Scripture can be found here…
What do you need right now? In your life?
What do you need?
Do you need an Advocate?
Do you need a Helper?
How about a Consoler, a Comforter?
Maybe an Intercessor?
Or, an Encourager?
Throughout this Easter Season
we’ve been looking at nearly all the resurrection appearances of Jesus.
But this morning, we are going back in time.
Now, we are with Jesus and his friends on the night of the Last Supper.
Dinner is over.
So is the time when Jesus washes everyone’s feet.
And now, knowing that the hour has come
to depart from this world and go to the heart of God,
Jesus loves his people in this one, last way.
He talks to them.
It’s not exactly a deathbed speech, but it’s something like it.
Scholars call it “the farewell discourse.”
I think we would all love to have time with the people we love
before they die—
a time when they tell us what they urgently want us to know,
specifically, how to honor their memory.
If you love me, Jesus says, keep my commandments.
Jesus gives his disciples,
his friends,
the people who gather around in a crowd,
lots of instructions throughout the gospels.
He refers them, always, to what he calls the greatest commandments:
Love God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength.
And love your neighbors as you love yourself.
Love. Love is at the heart of the commandments Jesus gives them.
Gives us.
And in this gospel,
Jesus has told his friends he is giving them a new commandment.
Love one another.
Just as I have loved you, so also, you should love one another.
Jesus loves us, and asks us—
commands us—
to love one another the same way.
Love as Jesus loved.
That’s a tall order.
That’s a love with everything you’ve got, whole-self kind of thing.
If you love me, Jesus says, you know what to do.
And then, even though he is going away,
Jesus tells his friends that he will give them exactly what they need.
God will send the “Paraclete.”
That word is not in most of your bibles;
it’s an English version of a Greek word.
Paraclete means:
One who is called to come alongside.
One who answers the summons for help.
And we have all kinds of translations of the word.
Advocate.
Helper.
Consoler.
Comforter.
Intercessor.
Encourager.
The Gospel of John is so different from the other three gospels.
It’s fascinatingly different.
It’s poetic. It’s metaphorical.
It’s got gorgeous language and moving stories.
And Jesus talks a lot. Way more than in the other gospels.
And here he is, talking to his friends
with the specific purpose of telling them what they need to hear.
Jesus spends this time after supper helping his friends.
Consoling them.
Encouraging them to see the Big Picture.
Offering them comfort.
Offering them whatever it is they need
for what lies ahead…
which none of them understands. Not yet.
The future is not clear to them.
But Jesus knows his friends need reassurance.
They need to know where their strength will come from,
for the trials that lie ahead.
The future is not yet clear to us, either.
And so, I ask you, again,
what do you need, today, right now,
for the trials that lie ahead in your life?
Do you need an Advocate,
to help you to stand up for yourself in an unfair or unsafe work environment?
Do you need a Helper,
to give you the strength to do the work that is in front of you,
or to Advocate for someone else who needs an ally?
Do you need a Consoler,
for the grief you are experiencing
for the people and experiences and things
that are no longer a part of your day or week… or your life?
Do you need a Comforter,
to help to ease you into a good night of sleep?
(Yes, I realize you can take that in a couple of ways.)
Do you need an Intercessor,
to plead your case to the authorities?
Do you need an Encourager—
someone who sees what you are doing, and recognizes it?
Someone who really sees you?
Jesus promises to send the Spirit.
Jesus promises to be there, in the Spirit, with the Spirit.
Jesus promises not to leave us orphaned.
That word really has gotten a hold of me this week. “Orphaned.”
I know we usually think of orphans as children who have no parents.
But recently I noticed a bunch of friends were using it to refer to themselves—
all of these friends are old enough to be grandparents ourselves.
But we claim that word because, at it’s root, it’s about grieving.
Even in our 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s…
we miss the people who cared for us from the very beginning.
Of course we do.
Jesus knows that his friends,
his followers, will grieve for him.
They will grieve even in the light of resurrection.
They will grieve his tangible presence in their midst.
But, he tells them.
You’ll see me!
Not everyone will understand.
But you’ll see me.
And that still holds true for us,
as it has for Christians throughout the millennia.
Julian of Norwich is known as someone
who set herself apart to devote her life to prayer and the study of scripture.
What I did not know about her, until very recently, was this:
When she was still a little girl,
a pandemic began to spread throughout Europe:
the Black Death.
This pandemic reached Julian’s community in the year 1348,
and before it was over,
most of her family was dead.
Julian herself survived not only that pandemic but also another grave illness.
While ill, she received fifteen visions,
which she called “showings.”
Eventually she wrote about these visions
in the first book ever to be written by a woman in the English language,
“Revelations of Divine Love.”
In her most famous vision,
Julian was shown a little hazelnut.
She asked what it could be, and was told,
“It is all that is made.”
Then, she understood:
God made it. God loves it. God keeps it.
God made us. God loves us. God keeps us.
Jesus will not leave us orphaned.
We have the promise of the Spirit with us—
the one who will be our Advocate,
the one who will help us when we are called
to advocate for God’s people when they are oppressed and abused
the one who will console us in our grief
the one who will comfort us in our anxiety
the one who will aid us in our prayers
the one who will encourage us
when we are dangling by the last thread of our last rope
God made us. God loves us. And God will continue to keep us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.