Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 11, 2023

by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 12, 2023 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 11

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost –Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 11, 2023
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have a route that I run a few days a week for exercise. It’s always the same route, and usually at the same time of day. Along this route there’s a guy I see just about every time I run. I think he’s walking to work or to catch a bus or something. We always cross paths in the same block, and when we do, he first gives me a polite nod, but then, as I pass him, he quickly turns his head away. I’m pretty sure he’s holding his breath as I go by. This has gone on for literally years now. For a long time I thought it was a COVID thing. Maybe he thinks he’s going to catch the virus from me as I run by. But now the pandemic is over and we know so much more about how people get coronavirus (It’s just about impossible to get it outside). Now it has mutated to become something much milder for most people. But in spite of all this, he’s still doing it! Maybe it’s a residual habit, but lately I’ve been wondering if it is COVID-related at all. I’ve been wondering if maybe he’s turning his head and holding his breath as I run by because I stink! It is towards the end of my three-mile run, so I guess it is possible!

Anyway, it bothers me when he turns away. It makes me doubt the sincerity of his friendly nod. It makes me want to stop and ask him what his problem is, what it is that makes me so off-putting to him. Every time he turns away it makes me feel contagious and gross and…unclean.

Unclean. In the Bible, to be unclean is to be potentially contagious. It is to be thought of as gross. It is an off-putting condition to be in. People would turn away from you – and this was not only to avoid catching something, whether that something was a virus or a whiff of body odor. People turned away because getting too close to someone who was unclean made you unclean too. To be unclean not only made you unfit for relationships with others; you were also thought to be unfit for a relationship with God.

We have a cluster of stories in our gospel reading for today. Three of them. And the strand that runs through all three of them is how Jesus interacts with those who are unclean.

First up we have Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. As a tax collector, Matthew was despised by most of his fellow Jews. Think of how you feel whenever you get something in the mail from the IRS. Unless you’re expecting a refund, it makes you at least a little nervous. Perhaps some suspicion or resentment is stirred up. “What is this about? What are they coming after now?” Well, that’s what people felt whenever they saw someone like Matthew. He was someone who had the authority to get all up in your business and take away your hard-earned money. Even worse, he did so on behalf of the Romans, who had invaded and pillaged and occupied Israel, their Promised Land. And so, tax collectors were thought of as traitors to their own people. Furthermore, as employees of the Roman Empire these Jews handled Roman currency, which had imprints on them proclaiming Caesar to be Lord – a blasphemous statement. All of this together made tax collectors profoundly unclean. They were considered unfit for relationship with most other Jews. They were considered unfit for a relationship with God. When Pharisees or other pious Jews walked past, they turned their heads and held their breath in disgust.

But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to Matthew’s tax booth, with its neat piles of blasphemous coinage, and said to him, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed Jesus, leaving his old life behind.

Later, Jesus sat down and ate dinner with him. There were other tax collectors and sinners in attendance too. We need to understand that rabbis didn’t just sit down with unclean people and share dinner with them, dipping their bread into the common bowls and rubbing elbows with them.

But Jesus did, and when the Pharisees saw it, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They asked some of the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus, overhearing them, explained, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

With this statement, Jesus acknowledged that these guys he was eating with were not well. They were indeed unclean. Jesus doesn’t make light of their sin. He doesn’t excuse it. He certainly doesn’t encourage it. Instead, he is there to heal them of it. He is there, eating and drinking with them, so that he might clean them and cure them as the physician he is. He doesn’t turn away and hold his breath. Instead he gets in close to them, sharing their germs, inhaling their odors, taking their uncleanliness upon himself, in order to make them well.

Next up we have a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. Talk about unclean! In the ancient world a woman’s regular cycle rendered her unclean for a limited time each month. This uncleanliness was not a moral issue, as it was with the tax collectors and sinners. This was a natural process related to fertility – a good thing. This, rather, was a hygienic matter. Any time there was blood outside of the body, it was a major concern. You were expected to stay away from others. You were expected to stay home from synagogue. And this woman had been dealing with these hemorrhages non-stop for twelve years! This meant twelve years of social and religious isolation. This meant she wasn’t eligible for marriage, and if she was already married, it made her eligible to be divorced. This meant constantly having people turn away from her as if she was gross.

But not Jesus. When this woman reached out for Jesus’ cloak as he passed by, when she reached out in faith and touched him, Jesus didn’t turn away and hold his breath. He turned towards her! Jesus didn’t find her off-putting or gross. Instead he said, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” Did you hear that? He called her daughter. Is there a more loving way he could have addressed her? And rather than rebuking her for daring to touch him with her unclean hand, which made him unclean in the process, instead he praised her for her faith in him. “Your faith has made you well,” he said.

