Easter 6

Preparation

    Please begin by reading John 14:23-29 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided that text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--A Remedy for Troubled Hearts  

   We are coming closer to Pentecost, the time in the church’s calendar when we celebrate the pouring out of God’s Spirit on the very first Christians. That outpouring was not an unexpected event. Jesus had told his disciples that it would happen. Today’s passage from the gospel of John is the second half of part of a larger passage, beginning at John 14:15, containing one of Jesus’ teachings about the future coming of the Holy Spirit.

    The gift of the Holy Sprit was not just something for the first Christians or the first-century church. It is a gift to God’s people through the ages. Sometimes it is manifested in dramatic ways, like the appearance of fire and speaking in other languages described in the second chapter of Acts.

    Perhaps more often it is a quite, but unmistakable, awareness of God’s intimate presence; like the experience of John Wesley on a May evening more than 200 years ago who felt his heart “strangely warmed.” That experience of the Holy Spirit brought with it Wesley’s personal conviction of his own salvation and set him on a journey that led to the founding of the Methodist church. It was the same inner voice that led Troy Perry to hold a small church service in October 1968 that led to the founding of another denomination—the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. In recounting that event in Don’t Be Afraid Anymore, he tells about the conviction that came that he was to begin an inclusive Christian church and about his prayer for guidance on when to begin. “A Still, small voice in my mind’s ear spoke, and the voice said, ‘Now.’”

    This Holy Spirit that we are promised brings many blessings and gifts. Here, Jesus tells us what the great gift the Spirit brings in times of trouble; a knowledge of the things of God to fall back on and an intense sense of peace that, as an old hymn puts it, brings “blessed assurance.”

    It is the Holy Spirit that puts a hunger in our hearts to know the things of God. It is that hunger that leads us, sooner or later, to want to know more and more about the teachings and life of Jesus and what they mean. It is the Holy Spirit that blesses us with new insights as we study. Old familiar words are made fresh and new as we dig into them and see core truths that we never noticed before. These things become written on our hearts and it is this inner knowledge that comes to our aid in times of trouble.

    When ill winds blow, the Holy Sprit reminds us that we belong to One who is greater than the world and its troubles. It is this knowledge that permits that extraordinary sense of peace that Jesus is talking about here. The Holy Spirit reminds us again and again that, come what may, we indeed need not be afraid anymore. We are the children of God.

revclay

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John 14:23-29

    Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. 

    "I have said these things to you while I am still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.  You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.'  If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.  And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.”  [NRSV]