“From Me to We” John 8.48–59 Trinity Sunday C June ‘22

 

1.             Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word, as we celebrate Trinity Sunday, is taken from John 8:48-59, it’s entitled, “From Me to We,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.             American author Orson Scott Card isn’t a fan of most modern science fiction, despite writing many science fiction books himself. What bothers him most is that the heroes of the books and movies are often rugged individuals, disconnected from family or friends, going about their adventures on their own. Card wonders where the hero’s husband or wife, children, siblings, and childhood friends are to be found. It’s not good for man—even a science fiction hero—to be alone. Therefore, through Jesus’ dialogue with the unbelieving Jews in our text for this Trinity Sunday, God reveals His triune nature that we may be not “me” but “we” with Him.

3.             But, we prefer to be me. Our present culture thrives on individuality. People are getting married later and later, if at all. In 1962, 50 percent of 21-year-olds were already married. By 2019, that was down to 8 percent (businessinsider.com/average-marriage-age-united-states-2019-2). Sheeple, blending sheep and people, is a term that has come into usage for an individual that unthinkingly “goes with the flow” instead of charting his or her own path. Sheeple are those who have lost their individuality and just want to “blend in.” When former US President, Barack Obama, suggested that successful businesses come into being thanks to the help of others, and when Hilary Clinton suggested it takes a village to raise a child, people were angry. We want to believe we do these things on our own.

4.             But, we is better than me. It’s not good to be alone. 400 years ago, the English writer John Donne wrote a famous poem about individualism. You might know at least the beginning and the end, not realizing they come from the same poem. “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less . . . Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

5.             No man is an island. When one man dies, it reminds that humanity is dying. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). To be alone is, in some ways, to die. God is not a Me. Our holy Lord doesn’t reflect this sinful individualism. Because our sin can drive us to be “rugged individuals” disconnected from one another, we assume God, too, is a “rugged individual.” We speak of our Lord as God, Him, He, the One.

6.             Then, on Trinity Sunday, we squish three persons into this one, rugged individual. In some mysterious way, like the parts of an apple or a three-leaf clover or the phases of water, our one God is also the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But in the Garden, the Lord said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26). Man was created male and female. One, and yet two. In marriage, the two become, once more, one (Gen 2:24) because it was not good, the Lord said, for man to be alone (Gen 2:18).

7.                     God is a We. The Father begets a Son through whom comes the Spirit. The Jews had a hard time understanding Jesus as the Son of the Father, because they couldn’t let go of the ideas they had about God. John 8:48-49 says, “The Jews answered Jesus, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.” The accusations flying back and forth between Jesus and the crowd reach a fevered pitch, with the unbelieving Jews accusing Jesus of being in league with the devil, or at least a blaspheming Samaritan. This comes in response to Jesus’ statement that they are children of the devil. Jesus responds that they don’t honor (atimazo) him but that he gives honor (timao) to the Father. The verb timao is the same word used in the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother,” in both the Septuagint and in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus seems to be invoking not the First or Second but the Fourth Commandment here.

8.              Muslims, too, struggle with the Tri-unity of God. “They have certainly disbelieved who say, ‘Allah is the third of three.’ And there is no god except one God” (Qur’an 5:73).  This is why Jesus’ use of the Divine Name for himself was so repulsive. How can he be the “I Am”? But in a mysterious wonder, our Lord is in fact three persons in one divine substance. The Lord is the Father who eternally begets the Son through whom comes the Spirit. In Jesus, we see God for who he really is, just as Abraham did in his day.

9.             In John 8:50-55 Jesus says, “Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word.”

10.                 In these verses of John 8, Jesus explicitly connects eternal life and glorifying God with the need to guard and keep (tereo) Jesus’ word. The one who guards his word, who treasures it and keeps it, will “never see death.” This is the same verb used in Matthew 28, where Jesus’ baptized disciples are to be taught to guard, tereo, his teachings (Mt 28:20). The unbelieving Jews counter that Abraham died, as did the prophets. What can Jesus mean that abiding in his word will mean not tasting of death? The question of identity is raised again: “Who do you make yourself out to be?” This is a trap question, like “When did you stop shoplifting?” It forecloses on the possibility that Jesus is not making himself out to be anything; he is who he says he is and has been made so by someone else.