Finally, we have the most difficult story of the three. A leader of the synagogue came up to Jesus, begging for his help. His daughter had just died. He asked Jesus to come lay hands on her, so that she would live. Jesus went to the house where the girl was. There was already a crowd of mourners there. There were already flute-players playing a funeral dirge. When Jesus told the crowd to go away, that she was not dead but sleeping, they all laughed at him. Jesus went into the house where this precious daughter laid still in her bed.

Blood was bad enough when it came to uncleanliness, but a dead body was a whole new level of unclean. The Jewish Mishnah describes a human corpse as “the father of the father of all uncleanliness.” It was considered the ultimate impurity. We know how hard it is to look upon someone who is deceased. It is off-putting, to say the least. Unless it is someone you dearly love, you can’t help but want to turn away. You certainly don’t want to touch them. According to Jewish law, touching the dead made you unclean for seven days, and then there was an even more complex rite of purification you had to go through to be made clean again. And so nobody wanted to be near the dead. Aside from perhaps her parents, everyone turned away. Everyone went outside. But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to her. Jesus took her by the hand, and she got up.
Sin. Blood. Death. Instead of turning away and holding his breath in disgust, Jesus turned towards them, bringing healing and new life. Sinners were made holy by his gracious presence. A flow of blood was stopped and a woman was healed. A corpse came back to life and a young girl, a beloved daughter, got out of bed.

These three stories, in one way or another, reflect our own stories, our own lives. Sin continues to mess up our relationships with others and our relationship with God. Many have experienced how debilitating and isolating it is when we are sick or when our bodies don’t work the way they are supposed to. We know well the somber notes of the funeral liturgy.

And instead of turning away and holding his breath, our Lord Jesus has turned towards us. He is not repulsed by all the things that make us unclean or off-putting. He is not afraid of viruses or body odor. He does not turn away because of sin, or blood, or death.

Jesus Christ has turned towards us through his Word, forgiving us for our sin and calling us to follow him. He calls us away from our old lives and into new life with him. Jesus Christ continues to eat and drink with sinners, rubbing elbows with us, taking all that is unclean in us upon himself and giving us his holiness in return.

Jesus Christ comes to us through these means of grace that we might take hold of him, that we might reach out to him in faith and touch his cloak, and in so doing be made whole again, restored to fellowship with one another and fellowship with God.

Jesus Christ has come to show us that he has power even over death, and so when the final uncleanliness comes, he will not turn away. He will instead take us by the hand and raise us up to eternal life.

Many may turn away from us in our times of uncleanliness. But not Jesus. He turns towards us, not away, making us clean, and holy, and alive.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for Pentecost Sunday – May 28, 2023

by Jeffrey Spencer | May 28, 2023 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 28

Sermon for Pentecost Sunday – May 28, 2023

Acts 2:1-21, John 20:19-23

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to begin by leading you through a breathing exercise. First, put your hands on your chest. Press lightly but firmly onto your rib cage. Now slowly breathe in as deeply as you can. Feel your chest cavity expanding, filling up with air. Keep inhaling until you can’t fit any more air in your lungs. Hold in your breath for four seconds. Now, slowly let it out. Exhale. Feel your lungs deflate as they push out the air.

Some of you might be thinking, “Oh great. Pastor’s gone New Age on us.” But no! Today is Pentecost. Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. And the biblical word for Spirit in both Hebrew and Greek, in the Old Testament and the New, means not only Spirit, but also wind and….breath.

Breathing involves both inhaling and exhaling. We take breath in and we push it out. Do you know what happens when you only do one or the other? You die! Both of our great Pentecost stories from the Bible today feature the breathing of the Spirit, and there is clearly both inhaling and exhaling.

In our gospel reading we heard how on the night of the resurrection Jesus gave the disciples the Holy Spirit. The risen Jesus appeared to them. He showed them his wounds, assuring them that it was really him. He said, “Peace be with you.” And then he said it again so that peace would sink in. Then Jesus breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The disciples took in these words. They breathed in Jesus’ breath. They inhaled deeply of the Holy Spirit.

But there was a big exhale too. Jesus also said to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus told them to breathe out the Spirit, saying, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” The peace they breathed in was to be breathed out in words spoken to people. The breath of Jesus they breathed in was to be breathed out in words, proclaiming forgiveness in his name.

