The Sixth Sunday of Easter
27th April 2008
: 9:00am & 11:45am
Preacher: The Very Revd Andrew
Chan
Jesus doesn’t leave us
Today’s gospel is the
continuation of last Sunday’s. It is therefore part of the first of the
‘farewell discourse’ of Jesus at his last supper, before he was handed to
death.
According the Gospel, The
disciples had finally understood that Jesus was about to leave them, so they
were sad and were asking themselves how they could keep staying close to him
and love him if he went away.
Jesus then promised not to
leave them alone, without protection and guidance; he said that he would ask
the Father to send his Spirit who would be always with them.
But who could receive the
Spirit? Jesus said that the Spirit was for those who loved him, for those who
kept his commandments, for those who practiced love for their fellows, as he
taught. But the ‘world’ cannot receive it.
And what does Jesus mean by
‘world’? Did he mean ‘the other’, those who are not members of our group, who
do not practice our religion and do not share our way of thinking? Isn’t there
a little bit of ‘world’ also in each of us? Well, if we read the text
carefully, we can see that the ‘world’ is that part of the heart of people
which still harbours evil; it is where we store hate,
vengeance, evil thoughts… that’s the ‘world’ and the
Spirit cannot enter there.
Therefore, the ‘world’ doesn’t
mean that a place outside the church. According to the 1 Corinthians 2:12, the
‘world’ also has its spirit. It is that urge which leads us to do evil, to act
selfishly, to forget about our brothers and sisters, to overpower the others.
But the Spirit of God urges us rather to act the opposite way
: to love, to forgive, to reconcile, to be generous, to serve others.
Clearly the ‘world’ cannot receive that spirit.
The gospel text of today gives
two names to the Spirit that the Father will send :
The Paraclete (Advocate) and the ‘Spirit of true’.
These titles describe what the Spirit acts within the believers. Let us see
their meaning.
The first title Paraclete (Advocate) is a term used in courts and means the
one who is called to stand next to the one who is accused. Who is this supposed
to be?
At the time of Jesus, if one
was accused and prosecuted for some crime, it could happen that a well-to-do
person among the public would come forward and, without ever saying a word,
would stand beside the accused.
In such a case the prosecution
would stop there and nobody would dare go on with the case. This noble, upright
and irreproachable man was called ‘Paraclete’, that
is ‘the one who stands beside somebody who is in difficulties.’
So the first name given to the
Spirit means that the Spirit is the protector of the disciples in time of
difficulties. The Christians who believe and know that the spirit is always
near them cannot lose their peace of mind and heart, their joy and hope. There
is no place in the Church for people who are sad, tired, afraid and dispirited.
The disciples of Jesus are not
disheartened by the persecutions that come from outside, nor
by the difficulties that come from within the community and not even by their
own sins and frailty or their own personal evil inclinations. Whoever believes
in Jesus’ promise to send the Paraclete is sure that
he will not be defeated by any difficulty no matter how great it is.
The second title of the Spirit
is ‘Spirit of truth’. We all know what happens when a piece of news is repeated
by two or three different people. It always ends up changed and distorted, at
time to such a degree that it does not seem to be the original place of news at
all.
We know how that the message of
Jesus has to reach the world. What guarantee have we that it will not be
corrupted, changed or distorted? We can be certain that men and women will
always be able to drink from the uncontaminated gospel source because the
Church which transmits the gospel is not made only of human elements, but
enjoys the active presence and strength of the Spirit of truth, promised by
Jesus.
Two thousand years of church
history are sufficient proof of Christianity to the original message. The best
proof of the effective presence and assistance of the Spirit of truth to its
Church is that down through the centuries there were church members, ministers,
and even the church leaders who misbehaved, but none of them cast doubts on the
words of the gospels.
The task and effectiveness of
the Spirit of truth is not limited to a negative function. The Spirit does not
only prevent error and contamination in the transmission of the message of
Jesus. He also has a positive influence ; The Spirit
introduces the disciples of Christ into the fullness of truth.
This means two things : First, the ‘Truth’ for
The second meaning is that the
Spirit will make clear things that Jesus did not say explicitly, because,
according to the Gospel, the disciples were not capable of understanding them.
Jesus knew that down the centuries new situations would arise… How could they
be solved? How could the disciples come to know his thought? Here is where the
Spirit comes in to help discover the truth. He will not say anything new, or
contrary to what was said by Jesus, he will only help to understand the message
of Christ to the full.
The Christians have the duty to
follow the inspiration of the Spirit leading them to discover new things. The
Spirit is the one who renews the face of the earth.
Can we then say that the
Christians who are afraid or unable to accept all that is new are really open
to the Spirit of truth? Can they go on repeating the same old things for ever
and ever? Should they always give old answers to new problems?
The spirit enables us to accept
innovations that foster the life of the communities, that increase our joy and
peace, that help us to pray better, that dispel from the hearts of people many
useless fears and wrong interpretations of the word of God. Aren’t those
stubbornly holding on to the past against the Spirit of truth?
Dear brothers and sisters,
there isn’t one of us who doesn’t have decision to make in life, even difficult
decisions sometimes. God is there in his Spirit to guide us. And we need his
help. Let’s not make difficult decisions on our own. All decisions are wiser if
they are made in partnership with God. And there isn’t one of us here who
doesn’t need consoling at times. It may be depression,
or sickness or conflict in the home, in the office, or worry about examination,
about our families which are far away from us, or concern about stock or house
price or income. We need the Holy Spirit to console us in situation like that,
to help us through, to heal us and bring us peace and strength to face the
difficulties.
Let’s let the Spirit of God be
our advocate, teacher, comforter, and guider, so our lives may be enriched by
that close relationship for the rest of our lives.