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Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 25, 2025
John 14:23-29
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
There’s an important bit of context missing from our gospel reading for today. Our reading from John this morning consists of Jesus’ response to a question from Judas (not Iscariot) – but the question itself is left out! It’s like Bible Jeopardy – you get the answer, but you have to guess the question! So, let’s back up a bit and provide this important context.
Jesus had just told the disciples that he would be leaving them. This caused them to become anxious. Their hearts were troubled. And so Jesus hastened to add that he would come to them again in a different way. He told them that the world would not see him, but that they, his disciples, would see him. He would reveal himself to them.
And then Judas (not Iscariot) asked Jesus, “Lord, how will you reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Our reading for today is Jesus’ response to this question. Jesus is explaining how he will reveal himself to his disciples – and to us – after he has ascended to the Father, so that he might give us his peace.
In response to Judas (not Iscariot’s) question, Jesus said, “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.”
Jesus reveals himself to those keep his word. This is about more than just doing what he says, though that is part of it. Part of the Great Commission is to make disciples who obey everything that he has commanded us, so that’s part of it. But the language here goes deeper. To keep Jesus’ word is to treasure it. It is to hold on to it. It is to cling to it. As Martin Luther wrote in the Small Catechism, it is to hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.
This word is preserved for us in the Bible. This word is spoken to us in worship. This word is poured over us in Holy Baptism and fed to us in Holy Communion. Those who love Jesus treasure this word because this is how our Lord comes to us. This is how he reveals himself to us. This is how he and the Father come and make a home with us, as we gather around the Word, clinging to it, holding it dear.
Unfortunately, we are foolish and forgetful creatures. Unfortunately, there are times when our love for Jesus grows cold and we neglect this Word. We do not treat it as the treasure it is for us. Unfortunately, the world, the devil, and our sinful selves are very effective at distracting us from this Word, and so we do not hold on to it.
Thankfully, our Lord Jesus knows this about us, and so he sends us the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s job, Jesus says, is “to teach you everything and to remind you of all that I have said to you.” The Spirit moves in mysterious ways, to be sure, but there is nothing mysterious about what the Spirit has been sent to do. The Spirit is sent by Jesus to teach us. The Spirit is sent to remind us of everything Jesus has said to us in his Word, so that we might know his peace.
People come up with all kinds of strange and unbiblical ideas about the Spirit. People sometimes think the Spirit is a free agent who comes with new, updated revelations. People sometimes confuse the Spirit with their own internal voice. How convenient it is when the Spirit seems to be affirming all the things you already want to believe or do! People sometimes believe the Spirit is only really at work in exotic or mystical spiritual experiences.
But according to Jesus, the Spirit’s mission and purpose is really quite simple and down to earth. Jesus explains that the Father sends the Spirit in his name to remind us of what Jesus has said. The Spirit’s job is simply to lead our hearts back to his Word.
This is important because when our hearts lose sight of the Word, we end up as anxious as the disciples were. When we drift away from this Word, our hearts become as troubled as theirs were. When we neglect the Word or become distracted from it, we do not have the peace our Lord Jesus came to give us.
Jesus knows how prone we are to anxiousness and troubled hearts, and so he sends his Spirit to help us cling to his Word. After describing what the Spirit is going to come and do, Jesus says, “My 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.” This peace is given to us as the Spirit helps us hold fast to his Word.
I had lunch with my sister this past week. We’ve been meeting for lunch just about once a month since our mother died three and a half years ago. As many of you know, our mother’s death was sudden and unexpected and tragic, and our relationship with her was often strained due to her alcoholism and addiction. This left a lot of unresolved issues that we’ve kind of been working through together over these lunches the last few years. It isn’t all we talk about, especially as time goes by, but it still comes up a lot.
Anyway, while my mom could be a hot mess at times, she was very loving, and very affectionate. She often wrote us sweet notes and cards – not only for our birthdays, but sometimes just because. My sister kept a number of the cards and notes our mother sent her. She has hung onto them. She treasures them. She enjoys seeing our mother’s handwriting and the sweet things our mom would write on those cards. On one of the cards our mom had written, “You are so loved.”
On Mother’s Day this year, my sister took that card and went and got a tattoo of those words on her arm, inscribed with our mother’s distinctive handwriting. At lunch this week she pulled up her sleeve and revealed it to me. I’m not really a tattoo guy (I know that’s a dangerous thing to say in a Navy town) but it was really beautiful and very touching. It looked exactly like our mother’s handwriting, and it was exactly the kind of thing she was always saying to us, even when things were messy in our relationship with her. As my sister pulled her sleeve back down, she smiled sweetly and said that those handwritten words on her arm from our mom gave her a sense of peace.
I went to therapy and my sister got a tattoo. We are not the same. But it really is beautiful, and as I came back from our lunch and dove into our gospel reading for this week, I couldn’t help but think that what my sister did and what she said is a good illustration of what this whole gospel reading is about.
Just as my sister treasured my mother’s words, hanging on to those birthday cards with her handwriting, so too do we treasure Jesus’ words for us. That’s why we stand for the gospel reading. We do so because those readings contain the direct words of our Lord Jesus, and so we stand to honor them. We treasure them. We cling to them. We hold them dear.
It is the Holy Spirit’s job to inscribe those words onto us. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to imprint them upon us, reminding us of all that Jesus has said to us.
And so when we are baptized, the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is permanently written on us. These are Christ’s own words inscribed with God’s own handwriting. In baptism, we are marked with the saving cross of Christ forever. We gather for worship to hold sacred and gladly hear God’s holy Word as the Spirit goes to work reminding us of all that Christ has taught us, either himself or through his chosen apostles. Here in worship, we hear the words Christ authorized his church to say, that for his sake all the sins that we confess to him are completely and entirely forgiven. Here in worship, we are fed with Christ’s forgiveness and love as we receive the visible words of Christ’s true body and true blood. These visible words become part of us, part of our bodies! Through these means of grace etched into our lives by the Holy Spirit, Christ reveals himself to us. God the Father and Jesus the Son come to us and make a home with us, just as Jesus said.
We may still struggle with anxiety from time to time. We may well find our hearts troubled by things that are happening in our lives or in our world or even in the church. But that’s why the Spirit keeps calling us back. The Spirit continues to call and gather us in order to continue the work of writing the Word of God onto us. The Spirit continues to inscribe God’s promises onto our hearts, that we might cling to them, so that they might become part of us.
This Spirit is working on you even now. Today, through the Spirit, Jesus says to you, “You are so loved.” Today, through the Spirit, Jesus says to you, “You are so forgiven.” Today, through the Spirit, Jesus says to you, “I am so coming to you, and you are so going to be with me forever – and so do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
And as this word sinks in, as it becomes part of us, our hearts can at last find peace.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church