I
don't like to use a lot of TV illustrations, but have you ever
noticed that the best way to market your new product is to make the
existing product you're trying to replace look like it's impossible
to use. So that's why we have commercials for hair straighteners
that have people who for the life of them can't figure out a curling
iron or steam mop commercials that show people who have no
idea how to run a vacuum cleaner on the floor. It's a good trick,
but come on, the problem isn't with the old machines, the problem is
you're trying to convince us they're so impossible. On this
Pentecost day, by the Holy Spirit we can confess the same:
We may struggle with the words of Jesus, but the Holy Spirit
doesn't, and he's been given to comfort Christ's Church, given by
Christ himself.
We struggle with Jesus' words and
therefore with the Holy Spirit's office. This happens when we have
problems with the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. We're not alone
in this. Even Jesus' disciples have problems with his own words.
That is why Philip speaks to him in today's reading, on the night in
which he was betrayed. We hear, “Philip
said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for
us." 9
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still
do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How
can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but
the Father who dwells in me does his works.”
But step back a moment, is Jesus using long and complicated words?
No. Is he speaking in half-sentences or sentence fragments? No,
these are sentences. He's using very simple language. But the
disciples are still having problems with his words. And in doing so,
Philip asks to see the Father, but that actually denies that to see
Jesus is to see the Father, as Jesus explains.
There are many things we do that seem innocent but show our problem
with God's Word. Staying in bed on Sunday mornings (whether or not
you stayed up too late on Saturday nights) is an example – we label
it as just a choice, what a person prefers that day. But it's
trading a miracle for something ordinary. If God actually speaks his
Word, the Holy Scriptures, that is a miracle, that a book of paper
and ink is God's own Word. To go to church then is, for sure, to
hear God speak as you hear those Scriptures read, and that's a lot
better than the good gift of sleep. It looks like an innocent
choice, but it's having a problem with God's Word.
And having a problem with God's Word goes back a long way, all the
way to the Garden of Eden. And it goes to today's Old Testament
reading: the Tower of Babel. God had said to the people, “Be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” And what do they do?
They say, “Let's stay here and build a tower so we won't be
scattered all over the earth.” They had a problem with God's Word,
so in order that the people wouldn't trust in themselves but in God
and his Word, he confuses their languages so that . . . they have
trouble with each other's words!
Our Lord Jesus Christ overthrows all of that, all those problems, by
sending us His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't struggle in
doing his office because Jesus does his (on the cross and with the
Church) – to our comfort. By his work he comforts Christians. No
wonder then that Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Comforter (though
that word also has the sense of Helper/Advocate).
The Holy Spirit has no problem comforting us with the word of
Christ's death for you. The one thing missing for Philip is the
cross and resurrection of Jesus, and (and this is really important),
the Holy Spirit who will teach them the words of Jesus. The one
thing missing, which Jesus promises to his dear disciples as a
comfort before his own death, is that the Holy Spirit will apply
Christ's death and resurrection to them.
When there is a problem with God's
Word, the problem is us, not God's Word. That's because the Holy
Spirit always works through the Word. The Holy Spirit speaking
through the Word has no need of repentance; we do. In fact, Paul
says, if he or even an angel preach a different Gospel, the problem
is with them, not God's Word! A word like that, which is 100%
dependable, that's a joy to hear, every time. That's a comfort.
On Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples
in tongues of fire, and Peter preaches Christ, and the people hear
and believe and are baptized, on that day the Holy Spirit makes it as
if the whole world is united in one speech once again, as before the
Tower of Babel – but that one speech is now the doctrine of Christ.
The Holy Spirit has no problem bringing faith in Christ. The
account of Pentecost shows that beautifully, as many people are
brought to faith by the Holy Spirit through the Word, which is a
fulfillment of the prophet Joel (whom Peter quotes in his sermon),
who prophesied that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on the
people, and that's how! The Holy Spirit has no problem bringing
faith in Christ, and that is seen in the history of the Church from
that Pentecost Sunday until now. It is seen especially when all has
seemed lost for the Church, and without doubt that will be seen
again.