11.                 Jesus explicitly identifies his Father with the God of the Jews. He further implies they don’t know him. There’s a difference between knowing of someone and knowing someone. Many Americans know of President Biden. But, few know President Biden. In the same way, Jesus accuses the Jews of knowing of God—in the manner of the Gentiles—but not knowing him, because they won’t acknowledge Jesus as the Son. He again accuses the unbelieving Jews of knowing the devil as their god. He has earlier said the devil is a liar (John 8:44). To accuse the unbelieving Jews of being liars is to call Satan their true god and father.

12.          Jesus says in John 8:56–59, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”

13.          Abraham’s rejoicing has a salvific and end times overtone, as does the reference to “my day.” The Jewish expectation was that the promise of salvation for Abraham’s descendants would be fulfilled on the Last Day and there would be rejoicing. Jesus implies not only that Abraham saw that day but also that Jesus himself was present as Abraham saw it. When the crowd counters that this is impossible, since Jesus is “not yet fifty years old,” Jesus applies the Divine Name to himself. Before Abraham had existence, “I Am,” completely identifying his essence with that of the Father. Since the unbelieving crowd has already foreclosed on the possibility that Jesus is telling the truth (“Who do you make yourself out to be?” John 8:53), they feel they have no choice but to execute Jesus for blasphemy. But, miraculously, Jesus slips from their grasp, much as he will slip the bonds of death on Easter morning.

14.          We, like Abraham, abide in Jesus’ Word. The devil would have us be by ourselves, islands, disconnected, kept apart. The devil tells us that to be like God is to be alone. He tells us we can be free to do whatever we want, no matter the people around us. They can be safely ignored in favor of our personal choices and freedoms. This is a lie.

15.          If you are blessed to live outside the city lights, you can look up at any time in a clear night sky and see countless stars. The naked eye sees them only as small points of light. But with truly powerful telescopes, we can see that each star is a sun, surrounded by planets, some with their own moons, as many of the planets in our solar system have. The reverse is also true. Our glorious solar system, made up of eight planets, the moons of those planets, exoplanets, comets, and asteroids, would look like a single small point of light from far enough away. There’s a temptation to look at God as a distant star. Then, on Holy Trinity Sunday, we peer at that God through a telescope and “see” that God is three persons. Let us carry that close-up view with us every Sunday—always praying in the Spirit to the Father through the Son, always thinking of the Son who redeemed us, sent by the Father, whom we know by the indwelling of the Spirit. On Holy Trinity Sunday, then, we step back and marvel that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God.

16.          The Word of the Lord is that we know the Father through the Son, who knows the Father perfectly (John 8:55). This is the truth. The Father freely sends his Son into the world to redeem us. The Son willingly gives up his life on the cross to free us. The Spirit is willingly breathed out that he might live in us. By the power of the Spirit, we keep the Father’s Word, Jesus, in us. This is what it means to have eternal life, and the promise of never tasting death (John 8:52). It’s not good to be alone. So, Jesus has made us one with his Father by the sacrifice of the cross, and by enlivening our faith by sending the Holy Spirit into our hearts.

17.          Jesus, the hero of the Gospels, unlike heroes in so much fiction, isn’t alone. Jesus doesn’t stand by himself. He is glorified by his Father and honors him by keeping his Word. He turns to us and invites us to hear the true promises of his Father, to know the Father through his one and only Son. Abraham knew God not as a “he” but as a “we.” Now we do as well, through the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.

