Easter 6 - The Great Presence - Never alone
For the Children: (A flower in water.) What does a flower know? Shall we ask this flower? Do any of you know how to speak ‘flower’? Is that a special language? How can we communicate with a flower? How could we tell this flower that we love it? If you’re growing flowers, or any other plants, how can you show you love them? You give the flower water.
Do you think the flower understands the importance of water, the importance of the sap flowing within it?
Maybe not, but flowers and plants can’t live without sap flowing in them. Just like we can’t live without blood flowing through our arteries and veins.
In today’s Bible reading Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit. Jesus says the Holy Spirit not only stays with us, lives with us, but is in us. The Holy Spirit is in us to help us. The Holy Spirit is just as important to our faith in God and our life with God as sap is to this flower.
We often talk about Jesus always being with us wherever we are and Jesus tells us the Holy Spirit is with us and in us as well. We’re never alone.
I don’t expect this flower to explain how sap works and I’m not sure I can explain how the Holy Spirit is in you and in me and in everyone who believes all at the same time - but it’s really good news. We’re never alone. Jesus is with us, the Holy Spirit is with us and in us. God the Father loves us so much he gives us Jesus and the Holy Spirit to help us. To help us love.
John 14:15-21 (NIV) Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be (and is) in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
As we continue to experience this great absence of physical closeness and touch, today’s reading reminds us of the promise of the great presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit along with the love of the Father.
It’s a timely reminder. We might be isolated but we’re never alone. If you’re like me you might be ‘lonely’ for the physical presence of others but even in our loneliness we’re reminded we’re not alone.
As I said to the children the Holy Spirit is like the sap flowing unseen in a plant and evidenced by the life of the plant, the leaves, the flowers, and the growth. We can’t see the Holy Spirit but we can see what he’s up to in our lives and the lives of others. We see evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work.
Today’s reading doesn’t give a complete explanation of what the Holy Spirit does in us but Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit in the context of love, obedience, truth, and life. We could add a whole lot of other things he does, things the Holy Spirit does, but these are in focus in this reading. Love, obedience, truth, life.
Let’s start with ‘truth’ even though it’s not mentioned first by Jesus. The Holy Spirit, Jesus says is the Spirit of truth, the true Spirit. He helps us know and understand the truth. What truth? This could be a far reaching list and explanation. What we put on the list and the order in which we put them will tell others a lot about who we are. To keep this manageable and maybe ‘safe’, let’s concentrate on what the Spirit says is true about the three other things Jesus mentions; love, obedience, and life.
What is the truth about love? God is love and God loves us. The truth is God loves you. God knows you the best and loves you the most. A hard truth, at times, because we mightn’t feel very lovable - but it’s true. It’s the truth and the Holy Spirit comes to us and sticks with us and in us to help us know this most important truth. Enables us to say, “God loves me.”
The Holy Spirit helps us to know the truth about Jesus’ love. We can’t see Jesus so the Holy Spirit comes to us and helps us to know Jesus. To know his love, his promises, his commands, and his presence even though we can’t see him. The Holy Spirit helps us understand the truth about Jesus.
That’s not all, the Holy Spirit helps us to know the truth about us. Helps us know and understand we’re lost sinners who need to be found, forgiven and loved. The Holy Spirit comes to us because we can’t come to God. The Holy Spirit is God with us in a similar way to Jesus. Jesus became one of us, was enfleshed for us, so he could be seen, and touched, and heard.
The Holy Spirit is enfleshed in us and those around us see the evidence - they see our love.
It’s time to move on to obedience.
Jesus begins and ends this reading with obedience. Jesus links loving him with doing what he commands. At the beginning Jesus says if you love me then keep my commands, if you love me obey me - and at the end he says if you keep my commands then you love me. When you obey me you show you love me. If you love me, obey me; obey me to show your love for me.
We show we love Jesus by obeying him. There’s nothing unusual about this, it’s not rocket-science, when we love someone we want to please them, so we do what they want, we do what they like. As we please them - as we do what they like, we show we love them.
Keeping the commandments is an act of love. To God and to our neighbour. God gives the commandments to us as an act of love, because he loves us and we keep the commandments as an act of love, because we love God. We show our love for God by loving others. God is love and the Ten Commandments give us the code for loving each other God’s way. They’re an expression of God-shaped love.
We need to be careful as Christians. It’s easy to sit back and complain about what’s going on in the world and even the church. We might feel drawn to be part of God’s complaints department. But Jesus doesn’t call us to sit back and complain - he calls us to love. He doesn’t call us to point out and pick on others’ faults but to love them. That’s big! Huge! Holy Spirit we’re going to need your help to do that.
Loving Jesus is the key to doing what Jesus wants us to do. How do we get to love Jesus?
The Holy Spirit helps us to know Jesus’ great love for us, and it’s the key to loving Jesus. Paul includes these two ideas in one simple statement, in 2 Cor 5:14f The love of Christ compels us. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we’re convinced one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
We might’ve expected Paul to say we’re compelled by our fear, awe, respect, or belief. But he says ‘love’! Christ’s love compels us. The love goes both ways. The love Christ has for us and the love we have for Christ compels us, enlivens us, and motivates our love and obedience.
What would be left of Christian faith if you took out love? Well, Paul might say there’d still be faith and hope, but remember the greatest would be missing.
Which brings us to the truth about life.
The Holy Spirit helps us believe Jesus is alive. It’s not hard to believe Jesus died, it happens to all of us but the Holy Spirit helps us believe that although Jesus died on the cross - he’s alive. This is a great truth about life, Jesus is alive and because Jesus lives we too will be raised to live with God forever. Death doesn’t have the final say because Jesus, who died is alive.
I began with the idea of the great presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We all know presence isn’t always pleasant. Being in the presence of another can be unpleasant. The good news is it’s never unpleasant to be in the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit because they come in love.
They help us, strengthen us, counsel us, we could say befriend us. They come to us so we’re not orphans, never alone or without help - they remind us of our heavenly Father’s love, remind us we’re part of the family.
The divine community of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a wonderful truth about our God. Jesus our Saviour and the Holy Spirit drawing us into this community of love is a wonderful truth about salvation, about our lives with God.
Let me remind you again of the great presence - you’re never alone because the Holy Spirit is in you and Jesus is with you. God the Father is on your side, Jesus is at your side and the Holy Spirit is inside you. Live in God’s loving presence.
And the peace of God which is beyond human understanding, keep your heart and mind safe in union with Christ Jesus. Amen.