Christ argues forcefully to not
look at yourself and your own opinions about how God is looking at
you, but only through his words that speak of God's gracious face
toward you because of the love of Jesus which is the love of the
Father which is the love by which he covers your sins with the cross.
Trust that Jesus gives the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit does his
work of creating and sustaining faith in Christ - “even
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it
neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you
and will be in you.”
The Holy Spirit has no problem in his office because Jesus hands him
over by his death on the cross. John links the cross and the giving
of the Holy Spirit, because John records that when Jesus died, he
bowed his head and gave over the Spirit. That's how it says it in
the Greek. And that's what Jesus does – that's his promise of
comfort from the Holy Spirit, and it can be done because he has died
for you.
The Holy Spirit has no problem in his office because Jesus is the
only place where your faith can lie – it's both the will of the
Father and the office of the Spirit. So we don't ignore the Holy
Spirit, we rejoice in his work. And his work – is to point to
Jesus, not himself!
The Holy Spirit has no problem comforting you with God's love in
absolution, Word, and Sacrament. The promised sending of the Holy
Spirit comes to you when his Word comes to you. And his Word comes
to you also in visible ways, in Baptism, the absolution, and the
Lord's Supper. They're visible because he joins his Word to things,
for your comfort.
And the way to overcome having a
problem with God's Word is to have the Holy Spirit as your Teacher,
who doesn't teach apart from that Word. So the solution is to
rightly divide the word of truth, as Paul says. That means to
rightly divide - Law and Gospel! The Word is delivered by the Holy
Spirit to, yes, show you your sin and the threat of what that sin
does to you, but is moreso delivered for the purpose by which the
Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. He's not called the “condemn you
Spirit”, though he does that (he condemns unbelief, as Jesus says
“And
when [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world concerning
sin and righteousness and judgment: 9
concerning sin, because they do not believe in me”),
but he is called the Holy Spirit, because he makes you holy through
faith in the blood of Christ shed for you.)
When the Holy Spirit does this, he does this as the Comforter. And
no one was ever afraid of a comforter. Martin Luther preached that
is was as if Jesus said,
- This is what you are to look for and expect from the Father and from Me. If, as Christians who believe in Me and hold to Me, you suffer or are assailed, whether it be by the devil or by your conscience, then the Holy Spirit will be your Comforter and will address Himself to your heart as follows: ‘Be unafraid, and do not fear; for you are baptized, and you believe in Christ. Therefore you need not be frightened either by the devil with all his angels in hell, by your own thoughts, or by your anxiety about your relation to God. No, do not think otherwise than that God’s anger and all hell are totally extinguished. For that is surely true for believers, even though they still feel sin and weakness.’ ” It is for this very purpose that the Comforter is promised and sent to them, to fortify them against such terror and fear.
The Church
praises the Holy Spirit for his work. Again, Pentecost isn't the one
Sunday of the year that we believe in the Holy Spirit, and then we
put him in the box the rest of the year. When we believe that the
Holy Spirit does his office according to Christ's promise, we praise
him as truly God with Christ and the Father. And we do this a lot.
We do this when we sing an opening hymn that calls upon the Holy
Spirit to bless us. To do that at the beginning of the service is to
confess that nothing happens there unless the Holy Spirit works
through the Word, which we have been promised he will do. That gives
the comfort that we don't have to “make things happen” here.
We praise the Holy Spirit when we let him make true students of God
out of us when we hear his Word, just as we hear in Psalm 119 –
that we pray that the Holy Spirit alone can teach us to know our
Savior rightly, that we meditate upon that Word as a great gift and
treasure, and when we suffer all sorts of trials having no other
comfort than that which the Holy Spirit can give.
We praise the Holy Spirit, lastly, when we remember our Baptism.
Remembering our Baptism is praising the Holy Spirit in his work that
by his power not our reason or strength we may believe in Jesus, who
is all Truth.
Conclusion: When God speaks his Holy Word by giving us the Holy
Scriptures, we have problems with it, and need to repent. But when
we receive the Holy Spirit through that same Holy Scripture, he
doesn't need to repent, and he doesn't struggle in comforting us.
And that comfort is the cross of Christ, which the Holy Spirit
teaches the Church again and again. He is the Comforter, the Spirit
of Truth, given by Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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