The Spirit was poured out again fifty days later at Pentecost, a Jewish festival which itself took place fifty days after Passover (which is where we get the word “Pentecost” – pente means fifty). We heard this story in our reading from Acts. Lots of people were in Jerusalem for the festival. There were lots of Jews who now lived outside of Israel who came back to celebrate. Many of these Jews spoke the languages of their homelands outside of Israel. For many of them, these other languages had become their native language. So you had all these people who spoke different languages together in one place for the festival. If you’ve ever been to the tulip festival in the Skagit Valley when the buses are down from Canada, you hear all kinds of different languages. You hear a lot of Chinese. You hear a lot of Hindi. You hear Canadian English, where they say “Soory” and “Aboot” and “Pretty flowers, eh?” You hear Spanish being spoken by the workers. You hear all these different languages. Well, there was a similar vibe at Pentecost.

And then the Spirit came blowing in like a rush of violent wind. And again, the apostles breathed in this wind, this breath. “They were filled with the Holy Spirit,” it says. There’s the inhalation. The Spirit filled their chests with the presence of God.

But then they exhaled. They didn’t hold their breath. They didn’t keep the Spirit in. They breathed out the Spirit on all those people gathered there for the festival. They breathed out the Spirit in the form of words, speaking of “God’s deeds of power.” They spoke of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. They spoke of his glorious resurrection. They spoke of the forgiveness and new life that was available to all through him. And then, in a great sign to show that this Good News was indeed for all the peoples of the earth, God opened their ears to hear the message, each in their own native language.

Like the Spirit brooding over the waters in the beginning, breathing words that brought creation into being, this breath was being put into the ears and the lungs and the hearts of the apostles, so that it could be breathed out in the form of words that created a new reality – the new reality of the forgiveness of sins and peace with God and the promise of eternal life.

The church today needs to understand that the Spirit’s breathing in and through us involves both inhaling and exhaling. We are taught when we go on airplanes that if the oxygen mask falls, to secure your own first and then help others with theirs. That’s good advice. You can’t help others if you don’t have that oxygen supply yourself. But in the church today, and especially in the Lutheran church, we tend to just put our own mask on, breathing in the gospel for ourselves, and then we never help anyone else hear it.

There is a slogan that has become popular in church circles today which says, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” The quote is attributed to St. Francis, but nobody can actually find where he said it. It reminds me of the meme that says, “The problem with internet quotes is that you can’t always depend on their accuracy,” with the quote being attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Not only is it a sketchily sourced quote, but it isn’t at all biblical. St. Paul says that faith comes by hearing. The mission Jesus gives to the church is to proclaim. Using words is always necessary to preach the gospel! That isn’t to say you shouldn’t strive to embody the gospel in the way you live, in the way you treat your neighbor. We should! But nobody will come to faith in Jesus solely because someone was nice to them. That might be the thing that earns you the trust needed to speak to someone, but it won’t by itself deliver the goods of the gospel. It will not, by itself, lead anyone to faith in Jesus. Words are necessary for that.

We need to inhale the gospel ourselves, to be sure. We never stop needing to breathe in the peace of God. We never stop needing to breathe in the presence of Christ Jesus in Word and Sacrament. We never stop needing to breathe in the good news that we are forgiven. But the breathing of the Spirit involves a breathing out as well. Jesus commissions all of us to speak to others of God’s deeds of power. Jesus sends all of us to speak to others of the forgiveness Jesus has won for us. “If you forgive the sins of any,” Jesus says, “they are forgiven them. If you retain them, they are retained.” There’s a lot more we could say about this, but let it at least be said that if you don’t share the gospel with someone who is living apart from God, you are effectively retaining their sin, leaving them stuck there. We are not called to only be filled with the Spirit ourselves, but to breathe it out through words that share the gospel of Jesus Christ and create faith in him. We need to both inhale and exhale.

Now, there are some important caveats. We can share the gospel in ways that are cringey and counterproductive. We shouldn’t do that, of course. We are not called to get in people’s faces with bullhorns. We are not to be arrogant or pretend we have all the answers about everything. There are some contexts where it isn’t appropriate or helpful to talk about our faith, and it can be hard to know when or how we can or should. It is increasingly counterculture to be Christian in the first place, let alone speak to others about it. I get that. I’m not suggesting this is easy or obvious in how we go about it.

I also hasten to add that the Spirit alone creates faith when and where the Spirit wishes. The Spirit uses us as instruments, as mouthpieces, but it is the Spirit that actually moves a heart to faith, not us.

