The Advocate

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:

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 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.”

22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

“Come now; let us leave.” (John 14:15-31, NIV)

REFLECTIONS:

Throughout John's Gospel we have seen Jesus doing and saying things that only make sense if it is true that God gives to his followers the same Spirit who dwelt within Jesus and who would enable them to continue his work in the world. It is in today's very passage that this promise becomes explicit. As we saw a few days ago, Jesus said something similar in John 7:37-38; but that was no more than a passing comment, compared to the way it is spelt out here.

This promise of the Spirit's coming is framed by the command to love. He says: If you love me you will keep my commandments; you will follow in the way that I have led. And for those who believe—who are cleansed from by the death of Jesus, and renewed by his resurrection life—he will ask the Father to give another advocate. The word "advocate" has many different meanings, including "comforter" and "helper." It is also a legal term: an advocate is one who stands up for somebody in a court of law. It can even refer to a very personal relationship, meaning one who comes alongside somebody in distress to comfort them and give them strength. All of this is encompassed in the role of the Spirit of whom Jesus speaks—"the Spirit of truth," as he says in verse 17. The world beyond the present circle of Jesus' followers cannot receive the Spirit of truth, being unable to see him or know him. But the disciples know him because he abides with them already, and will remain within them. The Spirit, therefore, becomes Jesus' alter ego, Jesus' second self. Jesus himself will die, and after his resurrection will go to be with the Father. His followers will see him no more. But they will feel no sense of absence. Instead, they will sense his presence in a very different way.

For the last several hundred years in the West we have lived in a very materialistic universe, and we find it very difficult to think of different levels of reality intermingling. This, however, is what Jesus invites us to do here. The Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of the living God who dwelt in Jesus, can so breathe into the life of ordinary men, women and children that, far from Jesus being distant or absent, he will be truly present. As he tells his followers in verse 18, "I will not leave you as orphans." He will not be like a father who disappears so that his children never see him again. In a little while, he will be gone from the world. The world will celebrate a triumph over him, and, even while he is appearing in his risen body to his disciples, the rest of the world will know nothing of it, and will refuse to believe it when they do hear of it. His followers will see him, though, risen in new life. On that day they will know that he is in the Father and, this time, they will know that they are in him (verse 20). The intimate relationship between Father and Son is not a closed circle, forever barred to outsiders. By the gift of the Spirit, others will be welcomed into the intimacy, the inner circle of the love of God.

And who are these others? Verse 21 explains that they are those who have Jesus' commandments and keep them. As they love him, so they will be loved by the Father and by Jesus himself. Here again we have a disciple with a walk-on part, declaring (as well he might) that he doesn't understand what's going on. This time it's the other Judas, not Judas Iscariot. He cannot understand how Jesus can make himself known to them but not to the world. All along they have been waiting for a great act of God which will show the whole world in a flash that Jesus is the true Messiah, that his followers were right to obey his call. Jesus does not answer Judas directly. He simply gives him and the others a commission: If they love him, they will keep his commands, and his Father will love them too. And Father and Son together will come and make their home with them.

Jesus must have been aware throughout his ministry, but particularly now as he is preparing for the end, how little his followers understood. So, he explains that the task of the Holy Spirit is not simply to embody his presence with them, but to teach them all that they cannot understand, all that they would otherwise forget, all that they will need to know as they go out into the world in his name. He can, therefore, give them the supreme gift of peace, his peace (verse 27).

The world offers a certain style of peace. The Roman Emperor Augustus offered the world the Pax Romana, peace under Roman imperial rule. His successor Tiberius maintained that he too had kept the world reasonably peaceful—but it was always peace at a price, and it was always somebody else who paid the price in the Roman Empire. Peace was maintained through violence and force. It's the same our world today—much of the world's peace is enforced by the threat of America's military intervention or financial sanctions. But, Jesus creates a peace and gives peace by giving his own life. And in verse 27 he repeats the command that Jordan Bland wrote about yesterday: "Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." As far as he can, Jesus has prepared his followers for what will happen. When he is taken from them, it will still be a great shock and they will not understand it, but they will nonetheless reflect on what he told them beforehand. He therefore warns them that the "prince of this world is coming" (verse 30)—the one with earthly power, the one who speaks with authority from Rome. But even he has no absolute power over Jesus. He can wield only the power given him from above. Jesus submits to him only in order to fulfill what the Father has commanded, to demonstrate to the world that he loves the Father and is obedient to what he has commanded. As a result of his faithfulness to his commission, God will be glorified. And as a further result of that faithfulness, the disciples will find, to their surprise, that they are enfolded within the very life of God himself, the inner life of God—Father, Son and Spirit. They will share in the glory that was Jesus' glory, as they too are commissioned to go and bear fruit. And the same is true of us.

PRAYER:

Gracious Lord, thank you for sending the Spirit of truth to dwell within us. Strengthen us, by your Spirit, to walk in obedience to your commands. We love you, Lord, and we long to love you more and more. We long to experience—palpably—the awesome reality of life in God. So we ask that you might fill us with your Spirit so that we might more fully know your presence, your peace, and your immeasurable love.

WHO AM I?

I am Tres Sansom, and I praise God for the constant companionship of the Spirit. For so much of my life, I totally neglected the presence of God's Spirit in my life. I think this primarily came from a lack of understanding, but partly stemmed from the church tradition in which I was raised. I found it easy to pray to the Father. I could picture the person of Jesus walking the roads of Israel, teaching his followers and healing those in need. But I found it so difficult to relate to the idea of God's Spirit. I could mentally acknowledge the presence of God's Spirit, but I found it incredibly difficult to personally relate to the Spirit. I didn't know how to "picture" the Spirit, nor did I know if I should pray to the Spirit. When I thought of the Spirit, I immediately connected the ideas to crazy Pentecostals, and there was no way I wanted to be one of those kooks. So I pretty much ignored the person of the Spirit. Thankfully, God brought into my life a handful of "normal" saints who simply and authentically walked in the Spirit. They weren't crazy. They weren't kooky. They didn't dance around and speak gibberish. They were very similar to me, in both personality and style of worship. They simply loved Jesus, sought to listen to his Voice and strove to live in a manner that Christ would live if he was physically present upon the earth. These few Spirit-led people taught me so much. I am so grateful that God brought them into my life.