Pentecost Sunday
John 16:5-11
Dear fellow saints, who have been made perfect by the death of Christ:
God only told us about the Creation once. There is only one Creation account in the entire Bible. For believers so great as Noah, Abraham, Elisha, and Daniel, God only told us about them once. All the stories of Noah, they are in this section of the Bible. All the stories about Abraham, they are all in these chapters of the Bible.
There’s no doubt that the Bible focuses squarely on Jesus, just based on the amount of times his personal story is told. Of course the entire Bible is about Jesus, but in 4 separate books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the story of the life of Jesus Christ is told 4 separate times. And each of these books has its own emphasis. Matthew, writing mostly to Jews, ties Jesus’ life in with the Old Testament prophesies. That’s why Matthew is where it is on our Bibles: it is the perfect bridge between the Old and New Testaments. Mark’s Gospel stresses Christ’s power. Luke proves how Jesus is the universal Savior: how he is the God for both Jews and people like him: Gentiles.
But the Gospel of John is quite a bit different than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. St. John really takes a close look at the relationship of Jesus with the other members of the Trinity: the Father and the Holy Spirit. In addition, John is a book that allows us to gaze right into Jesus’ heart, and to see what he’s thinking and feel what he’s experiencing, especially in his relationship with his close followers. We see all those things coming together in our text for today, where Jesus tells his disciples about this other Divine Friend that they have. In talking about the Holy Spirit, Jesus wants to stress to his disciples and to us, (1) that the Holy Spirit is sent to us by Christ and his Father, and (2) the Holy Spirit is the one who empowers you in your Christian life and witness.
Part I
Our text is still that Maundy Thursday evening, when Jesus was in the upper room with his disciples shortly before he went out to the Garden of Gethsemane. And you remember how sad his followers were that Jesus was about to leave. And you remember how Jesus comforted them with the promise that he was leaving to go to heaven, so that he could prepare the mansions for them and all believers. But as we see here, his disciples were still sad.
No, they were more than sad. They were so sorry for themselves that they were whining. "Oh Jesus, it’s going to be too hard for us if you leave. If you go Jesus, who is going to calm the storms? Who is going to miraculously provide bread for us in the desert? Who is going to do the preaching and teaching? Jesus, you can’t go. You are going to make things too hard for us." It was a lot easier for these disciples when Jesus was with them to do all their work for them, to take care of everything for them; but now that he was going…oh, it was going to be so hard for them. They were really feeling sorry for themselves.
Jesus told his disciples that he was going away, and they were so selfishly consumed thinking about how that was going to affect them, that they don’t even bother to ask Jesus where he’s going. Jesus is a bit hurt by their selfishness. But then his response is completely selfless. He wasn’t going to his Heavenly Father for his own enjoyment; so that he could kick back and pass the reigns of mission work onto his disciples. No, Jesus was going to heaven for the disciples’ benefit. As he said in verse 7, "I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I’m going away." And then he tells them why it was going to be so good for them that he go away, "unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you: but if I go, I will send him to you." And here Jesus talks about that "other" Divine Friend that Christians have: this Counselor, the Holy Spirit.
You see, Jesus was not just feeding them a line: it was better for the disciples if he went up to heaven. If Jesus had just stayed on earth, he would just be one person confined to a single time and a single space. With regard to his human nature, Jesus would not have been able to be present everywhere. And that’s why, when Jesus ascended into heaven, things were going to get a whole lot better for the disciples. He was not going to leave them all alone on this world, but he was going to send them the Holy Spirit. And through the presence of the Holy Spirit, Jesus would be able to make good on his promise later when he said, "surely I am with you always." He couldn’t have said that had he remained here on earth, only able to be in one location at once as the disciples all scattered off in different directions. So Christ’s departure, while sad, was actually going to be a benefit for his followers when they knew that this other Counselor, the Holy Spirit, would always be with them, shielding them with Christ’s presence.
Sometimes we are just like the disciples: we know better than God what we need. "Lord, if you’d only let me win the lottery, we’d both win. Look, I’d give you 10 %, no, let’s make it 20% for you, after taxes of course. I could help out my family, my friends. It’s obvious to me that this is the best thing for me, can’t you see that, Lord?" Of course maybe the Lord knows that if you had this pile of money, you could gain all this at the expense of your faith, which might slowly stop trusting God as much and instead trust all these dollars in the bank as your security. And you might gain the world, but forfeit your soul. "Lord, why don’t you give me this promotion? Lord, why don’t you heal this problem I have? Lord, why don’t you give me a spouse? Lord, why did you take away my loved one? Can’t you see how much better off I’d be if you’d just take my advice?" What we are really doing when we ask these questions is we are acting like the disciples, who selfishly and sinfully didn’t think it was a good idea for Jesus to leave them. The disciples knew better than God, and we, when we question his judgment, also act as though we know better than God. Not only is that stupid, for us to think we have a better idea of what’s good for us that the Maker of Heaven and Earth, but it’s sinful. Basically we are telling the Lord that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and that he needs to trust our judgment, instead of the other way around.
