“The Holy Spirit Reinforces All That Jesus Said”
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Dear fellow believers in the Holy Spirit, grace, mercy, and peace
from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord [Amen.]
“Come, holy Comforter,
Thy sacred witness bear In this glad hour!
Thou, who almighty art, Now rule in ev’ry heart,
And ne’er from us depart, Spirit of pow’r.”
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
905:3)
Gospel
Reading........................................................................................
St. John 14:25-26
25“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26But the
Helper, 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.
Prologue: Both continuity and consistency are essential elements
that help us learn and retain important information … especially spiritual
information. That’s particularly true about the liturgical worship
lectionary series that’s listed in the front of Lutheran Service Book Roman
numerals pages xiv through xxi that we follow that prescribe the Bible
readings for each Sunday. Whether it’s the more modern three-year A, B, and
C series (we’re presently following the C series) or the historic one-year
series, we stick to them because they provide a continual and consistent
road map that guides us through the Holy Scriptures and insures that we are
exposed to the whole counsel of God over the course of the three-year plan
or one-year plan. By the way, having followed the three-year series for the
past nine years during my time here, we will follow the one-year series for
the next three church years beginning with the First Sunday in Advent on
November 27.
These continuity and consistency factors were evident two
Thursdays ago when we observed The Ascension of Our Lord with a special
celebration Divine Service and last weekend when the Bible Readings for The
7th Sunday of Easter referred back to The Ascension of Our Lord and forward
to The Day of Pentecost [tomorrow / today]. In fact, continuity and
consistency are important features when we today consider that …
“The Holy Spirit Reinforces All That Jesus Said.”
[Tomorrow / Today] is the 50th day of Easter. Throughout the
course of this Easter season that concludes [tomorrow / today] the following
item has appeared in the News and Information Bulletin: “The Easter season
is a fifty-day-long season of joy extending from Easter to Pentecost.
During this time, the church celebrates the end of Christ’s struggles and
proclaims His victory over death and the reception of the benefits of His
life, death, and resurrection as gracious gifts of love and mercy for all
those who believe in Him. This is the Church’s great season of joy!
[Alleluia!] Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!” (Treasury of
Daily Prayer. Scot A. Kinnaman, Gen. Ed. Copyright © 2008 Concordia
Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Page 189.)
Regarding The Day of Pentecost the Treasury of Daily Prayer tells
us: “The Church lives and moves and has her being through the gracious
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Without God’s Spirit, no one could come to
Christ or believe in Him. The fifty-day celebration of Easter ends with
this joyous festival. The risen and ascended Savior has sent the Holy
Spirit to be our Sanctifier, entering our hearts at Holy Baptism, nurturing
us through the Word, and enabling us to understand the Gospel and to live a
life that honors God and serves our neighbor.” (Ibid. Page 330.)
Within the large amount of information about the Holy Spirit that’s
contained in our Synod catechism are these four beautiful jewels: First,
“The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, true God with the
Father and the Son—therefore not merely the power or energy of God.”
Second, “The Holy Spirit sanctifies me (makes me holy) by bringing me to
faith in Christ, so that I might have the blessings of redemption and lead a
godly life (sanctification in the wide sense).” Third, “The Holy Spirit
‘has called me by the Gospel,’ that is, He has invited and drawn me by the
Gospel to partake of the spiritual blessings that are mine in Christ.” And
fourth, “The Scriptures teach that by the Gospel the Holy Spirit
‘enlightened me with His gifts,’ that is, He gave me the saving knowledge of
Jesus, my Savior, so that I trust, rejoice, and find comfort in Him.”
(Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. Copyright © 1986, 1991
Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO. Pages 148-151.)
Did you notice the continual and consistent element in those
catechetical statements about the Holy Spirit? His role and function as
“true God with the Father and the Son” are to bring us into a faith
relationship with Jesus Christ … and keep us therein unto eternal glory with
Jesus in heaven. As the Holy Spirit does so, the result is that …
I. We Love Jesus by Keeping His Word. (23-24)
23Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my
Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you
hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
From the depths of eternity unto the creation of the heavens and
earth and throughout time the Holy Spirit has continually and consistently
revealed Jesus Christ as the Savior and Redeemer of mankind. In so doing,
He has continually and consistently filled God’s baptized saints with love
for Jesus. That divine love reveals itself also by the Holy Spirit’s power
in our abiding in and living for Jesus Christ.
