John 14:23-27
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.”
Jesus Promises Pentecost Peace
One of you asked me a good question last Sunday that I probably don’t explain enough: “Why have we been lighting the candle that’s in the baptismal font?”
First of all, did you notice that we have been lighting that candle? For those of you who did, do any of you remember when we started lighting it? It was on Easter morning. For the last 7 Sundays, that candle has been lit. Maybe you noticed. Maybe you didn’t; that’s OK. But now I’m really going to test your memory. Without looking – and only 4 of you could see it from where you’re sitting anyway – do you remember if that candle is lit right now? It’s not.
Allow me to explain. That candle is called the Paschal candle. It’s a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, and so we light that candle on three resurrection-related occasions:
We light it for funerals, as a reminder of the joy that we have that all who die in faith will live forever, because of the resurrection of the dead.
We light it for baptisms, because as Paul said, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”[1] Our baptisms are what connect us to Jesus’ resurrection and make us beneficiaries of it.
And finally, we light the Paschal candle on Easter morning – and every Sunday morning in the season of Easter – as a reminder of the 40 days that Jesus spent with his disciples between his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven.
So, every time you see a flame on the wick of that candle, you can think of spending eternity with Jesus because of the resurrection from the dead.
“Great, pastor! Now you tell us, now that – barring any future baptisms or funerals – we won’t see a flame on that candle for another 310 days. I’m definitely not going to remember this by the time Easter rolls around next year.”
That would be a fair criticism. But I also think that it would reflect the way the disciples must have felt around Pentecost. They had just spent the last 40 days soaking up every minute that they could of being with the resurrected Jesus. Every time they looked at him, they could still see the nail marks in his hands and be reminded that Jesus was victorious over death. He rose from the dead. He is the all-powerful Son of God.
Every time they listened to him, he opened their minds to understand another portion of Scripture that they hadn’t been able to understand before. They had heard those passages before. But now they saw them in a totally new, Christ-centered light, with Jesus providing the fulfillment of so many promises they had been waiting on.
And now he was gone, ascended into heaven never to be seen on earth again until Judgment Day. They spent the next 10 days waiting and wondering what was going to happen next. I’m sure that some of them were wishing that Jesus had never gone, that they still got to bask in the glow of his resurrection, but it wasn’t to be.
And yet, even though Jesus was gone, he hadn’t abandoned his disciples or orphaned them. He was fulfilling a promise to them – a promise we read in John 14:
“All this I have spoken while still with you. 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.”[2]
That’s quite a promise! The Holy Spirit would come to be their Helper, to be with them, to live in their hearts, to empower them to do amazing things, but, above all, to teach them all things and to remind them of everything Jesus had said to them.
That’s the promise we saw fulfilled in our reading from Acts this morning. 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Father sent the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples in dramatic fashion. There was a sound like a violent wind even though no branch swayed and no leaf stirred. It was mysterious and inexplicable, and it got everyone’s attention so that a great crowd had formed, and, just at that moment, the Holy Spirit filled Jesus’ disciples and enabled them to begin speaking languages they had never studied before:
Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues![3]
At least 15 different languages were suddenly being spoken by these uneducated Galilean fishermen. It’d be like if you heard a dozen Newfies down on holiday from Fort Mac suddenly speaking the most beautiful French and Spanish and Portuguese, Nuer, Swahili and Cantonese. These things just don’t happen.
And then, on top of that, there were tongues of fire on top of their heads, but no one was burning. No fire alarms were going off. No one was frantically shouting, “Stop, drop and roll!” It was a miracle. It was the Holy Spirit whom Jesus had promised.
But the Spirit hadn’t come to make a spectacle. He came to strengthen faith, bath in the disciples and the crowd that had gathered. The only reason for the sound of the wind and the sight of the flames and the sudden speaking of different languages was so that everyone in the city that day could hear the truth about Jesus in words they could immediately and completely understand.
It’s the same thing that the Spirit does today. No, he doesn’t use flames to identify who the truly faithful are. No, you do not have to speak in tongues to be filled with the Spirit. But the Holy Spirit does still help you, by teaching you all things and reminding you of everything that Jesus has said.
That’s why we’re here, because every Sunday you can guarantee that you will be reminded of what Jesus has said. You will be reminded that God loved the world so much that he sent his Son to save it. You will be reminded that Jesus loved you so much that he willingly gave up his life on a cross to save you. You will be reminded that the Spirit still works in your hearts every time you hear God’s Word.
Our translation of John’s Gospel calls the Holy Spirit “the Advocate” here. But he’s far better than Johnny Cochrane or even Camille Vasquez. He’s not a lawyer who argues our case before the judge. He’s our Helper. He speaks to us through God’s Word. He helps us to understand what God says there. He helps us to understand what Jesus did there. He helps you apply these words to your life as you live it.
After your salvation, the Holy Spirit is the greatest gift God has given you, because even though Jesus is gone, God is still with you. Even though that candle out there is no longer burning, and even though we don’t have tongues of flame flitting about on our foreheads, the Holy Spirit has kindled in your heart the fire of his love. He fans your faith into flame every time you hear God’s Word, and he facilitates Jesus’ next promise:
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.[4]
The peace that Jesus mentions here is central to the festival of Pentecost. Jesus is gone, ascended into heaven. In many ways, it feels like we live in a godless world. We’re reminded of it in the movies we watch, the sins that our society celebrates, the apathy and indifference, even the open hostility against God and those who believe in him. That doesn’t sound very peaceful, does it?
Then you add all the person problems and anxieties, e.g. the fear and loneliness we face, the uncertainty about our futures, the regrets about our past, the challenging positions we’re put in at work or school, the relationships that are fractured or broken. Again, that doesn’t sound very peaceful, does it?
But that’s why Jesus says, “I do not give to you as the world gives.”[5] The world would define peace as the absence of danger, a lull in the conflict, a lack of trouble. The peace that Jesus gives us is so much better than that.
Jesus gives us peace by giving us hope and a future in his salvation. We don’t have to wonder how our stories are going to end. We don’t have to fear our unworthiness or be ashamed of our sin. They’ve all been forgiven in him, and we’ll end up in heaven where he will make his dwelling with us forever.
Jesus gives us peace by giving us his Holy Spirit to keep us strong and confident in his Word. To assure us that we are not imagining our salvation or fabricating some fairy tale to make us feel better. We have peace because of the objective reality of what God has done for us. The Father loved us enough to send his Son. Jesus loved us enough to die for our sin. The Holy Spirit continues to show his love for us by living within and strengthening us in him.
There is an objectivity to the peace that Jesus gives us. The events of our lives don’t have to be peaceful in order for us to have peace. We can even be at peace when we’re feeling anxious and afraid, guilty or unworthy. We have peace because of what Jesus has done and is continuing to do for you. We have peace in his blood and peace through the Holy Spirit who teaches us all things and reminds us of everything Jesus has said and done for us.
Obey his teaching. Cling to his Word and to the promise of the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts by faith and you will have this peace today and everyday. Amen.
[1] Romans 6:3,8,5
[2] John 14:25,26
[3] Acts 2:9-11
[4] John 14:27
[5] Ibid
[6] John 14:24