“The World’s Best Counselor” John 14.23–31, PentecostC June ’22

 

1.                       Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word, as we celebrate the Day of Pentecost, is taken from John 14:23-31, it’s entitled, “The World’s Best Counselor,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                        In a book called, “God’s Empowering Presence” (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), New Testament scholar Gordon Fee shares a remark that one of his students once made to him about the Holy Spirit: “God the Father makes perfectly good sense to me, and God the Son I can quite understand; but the Holy Spirit is a gray, oblong blur.” Why “gray & oblong,” I don’t know. But that’s what the student said, and I think most of us can probably relate to that remark. We believe in the Holy Spirit. We know that he lives in us through faith in Jesus Christ. We confess that he is with us right now as we gather together around Word and Sacrament. But it’s pretty hard to picture or describe this divine being whom we also sometimes call, “the Holy Ghost.” How are we supposed to picture a “ghost,” much less a “Holy Ghost”?

3.                        I’ve always found it ironic that the longest season in the Church Year is the Pentecost season. For almost 30 weeks we focus on various aspects of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. And yet most of us would probably admit that of the three persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit remains the fuzziest when it comes to our understanding of who he is and what he does. To be honest, the Bible doesn’t give us much help in picturing the Holy Spirit. Or maybe, it gives us too much help. There are so many different pictures of the Spirit in the Scriptures. The Spirit appears as a dove; then as tongues of fire; then again, as a loud, rushing wind; in other places as a quiet whisper. It’s enough to make you say: Will the real Holy Spirit please stand up?

4.                        But, the Bible does provide some very helpful information about who the Holy Spirit is and what he does for us as Christians. Again and again in the Gospel of John, and here in our text from John 14, Jesus uses a very unique word to describe the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The Greek word is paraklētos, which literally means, “one who is called to and stands by one’s side.” This word can be translated as: “Helper,” “Advocate,” “Comforter,” or “Counselor.” “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you,” says Jesus. “But the Helper [the Comforter, the Counselor], the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:25–26). I’m going away, says Jesus, but don’t be afraid. I’m leaving behind for you a Helper, a Comforter, a free-of-charge Counselor, the Holy Spirit, and The Holy Spirit Is, “The World’s Best Counselor.”

5.                         What does this Counselor, the Holy Spirit, do for us—and how does he do it? According to Jesus in John 16, one of the most important things the Holy Spirit does as our Counselor is an unpleasant thing. He counsels us by convicting us of our sin (Jn 16:8). He uses God’s Word to confront us with those secret or not-so-secret areas of our lives that aren’t pleasing to our heavenly Father, that are tearing down rather than building up our brothers and sisters in Christ, that are damaging our witness for Christ, and that are preventing us from enjoying the blessings that come through joyful obedience to God’s commandments. This isn’t an easy job that the Holy Spirit has to do. What’s hard about it is that the Spirit has to deal constantly with stubborn people like us, who have a very hard time acknowledging our guilt and our sin.

6.                          Eldon Weisheit was a longtime LCMS pastor and author who wrote some great books for kids, including several volumes of children’s sermons used by many pastors. In one of those books, Pastor Weisheit tells the story of one of the first children’s sermons he ever attempted as a pastor. With the children gathered around him, he held up pieces of paper with various words written on them and asked the children to raise their hands if they thought the words applied to them. He held up words like “short,” “tall,” “smart,” “strong,” “popular,” “handsome,” “pretty,” and so on, and each time at least some of the children raised their hands. Then he held up the word “sinner” and waited . . . and waited . . . , until finally one youngster in the front row took hold of his little brother’s hand and lifted it high into the air.

7.                         We can’t help but laugh at that cute little story, but our laughter probably has a “nervous” edge to it, because we know full well that it’s not just children who are anxious to point a finger at somebody else. The best counselors in my life have been people who’ve cared so much about me that they’ve dared to speak the truth in love, even when they knew the truth would probably hurt, even when they knew that they might suffer and be hurt as a result of speaking the truth. That’s the kind of Counselor the Holy Spirit is. Always loving, always compassionate, always looking out for our best interests—but excruciatingly honest, never afraid to tell us the truth, too concerned about our welfare to hide from us the sin that’s harming us.