Pride like this was also the downfall of Satan. You see, the devil thought God had made a mistake by making him just an angel; he wanted to be more. He wanted his way and to run the world as a god himself. And for Satan’s pride, the Lord cast him out of heaven and into hell: for daring to think that he was wiser than the Almighty God. Would the Lord be justified in doing the same thing to us whenever we question his judgment? You better believe it! Sin is sin, no matter if the devil commits it or you do. Hell is hell, no matter if the devil spends eternity there or you do. Do not question God’s authority and God’s wisdom for your life. It’s not OK to do that. In fact, these thoughts are downright spiritually dangerous.
Which is exactly why Jesus felt the need to give us his Holy Spirit. Christ knew how our sinful minds worked. He knew that every inclination of man’s heart is only evil from childhood. He knew that you were going to be tempted not only to question God, but to slip back into those detestable sins that make God angry. You needed help, and Jesus wasn’t going to leave you alone. That’s why he promised to send his Holy Spirit into the world. This other Counselor would enter into your heart, and would do battle against that pesky sinful nature. You can only fight if you have this Holy Spirit in your heart. You want him in your heart. You need him in your heart. And Jesus and his Father has sent the Holy Spirit and placed him in your heart. Jesus follows through on his promise to send the Holy Spirit every time someone is baptized, every time you take the Lord’s Supper, and every time you listen to or read his Word. There’s his Holy Spirit.
Part II
Great, the Holy Spirit is in my heart, what does that mean for me? What exactly is he doing in there that’s going to help me? Jesus tell us about the work of the Holy Spirit in the second half of our reading.
With one Greek word, Jesus summarizes the work of the Holy Spirit: convict of guilt. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, righteousness, and judgment. I’ll be honest with you: this was the hardest word in this whole text: convict of guilt. With that word, I think of someone on trial for a crime, and if they are convicted, they are found guilty. And convict in our text makes sense when it’s talking about sin. It’s a little bit hazy when it’s talking about judgment, and it’s very hard to understand when it’s talking about "convicting the world of guilt in regard to righteousness." What does Jesus mean here?
Let’s take the easy one first, when Jesus says the Holy Spirit would convict the world of guilt in regard to sin. What this simply means is what we went through in Bible class this morning: when we compare ourselves to God’s Law and see how we measure up, we don’t like what we see. It’s like we are looking into a mirror, and seeing an ugly, sin-stained person staring back at us. Have you ever read the book or seen the movie, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde? In this story, a 20-year-old Dorian has a life-sized picture of himself painted. And he sees this picture and how beautiful it is, and he’s sad. Because the picture is going to always look the same while Dorian gets old and the stress and sins of life are going to cause him to age. And then Dorian makes a wish: he wishes that the picture would change while Dorian’s appearance would remain the same. And that’s what works out. When Dorian is cruel to people, those cynical lines show up around his mouth on the picture, but not on him. And as he ages and becomes a much more nasty person, he keeps his innocent exterior, and the picture of him grows hideous and revolting. Dorian puts the picture away because he doesn’t want to see what he really is supposed to look like. When we look in the mirror at God’s Law, the Holy Spirit convinces us of our sin. None of us can take an honest look at ourselves without being thoroughly repelled and disgusted by our sinful appearance.
But unless the Holy Spirit does his work of convicting, we’d never know the seriousness of our ugliness. So the Holy Spirit also convicts the world of guilt in regard to righteousness. Again, remember this was the tricky phrase. What does Jesus mean? St. Paul in Romans 3 really sheds light on this when he writes, "therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law…but now, a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known." This is the phrase that Martin Luther also struggled with in his early days: the righteousness of God. His church had always taught him to believe that this meant: the righteousness that God demanded of him in order to get into the mansions of heaven. But then Martin Luther studied, and studied, and studied. And as he wrestled with God’s Word, suddenly the Holy Spirit convicted him of guilt in regard to righteousness. It was as if the Holy Spirit flipped on the light in Luther’s heart and said, "Dear Martin, it’s not up to you. Righteousness doesn’t come from inside of you, rather it’s a free gift from God." People, when they feel their sin in their hearts, usually have one of two reactions: either they excuse or minimize their sins, or like Luther they get so bogged down with guilt that they think there must be something they have to do to get rid of it. But praise be to God when he sends his Holy Spirit into our hearts, flips on the light of God’s free forgiveness won by Christ on the cross, and scatters this worldly righteousness, their self-righteousness, which is really no righteousness at all. Amen.
sdg
