Sermon
for Easter 5, Cantate, May 2, 2021
Peace to you all, and love with faith from God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
John
16:5-15 5 “But
now I am going away to him who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are
you going?’ 6 Yet
because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I am
telling you the truth: It is good for you that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to
you. But if I go, I will send him to
you. 8 When he comes, he will
convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment: 9 about sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 about
righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; 11 about
judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. 12 “I
still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 But when he, the
Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own, but
whatever he hears he will speak. He will
also declare to you what is to come. 14 He
will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to
you. 15 Everything
the Father has is mine. This is why I
said that he takes from what is mine and will declare it to you. (EHV)
Jesus left for our good and sends the Spirit to
give us hope.
Dear disciples of the
living Lord,
It was quite the farewell address from the Teacher to His
students, and to be honest, those students weren’t quite sure what to
think. In the preceding minutes, Jesus
had warned that one of them would betray Him, another one would deny Him three
times, and all would leave Him. He had
washed their feet (over some objections) and warned that after He left them the
world would hate them, persecute them, and kill them because the enemies would
assume that doing so would honor God. To
say that the disciples were troubled by Jesus’ words is an understatement of
epic proportions.
The
disciples were troubled by what Jesus told them because they didn’t yet
understand His mission. It is a far too
common problem in our day as well.
People wonder why, if Jesus is God, doesn’t He eliminate evil in the
world, or at the least suppress it so that our lives are safer? Many people wonder, why do Christians suffer
if our God has the power to solve our problems?
Doesn’t He care? Is Jesus really
God? Is our faith an illusion? Has God left us alone in this world? On the contrary, the answer is that Jesus
left for our good and sends the Spirit to give us hope.
Jesus
said, “But now I am going away to him who sent me, and not one of you asks
me, ‘Where are you going?’ Yet because I
have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth: It
is good for you that I go away.”
Imagine, for a moment, the consequences if Jesus hadn’t left His
disciples that night: there would be no forgiveness of sins, no peace with God,
no salvation, and no hope for us.
Consider
what Jesus’ kingdom is all about. It
isn’t about making a powerful difference in the things of this world. It isn’t about giving people unlimited funds,
recreation, earthly safety, or even health.
Jesus didn’t enter this world to make earth a sad imitation of paradise. Rather, Jesus came into this world to rescue
sinners from Satan’s clutches and reconcile us with our Creator and God, so
that we can spend eternity in His presence.
Therefore, Jesus had to leave His much-loved disciples behind and go
where only He could go, to His Father in heaven—through the cross and the grave.
Having
lived His human life in perfect obedience to His Father’s will, Jesus had one
more work to accomplish to set us free from the chains of sin and death. He had to die in our place. Now, no one ever wants to be parted from a
loved one in death. That is natural to
all of us. Jesus wept at His friend
Lazarus’ tomb because death is a terrible, unnatural thing thrust upon the
world because of sin. But, “the wages
of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) The
sinner must die to satisfy the law.
Being a perfectly just God, there was no other way.
At the
same time, God is love, therefore, God didn’t want to condemn all of us sinners
to an eternity separated from Him, so God made the choice to charge His Son
with the guilt of the world. The grace shown to us in that moment was beyond
human imagination, because “God made him, who did not know sin, to become
sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2
Corinthians 5:21) Because of love for
us, Jesus left for our good.
Still, if
that was all I had to tell you, you wouldn’t have much use for me, and to be
honest, none of us would have any hope.
Yet, Jesus continued, “For if I do not go away, the Counselor will
not come to you. But if I go, I will
send him to you.” At first glance
some might not catch the promise here, but Jesus was telling His disciples that
His victory over sin, death, and the devil was a sure thing. Satan never had a chance to win this
war. The outcome was predetermined by
the fact that God was fighting on our side. The perfectly innocent Son of God went to that
cross not for His own deeds but bearing the sins of the world. In our place, He would suffer the cruel
lashes, taunts, beatings, the nails driven through His hands and feet, and the
death that would cover all of us. To
free us from the curse of sin, Jesus was going forward into battle with the
strength of God, because He is both God and Man.
Jesus had
already promised His disciples that He would rise from the dead on the third
day. They didn’t want to hear that
message when Jesus spoke it, but later what joy was theirs to see it come true. Here, Jesus promises His resurrection on
Easter morning, His ascension to heaven to rule all things for our good, and to
send His Spirit to empower the spread of the Good News of all Jesus has done to
make us right with God once more. In
other words, Jesus left for our good and sends the
Spirit to give us hope.