But for the Spirit to breathe through the church it takes both inhaling and exhaling. We used to know this. We used to know this as Lutheran Christians. Do you know what the first document was to be translated into a Native American language? Luther’s Small Catechism. In the 1640s, Swedish Lutheran pastor Johann Campanius breathed in the gospel himself, and then exhaled it into the Algonquin language. This was a continuation of Pentecost! There are Lutheran church bodies today in Africa, some of which are significantly larger than our own, because decades ago Lutheran missionaries breathed in the gospel themselves, and then breathed it out into other languages. Today, we struggle to even do it in English. Today, some Christian parents don’t even teach the gospel to their own children. You know what happens to a church that only inhales and never exhales? It dies.

Our sister in Christ Mary Wonner has been receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer. I’ve been going to see her when she’s up for it. She has a neighbor who has been pretty outspoken in her unbelief. Both Bill and Mary, in a careful, respectful, loving way, have been looking for ways to share the gospel with her. Mary even said she hoped that what she was going through with her cancer would be used to open up opportunities to bear witness to her faith in Jesus to this neighbor. Here is a woman who is fighting for her life, and in the midst of that fight she is thinking about how she can share the gospel! She breathes in the word through Bible study with Bill and online worship and our communion visits, and then she breathes it out in gentle ways to others around her. This neighbor recently admitted that she was praying for Mary. Maybe it was just a polite thing to say. Or maybe, just maybe, the Spirit is working through Mary’s words.

This is the pattern our Pentecost readings lay out for all of us for living life in the Spirit of God. Christ breathes on us. We breathe in his presence. We are filled with the Holy Spirit. We breathe in God, and then we exhale. We are sent to speak of God’s great deeds of power, using the very necessary words God gives us to proclaim Christ’s forgiveness.

Breathe in with me once more. Slowly breathe in all the great deeds of power God has done and is doing for you. Breathe in Jesus’ words, “Peace be with you.” Let them sink in. Breathe in the forgiveness Christ has won for you. He forgives you all your sin, even your silence, your neglect of your calling to bear witness, your fear in sharing the gospel. Let the grace of Christ fill your lungs with new life in him. Let it calm your fears. You can hold that breath in, but not for too long. Then exhale slowly. And go forth from here today to breathe the Spirit out into the lives of others, so that they would know his grace too.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the Ascension of our Lord – May 21, 2023

by Jeffrey Spencer | May 23, 2023 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 21

Sermon for the Ascension of our Lord – May 21, 2023

Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53

 Dear friends grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

What a difference forty days makes! As we’ve been hearing in our readings these past two Sundays, when Jesus first told the disciples he would be leaving them they were beside themselves with worry. Their hearts were troubled. They felt like they were about to be orphaned, like they were losing the one who gave them life, the one who loved them more than anyone else ever had. As Jesus spoke of his leaving in the Upper Room, the disciples were filled with anguish and confusion and fear.

Now, forty days later, Jesus actually leaves them. He withdraws from them, St. Luke tells us. Jesus is carried up into heaven, getting smaller and smaller and smaller until he disappears from their sight. And what is their response to Jesus’ leaving? They are filled with great joy! What a difference forty days makes!

So what changed? What happened to make Jesus’ leaving them go from being an occasion of anguish to an occasion of great joy?

Well, one obvious thing that happened was the resurrection! Over those forty days the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples in many and various ways. Although the disciples all scattered like sheep when the storm of the crucifixion blew in, the risen Jesus didn’t appear to them in order to scold them. Instead he came to them saying, “Peace be with you.” This is what his death and resurrection accomplished: Peace with God! Although Peter denied knowing Jesus three times, publicly disavowing him, Jesus didn’t come to Peter so that he could punish him, so that he could get his revenge. Instead Jesus forgave him and restored him. Although Cleopas was clueless about what had just happened in Jerusalem and blind to Jesus’ presence while he walked with him on the road to Emmaus, Jesus didn’t give up on him and start walking the other way. Jesus had patience with him. He taught him. And then he broke bread with him, opening his eyes at last.

The resurrection had ushed in an entirely new reality for all of them. If there was a love more powerful than sin and death, what did they have to be afraid of?

The risen Jesus also opened the minds of the disciples to understand the scriptures. Now they understood how what we call the Old Testament writings pointed to him. He was the offspring of Eve who would crush the head of the serpent, defeating sin. He was the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham that through his descendants all the families of the earth would be blessed. He was the Lamb of God in Exodus who delivers people from death. He was the suffering servant in Isaiah, by whose wounds we are healed. Now they understood that his death on the cross was not an accident or a failure, but God’s means of salvation. The Messiah was indeed to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. It was all part of God’s endgame from the beginning. Now they understood this, and so Jesus’ leaving was not a tragic farewell but a triumphant victory lap after his mission was accomplished.

