Clayton Presbyterian Church
June 4, 2006
Christ lived 2000 years ago. That is a long time. It is not wonder that we feel distant and separated from him. It is no surprise that we have doubts about how well we really know him, and whether or not what we know has been distorted. We talked last week about all of the wild claims in the Da Vinci Code. What if they are true? You just might be wondering. And at times we all have questions and even doubts.
But they’re not. They are not true. Christ is not trapped in the past. He is so present that we can know him and experience him and we can be sure that we are following him. We can even experience his peace and joy in our daily life.
If you are a good skeptic, you might be saying, “Yes, Monte, I hear what you’re saying, but how do you KNOW that? How can you be so sure?”
I will show you. Listen to this passage from the gospel of John. Jesus has just told his disciples that he is going to leave them. He is going away. They have seen him every day. But they are going to have to go on without him. But he is not leaving them alone. He is sending another—the Holy Spirit. Listen to what he says and listen for God’s word to you.
15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them." 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" 23 Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
25 "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (NRSV)
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. It is the Sunday when we take the chance to focus on God the Holy Spirit. We talk about God in general. We talk about Jesus a lot. But we don’t often talk about the Holy Spirit. That is why we celebrate Pentecost. The name comes from the Jewish festival during which the Holy Spirit fell upon those first believers and made them into full-fledged Christians.
But the Spirit has always been around. At the very beginning, not just of Scripture, but of the world. As God spoke the heaven and earth into existence, Genesis tells us that the Spirit was over the waters. And it was by the power of the Spirit that the world was created. The Spirit was also active and present throughout Israel’s history in the prophets. The Old Testament tells us that the Spirit would come upon a prophet and they would begin to prophesy and speak the Word of the God to the people of God, calling them to turn to him.
But one of these prophets utters a very significant prophesy about the Spirit itself. The prophet’s name is Joel and he speaks of a time when the Spirit will not just fall on the prophets, but upon everyone—on the old and the young alike. He says that the Spirit will even come to rest on such lowly people as slaves.
And his prophesy came to pass on Pentecost after Jesus had been resurrected and then ascended to the Father after 40 days. The all of Jesus’ disciples, men and women alike, were together when the Spirit fell on them. God’s presence was not only on them and among them, but in them. And the Scriptures promise that whoever has Christ has the Holy Spirit in them.
The answer that Jesus gives to their doubts about what his disciples will do when he is gone is: the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes his place.
The Spirit has many roles in our life, but the first one is as the “Spirit of Truth.” That is the first thing that Jesus says about the Spirit here. At the end of the passage, in verse 26, Jesus says that the Spirit “will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”
It is the Spirit which makes Jesus present to us. Jesus is not lost to the past. Jesus is here because his very Spirit lives within us. And this Spirit leads us into the truth about Jesus being God’s Son. It is the Spirit which makes the Scriptures which were written thousands of years ago to be a living word to us.
Jesus calls the Spirit an advocate. The Greek word is “paraclete,” which means someone who is a helper or a legal advisor. It was used to describe someone who helps you in a court of law. Just as a modern day lawyer gives advice and represents you. He is one who helps us.
The Karre language of equatorial Africa proved to be difficult for the translators of the New Testament, especially when it came to the word paraclete. How could they describe the Holy Spirit?
One day the translators came across a group of porters going off into the bush carrying bundles on their heads. They noticed that in the line of porters there was always one who didn't carry anything, and they assumed he was the boss, there to make sure that the others did their work. However, they discovered he wasn't the boss; he had a special job. He was there should anyone fall over with exhaustion; he would come and pick up the man's load and carry it for him. This porter was known in the Karre language as "the one who falls down beside us."
The translators had their word for paraclete.
The Spirit is the one who “falls down beside us.” The Spirit is with us all the time. When things are good and when things are really rotten. But I think we experience the Spirit more when things are rotten.
At the end of the passage Jesus talks about the peace that he gives. And that peace comes by the Holy Spirit. And thus Jesus tells us not to be afraid.
Have you ever experienced this? Perhaps you were in a situation that is beyond your control. You had no money and then your car breaks down or you have an unexpected medical bill. Or your world is turned upside down with a sudden job change or a move to a new town. Or maybe it was the loss of a parent or child or another loved one that left you completely numb. Whatever the situation was you had no idea what to do about it or how to get through, and yet, you had an inexplicable sense of peace. You walk through it without being overwhelmed. It is like a scary movie, where you can feel the fear of the unexpected, but you are not fearing for your own life. You feel removed from the danger and protected.
As you go through the situation, you might have been thinking, “You know, I really shouldn’t feel this calm.” It’s still difficult and you still don’t know what to do, but somehow you know that everything will be alright.
That is the peace of the Holy Spirit in your life. It is the unexpected and overflowing comfort of the Holy Spirit. And it gives us great confidence and security in life, so much so that we can do things that we never dreamed of or imagined.
Under scrutiny by his apartheid government's Eloff Commission, South African bishop and Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu declared:
There is nothing the government can do to me that will stop me from being involved in what I believe God wants me to do. I do not do it because I like doing it. I do it because I am under what I believe to be the influence of God's hand. I cannot help it. When I see injustice, I cannot keep quiet, for, as Jeremiah says, when I try to keep quiet, God's Word burns like a fire in my breast.
But what is it that they can ultimately do? The most awful thing that they can do is to kill me, and death is not the worst thing that could happen to a Christian.
The power of the Spirit in our life is powerful. We know that we are claimed by the God our Creator and the Maker of the Universe. He has claimed us as his own, so we know that because we are his, he will never let us go. He is our comfort, our guide and our God. “Bad” things may happen. We may loose our job, our house, even our life, but we know that we are still God’s and everything will turn out OK. This gives us incredible confidence and courage, enough courage even to go against powerfully oppressive regimes and to risk our lives.
But the Spirit also claims us in another sense. We are God’s and not our own, so that we can no longer just live for ourselves, just pursuing our own goals, or hobbies, or sports, or pastimes. God calls us by the Spirit to be about his work of redemption here on earth. This is such a privilege because it means that our lives will not be lived in vain.
But this is true not just in exceptional or heroic times, but also in ordinary times. Eugene Peterson, a Presbyterian pastor and professor, writes about what it is to live the Christian life.
He says:
The Christian life is going to God. In going to God, Christians travel the same ground that everyone else walks on, breathe the same air, drink the same water, shop in the same stores, read the same newspapers, are citizens under the same government, pay the same prices for groceries and gasoline, fear the same dangers, are subject to the same pressures, get the same distresses, are buried in the same ground.
The difference is that each step we walk, each breath we breathe, we know we are preserved by God, we know we are accompanied by God, we know we are ruled by God.
The Spirit is God’s presence and power in us each and every day, whether we are working, playing, voting, shopping, eating, worrying, laughing, living or even dying. In each moment the Spirit is with us. We are not alone. God is with us. He offers to guide us. He wants to help us and to be the one who carries our burdens. He wants to be powerfully present with us. But sometimes we don’t realize all that he can do for us.
Dr. Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ tells this story of a famous oil field called Yates Pool:
During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn't able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.
At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.
And Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he'd been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem? He didn't know the oil was there even though he owned it.
Many Christians live in spiritual poverty. They are entitled to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his energizing power, but they are not aware of the Spirit’s presence in their lives.
The way to tap into the Spirit is to go to God. Go to God in every area of your life. First, those areas where you feel out of control. God will help. Then go to God with every other area let the Spirit work in that area, until every area in your life is filled with the Spirit.