will tell me so.” Four weeks after my initial interview, Ann and I came here for a second conversation, her first meeting with the Call Committee. About halfway here from Cincinnati, Ann turned to me and said, “I think that if this whole thing can be made to work, you should take this call.” I was sure that God spoke to me in that moment. (Ann tells me that, if I will only listen, I can often hear what God is telling me when she speaks!)

Some people will hear those stories and dismiss them as mere coincidences. The women in their Pump and Pray Room, skeptics are likely to say, simply enjoyed one another’s company and the soothing words of Scripture. But, these skeptics would tell me, they didn’t really meet God. Similarly, the skeptics might say that Ann’s words to me weren’t guidance from God, just her opinion. The follower of Jesus Christ would say otherwise. And our saying so is more than wishful thinking.

Today’s Gospel lesson from John continues the words Jesus spoke to His disciples before His arrest. His ‘Farewell Discourse’ contained last minute instructions Jesus had for His followers as He looked ahead not just to His crucifixion and resurrection, but also to the days and years that would come after He ascended into heaven. Jesus wanted those first disciples—and you and me—to know that He would not leave His followers alone.

“I will not leave you orphaned,” He promises us. When we face the uncertainties of life, when we make decisions, when we wonder whether God can love us when we sin, this is an awesome promise to hold onto. God will never leave us orphaned! But how can it be true? How is it that the risen and ascended Jesus can actually be with us now?

In our lesson for today, Jesus gives two mega-promises to believers, promises that should tell us that when Christians sense that they’re being helped, guided, or accompanied by God, they’re not just reacting to coincidences. They’re experiencing God-incidences, juxtapositions of God’s presence and our needs that are very real.

I’ll talk about those two promises in a moment. But before I do, I need to point out something important about this passage. You may have noticed it already. It begins and ends with a condition for the promises Jesus makes. At the beginning, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” At the end, He says the same thing in reverse order: “They who love my commandments and keep them are those who love me.”

Now, folks, I don’t want to go too deep into the woods of Biblical scholarship. But it’s worth pointing out that whenever you have two similar verses bracketing a section of Scripture like this, it forms what the scholars call an inclusion, or an inclusio. Everything sandwiched between the two verses is related to them or amplify or explain them.

I once heard a preacher say that all the promises God makes in the Bible are like blank checks waiting for believers in Jesus to cash. The promises of forgiveness of sin and everlasting life for all who entrust their lives in Jesus Christ, for example, are promises that anyone who repents and follows Christ can cash. So too are the promises Jesus gives today. But in order to cash in on them, we must love Jesus by keeping His commandments.

Now, be careful here. Jesus is not rescinding what the Bible calls grace. There isn’t a single one of Jesus’ promises that we either deserve or earn. Every one of Jesus’ promises and blessings are free gifts we cannot earn.

Instead of concluding that Jesus is throwing grace overboard here, we need to pay close attention to the verb Jesus uses in both of those bracket verses. He talks about those who keep His commands as being the ones who truly love Him. Among the meanings of that word, keep, in the original Greek of the New Testament are: watch over, pay attention to, hold dear.

None of us can perfectly fulfill the commands Jesus or the Scriptures give. But every time...

you and I confess our sins together or in private, or
strive to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, or
forgive others as God forgives us, or
serve others as Jesus serves us...

we are paying attention to, holding dear, Jesus’ command.

We are living out our love and gratitude to the Savior Who died on a cross for our sins and rose from the dead to give us life.

We are, simply, giving first place in our lives to the Savior Who puts us first.

We are doing the hard work of loving Jesus each day.

All of this--holding Jesus' commands dear, striving to live our lives like Jesus--is the precondition for the two mega-promises Jesus gives in today’s lesson.

So, what are those promises?

First, Jesus says, to those who love Him and keep His commands, He will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. In the original Greek of the New Testament, the word translated as Advocate is Paraclete. That’s not to be confused with a little bird. The word paraclete means called alongside. The Holy Spirit comes alongside believers in Jesus and makes the presence and love and power of God unmistakably clear to them. Believers in Jesus can experience the presence of the Holy Spirit with alongside of them every single day.