8.                          According to the Bible, we can actually help the Holy Spirit with his job as Convicter. Let me be clear: we can’t and didn’t in any way help the Holy Spirit bring us to faith in Christ. The Bible clearly says that, “we were dead in our trespasses” before the Holy Spirit,“made us alive” through Word and Sacrament (Eph 2:5). But now that the Spirit has brought us to life and has come to live in us, we can strive to “walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16). How? Let me suggest several ways: (1) By seeking to remain open at all times to the Spirit’s loving rebuke and counsel; (2) By opening up the Scriptures daily so that he can speak to us through the Word and show where and how we need to repent and amend our sinful ways; (3) By coming faithfully to God’s house to hear the preaching of God’s holy Word; (4) By refusing to argue with him when he clearly shows us where we need to confess and amend our sinful lives; (5) By remembering that before we can help get the splinter out of somebody else’s eye, we must (as Jesus said) get that log out of our own eye. Most of us are pretty good at spotting other people’s sins. It’s our own sins we have trouble seeing and confronting.

9.                          And, convicting us of our sins isn’t the Holy Spirit’s only job as our Counselor. In fact, it’s not even his most important job. Even the devil knows how to accuse people of being sinners—the name Satan actually means “The Accuser.” That’s why, in Lutheran theology, this convicting or accusing role of the Spirit is known as his “strange” or “alien” work. The Spirit’s proper work isn’t to convict us but to comfort us with the Good News of our forgiveness in Christ—which is something the devil would never do.

10.          The Spirit convicts us to lead us to true repentance, to prepare our hearts to hear and believe the comforting assurance of our forgiveness because of what our Savior, Jesus, has done for us. Some versions of the Bible translate this word “Counselor” as “Comforter.” That’s a scripturally meaningful translation as well, because that’s the Holy Spirit’s ultimate goal: to convince us and to keep on reminding us that although we’re poor, miserable sinners, God still loves us more than we can imagine and delights to claim us as his dear children in Christ Jesus.

11.          The Holy Spirit carries out his role as Comforter in some very powerful ways. He speaks to us through the Scriptures and tells us that, because of what Jesus has done for us by dying on the cross, our sins have been removed from us as far as the east is from the west, that though our sins are like scarlet, we’ve been made as white as snow through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit also speaks through the words of the pastor, who has been called by God to say to those who stand before God with humble and repentant hearts: “I forgive you all your sins,” not by my power or authority, not by any special holiness in me, but in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ whom I serve on your behalf. The Holy Spirit also comforts us daily as we claim the promises God made to us at our Baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and he comforts us by feeding us with the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.

12.          The Spirit also comforts us through one another, as we speak to each other the words of forgiveness that Christ has spoken to us. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor 1:3–4). There’s something special about receiving assurance of that forgiveness through the lips of another human being, especially someone close to us: through the lips of a wife or husband, father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister or Christian friend.

13.          So much more could be said about the counseling ministry of the Holy Spirit. But, what I’d like to emphasize today, is that all of the other works of the Holy Spirit grow out of the Spirit’s dual work as Convicter and as Comforter. If we forget that we are sinners, we might as well forget everything else we’ve learned about God and about the Christian faith, because, as John says in his first letter, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn 1:8). But, if we poor, miserable sinners ever stop believing that we are forgiven, we might as well stop believing everything else, because if God’s message of forgiveness is a lie, then how can we believe anything else he tells us in his Word? If we can’t be sure that we’re forgiven, what does it matter what we do? Why should we pray? Why should we serve? Why should we witness? What would there be to witness about?

14.          The Holy Spirit’s job is to make sure that we never forget that we are sinners, and secondly, to make sure that we never stop believing that we are God’s precious, holy, forgiven children through the life and death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Everything else that he does for us and in us and through us depends on his work as Convicter and as Comforter. And as he convicts and comforts us day by day, he promises to work powerfully in our lives in many other ways as well, as we allow him to, as we invite him to, as we work with our divine Counselor to be and become the holy people that the Holy Spirit calls and empowers us to be. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.