What
Jesus says next might sound somewhat confusing, but the truth is obvious. Speaking of the Spirit, Jesus said, “When
he comes, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about
judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness,
because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; about judgment,
because the ruler of this world has been condemned.” This means that apart from faith in Christ
Jesus, there is no salvation. The chief
and damning sin is unbelief. To reject
the Son is to reject the Father who sent Him.
To reject the Son means that the sinner is demanding that God judge him
or her on personal merit, but for them there is no merit to stand on for “without
faith it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:6)
All the Scriptures
point to Jesus as the solution to our problem of sin. Thus, Jesus said, “The one who does not
believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the
only-begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)
The sinful nature does not readily accept that there is no other way of
salvation than Jesus. Our corrupt nature
always assumes that we can do something to gain God’s favor. That assumption is always the devil’s
lie. Worse, it leaves the sinner bound
under the same condemnation with the devil, and the devil is condemned to eternal
banishment because his rebellion failed as soon as Jesus entered the battle. However, we rely on the promise that Jesus
left for our good.
You can
hear the compassion in Jesus’ voice as He consoles His disciples saying,
“I
still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he
will guide you into all truth. For he
will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears he will speak. He will also declare to you what is to come.”
There was so much more for those men to learn,
so much more comfort that would come only after Jesus’ resurrection from the
grave. Only in the resurrection do we
truly see Jesus’ victory. As Paul later wrote,
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your
sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17) Yet,
the truth is Jesus did rise from the grave alive forevermore exactly as He
promised He would.
Throughout
the history of the world, no other person has lived a life perfectly pleasing
to God—only Jesus has God’s stamp of approval, “This is my Son, whom I
love. I am well pleased with him.” (Matthew
3:17) Furthermore, only Jesus foretold
the exact method by which His enemies would kill Him and the moment He would
rise from the grave alive again. Most
important, only Jesus fulfilled those prophecies and the prophecies of prophets
from centuries earlier too. Likewise, the
historical record and hundreds of eye witnesses testify that Jesus did rise
from the dead, and thus, Jesus is the risen Lord He claims to be. Only the fool would reject Jesus as Savior
and Lord.
Finally,
Jesus tells us what the Spirit He would send would do: “He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I said that he takes from what is
mine and will declare it to you.”
What Jesus has that we need is holiness, truth, righteousness, and a
family relationship with Almighty God.
God is glorified by the sacrifice of His Son for sinners who could not
rescue themselves. Jesus is glorified
because He made that sacrifice to give us life.
The righteousness that Jesus lived for you and me and for all, the Holy
Spirit brings to us through the Means of Grace—the Gospel in Word and
Sacrament. Through this Good News, Jesus
drives out the death in our hearts and restores us to life that will not
end. His holiness builds a wall around
our souls that the devil can’t penetrate.
Satan can
no longer accuse anyone of sin because Christ Jesus paid the price for it all,
for the sins of the whole world. In exchange,
God credits to believers the righteousness that Jesus lived on our behalf. Not only that, but when the Spirit comes to
us, He resides in us and empowers works we could not do alone. He works in us true faith in Jesus and love
for God. He works compassion for
neighbors, friend and foe alike. The
Spirit works in us the desire to please God in every aspect of our daily
living, and when we fail in that, His power works repentance in troubled
hearts.
On top of
all that, where the Spirit resides, the Father and Son also reside. Jesus promised, “If anyone loves me, he
will hold on to my word. My Father will
love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23)
Dear
friends, Jesus’ disciples had three very troubling days ahead of them, but after
the tomb was opened and they all learned that Jesus lives, their joy could not
be taken away. You and I can also have
this confidence. No matter what comes
our way in this world still under the curse of sin, we have a sure and certain
hope that “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” (Mark
16:16)
All
things have been put under Jesus’ authority and because Jesus lives in heaven,
He gives that life to us as well. To
sinners once lost in unbelief and rebellion, Jesus now gives peace for He has
won the victory that freed us from the devil’s control and brought us into His
Father’s house to live with Him forever.
All this is ours because Jesus left for our good and sends the Spirit
to give us hope. Amen.
The peace
of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
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