One of my favorite preachers, Pastor Craig Barnes became ill soon after being called to serve as senior pastor of National Presbyterian Church. “I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” he told a magazine interviewer. “The elders and I were tempted to keep it a secret. But we told everybody, and soon many people were holding me before God in prayer. It was great to be spiritually ‘held’ by a congregation — it cast out fear. My illness has been a tremendous life-changing experience: I try to live in the gift of the day, and not count on tomorrow.”*

You see what happened? Barnes owned his need and soon, a whole church was calling the Holy Spirit to come alongside him and his family. The Spirit transformed his response to his illness...and his life!

This past winter, the senior pastor of a large Pentecostal congregation in Chillicothe took a turn for the worst in his long battle with a killing disease. Throughout his long illness, I’m told that this pastor preached brave, faithful sermons in which he pointed out that no matter if he lived or died, Jesus was still his loving Lord. It was announced to the congregation that this pastor’s condition had worsened and that he probably wouldn’t live for long. The announcement was made right at the same time one of this past winter’s big storms hit. Worship had to be canceled. But the people of this congregation wouldn’t allow some snow to prevent them from doing what they sensed God called them to do. And so, on the night of a blizzard, snow accumulating all around, hundreds of them went to the pastor’s house. One of them knocked on the door and told the pastor’s wife that they had come to pray for him, for her, and for their family. “But I can’t possibly welcome all of you into the house,” the pastor’s wife said apologetically. “We don’t want to come in,” the church member said, “We just sensed God wanted us to pray for you. That’s what we’re here to do.” They then circled the house and did just that.**

Can you imagine the comfort that pastor and his wife felt at that incredible moment? The Holy Spirit, the One Who comes alongside God’s people sent the members of that Church, to come alongside and give His comfort to two people who loved the Lord Jesus and kept His commands. That fulfilled the first promise Jesus makes in today’s lesson.

There’s a second promise in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus says, “I am coming to you.” He goes on to say, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me…” At one level, Jesus was telling His first followers that because they had believed in Him, because they had sought to love Him and keep His commands, they would see Him when He rose from the dead. Those who had rejected Him wouldn’t see Him. But at another level, He was saying that in succeeding history, the people who dared to believe in Him, people like you and me, would also see Him. Not physically. But in their lives, they would recognize His presence.

For decades now, many western European and North American Biblical scholars, skeptical about the Bible, have engaged in what has been called “the quest for the historical Jesus.” Some of these scholars claim to be able to decide what portions of the Bible are true and which ones are not. A few years ago, several of these scholars lamented “the fact that African-American scholars really have taken no interest in the on going discussion of the historical Jesus. A black pastor got up and said, ‘I have been listening to you worrying about why our people aren’t really talking much about the historical Jesus. You know, it is not a big issue in the black church. Because, you see, we ALWAYS knew who Jesus was!’” “We always knew,” he was saying, “that the risen Jesus is real and that He will not leave His people orphaned!” No matter how many well-to-do white scholars with too much time on their hands and too much hubris in their souls to accept God’s ability to bring about resurrections and to give new life, Jesus’ promise stands for all who love Him and hold His commands dear. He will come to us. He will be with us!***

Rosie was a member of Ann’s and my home church in Columbus. She was a sweet, hard-working person who rarely said anything in the adult Sunday School class. But one day, when a seminary student was teaching a lesson on the calendar of greater and lesser church festivals, she answered his question. “What special day might you like to add on to the Church Year that isn’t on the calendar now?” he asked us. Everyone was silent until quiet Rosie raised her hand. “I’ve always thought,” she said, “that we ought to have a day every year where we thanked God that we’re alive today. I’ve wondered whether I would have believed in Jesus back when He was walking on the earth.” We might all be able to identify with Rosie’s sentiments. But what really strikes me as I reflect on her suggestion three decades later is that what she said constituted the confession of faith of someone who loved Jesus and held His commands dear. In all the ups and downs of life, she’d found it to be true that in these times, two thousand years after Jesus died and rose and ascended into heaven, His promises are true.

Those who follow Jesus see Him working in their lives today. They’ve been comforted by the presence of His Holy Spirit. When they call out to Him, they’ve experienced Jesus coming to them.

Jesus’ message for us today is, I think, simple. But if we let it, can change our lives for all eternity. It’s this: Put Jesus first in your life. He will send His Spirit to you and He will come to you. With Him, you will never be alone. Amen

*I read about the interview with Craig Barnes at Homileticsonline.com.
**My Lutheran colleague, Pastor Rick Hinger, shared this true story with us several days after the incident happened.
***I found the account of this incident at Homileticsonline.com as well.