Sadly and disastrously, sin marred God’s perfect creation.
Beginning with our original parents Adam and Eve, mankind including us
today, has rebelled against God … and continually and consistently does so
in thoughts, desires, words, and deeds contrary to His holy will. The
people of Shinar in today’s Old Testament Reading demonstrated that
self-centered rebellious nature for which God severely chastised them: “Then
they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in
the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over
the face of the whole earth.’ So the Lord dispersed them from there over
the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore
its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of
all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all
the earth.” (Gen 11:4, 8-9 ESV)
Many years later He mercifully and graciously reversed that
sentence as today’s Second Reading informed us: “When the day of Pentecost
arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from
heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house
where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them
and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them
utterance. ‘And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name
of the Lord shall be saved.’” (Acts 2:1-4, 21 ESV)
Today, in the waters of Holy baptism and the spoken Word of God,
the Holy Spirit gave us faith in and the desire to love Immanuel with
obedient thoughts, desires, words, and deeds. Such good works, however, don’t
merit our Savior’s good favor. Instead, they praise and thank Him for being
our Savior. That is, our continual and consistent seeking to serve Jesus by
keeping His word flows forth from the joyful realization that …
II. Jesus Loves Us by Giving Us His “Peace That Surpasses
All Understanding.” (27-31)
27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do
I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
28You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If
you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for
the Father is greater than I. 29And now I have told you before it takes
place, so that when it does take place you may believe. 30I will no longer
talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim
on me, 31but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know
that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.”
Jesus continually and consistently reminded His disciples then and
reminds us today that He came into this sin-broken world to be the peace
that restored their and our relationship with the heavenly Father. In
contrast, the world’s peace is shaky, tentative, and conditional. It’s a
peace that’s easily and often damaged, broken, compromised, and even
destroyed. It’s a peace that’s based on manmade conditions of a wide
variety of things, mostly demands of personal goodness based on prescribed
rules and regulations.
However, in a devotion entitled “Are You Ever Troubled?” Oswald
Chambers revealed: “There are times in our lives when our peace is based
simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of
life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When
our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks
are always ‘spirit, and they are life’ (John 6:63)” (Oswald Chambers in My
Utmost for His Highest: An Updated Edition in Today’s Language: The Golden
Book of Oswald Chambers/Edited by James G. Reimann. Copyright © 1992 by
Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd. Original edition © 1935 by
Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1963 by Oswald Chambers
Publications Association, Ltd. August 26.)
You see, the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life that
Jesus gained for us with His holy life, innocent suffering, crucifixion
death, majestic resurrection from the dead, and glorious ascension back to
His heavenly throne are continually and consistently transmitted to us by
the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who reinforces all that Jesus said. He
continually and consistently does so in and through God’s Holy Word, that
saturates the Church’s historic liturgy that guides our worship; Holy
Baptism, in which Christ’s death and resurrection become our death and
resurrection; Holy Absolution, that comforts us with the declaration of sins
forgiven; and our Lord’s Holy Sacramental Supper, in which we receive the
real body and blood of Jesus for the certain assurance of His mercy and
grace. It’s all about that “peace that surpasses all understanding” whereby
we mortal sinful human beings are reunited with our immortal holy God here
in time and for eternity.
So it is that in today’s Introit antiphon we spoke that deep
longing expressed in the ancient Liturgical Text: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill
the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.
Alleluia.” That is, as we begged in today’s Collect: “Grant us in our day
by the same Spirit to have a right understanding in all things and evermore
to rejoice in His holy consolation … .”
In response to our prayerful longing, …
“The Holy Spirit Reinforces All That Jesus Said.”
The blessed result of the Holy Spirit continually and consistently
reinforcing all that Jesus said is that the same Holy Spirit works in us a
regenerated will and ability whereby …
I. We Love Jesus by Keeping His Word. (23-24) That keeping of our
Savior’s word expresses itself as today’s Gradual stated: “with the heart
one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is
saved.” (Rom 10:10 ESV) Let’s do so, securely resting in the reassuring
fact that …
II. Jesus Loves Us by Giving Us His “Peace That Surpasses All
Understanding.” (27-31)
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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