In addition to opening their minds to understand the scriptures, Jesus also promised to clothe them with power from on high. Jesus was promising them the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit they would continue to deepen their understanding of the scriptures. Through the Spirit they would be empowered for their own mission, which was just beginning – their mission of proclaiming repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations. Through the Holy Spirit they would continue to know the presence of Jesus in their lives, and so he wasn’t really going away. He would just be with them in a different way.

As Jesus left them, as his risen body began to ascend, Jesus lifted up his hands and blessed them. This was the posture the priests in the temple used to put God’s blessing on the people at the end of worship. It is the posture priests and pastors continue to use to bless God’s people, to put his word, his mercy, his love, his blessing on them. Jesus lifted up his hands in blessing. His hands, still bearing the wounds of his great sacrifice for them, were over them, covering them, shielding them, assuring them, blessing them.

These hands of blessing were yet another part of what made Jesus’ departure an occasion of great joy rather than great anguish. These disciples knew that these hands would remain over them, and so they could go back to their daily lives in great joy. They could go back to Jerusalem, where so much ugliness had happened, without fear. They would spend the rest of their lives worshipping him, blessing God for the blessing that was upon them.

The Ascension of our Lord continues to be an occasion of celebration among Jesus’ disciples today. While it isn’t well known or celebrated much among many American Christians today, historically in the Christian church it has been considered as important as Christmas and Easter! St. Augustine went so far as to say it was even more important than those festivals. He wrote:

“[The Ascension of our Lord] is that festival which confirms the grace of all the festivals together, without which the profitableness of every festival would have perished. For unless the Savior had ascended into heaven, his Nativity would have come to nothing…and his Passion would have borne no fruit for us, and his most holy Resurrection would have been useless.”

The Ascension “confirms the grace of all the other festivals” because now our ascended Lord is seated at the right hand of the Father, where all the things he accomplished in his Nativity and his Passion and his Resurrection continue to be poured out upon his people throughout the world. Our ascended Lord has taken his place at the right hand of God, where he continues to do for us what he did for his first disciples. He continues to do for you what he did for them!

For you who have scattered, who have strayed or fled from him, Jesus comes to you through his word – not to scold but to say, “Peace be with you,” to say, “It’s alright. I have made peace between you and God.” For you who have denied Jesus by your words or your actions, Jesus comes to you through the forgiveness which is proclaimed here in his name. He comes to restore you to right relationship with him and recommission you for service. For you who have been confused or distracted or blind to him, Jesus comes through the breaking of the bread, opening your eyes to his presence. Jesus doesn’t give up on us when we stumble or scatter or sin. He just keeps on coming to us with his word, moving us from repentance to forgiveness.

Jesus opens our minds to understand the scriptures. This isn’t to say we won’t be confused by the Bible from time to time. It is a big book with some confusing parts. There are some verses which the best Bible scholars in the world can only guess at their meaning. But Jesus opens our minds to understand that it is all ultimately about him and what he has done for us. It is about how God sent us a savior to save us from sin and death. It is about how the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. It is about how forgiveness, life, and salvation are found in Jesus.

This understanding doesn’t happen by osmosis. It doesn’t happen by being in the vicinity of a Bible. You actually need to open it up once in a while. You actually need to gather with God’s people to hear it and study it. But when you do, you can be assured that Christ Jesus will teach you what you need to know.

Jesus continues to clothe his people with power from on high. He sends the Holy Spirit to open up the word to us and stir up our faith and remind us of his presence and empower us for our mission and our callings.

And the same hands that were raised up over the disciples in a posture of blessing are raised up over you. As you gather to worship Jesus, as the disciples continued to do, his hands are lifted over you in blessing.

Every week I lift my hands in blessing at various points in the service, whether it is the absolution, or the post-communion blessing, or the benediction. Next week I will lay hands on our confirmation students, blessing them anew with the blessing they first received in Holy Baptism. Last week I laid hands on the head of one of our church members, saying the words of the benediction at the end of our time together. And so she was sheltered, she was covered in blessing when she died a few days later.

The hands of your pastor raised in blessing are a reminder that Christ’s hands of blessing are always over you. And so, with the disciples, you can live without fear. You can go back to your daily lives in great joy. No matter how ugly the world can be, you can go back to it knowing that Christ continues to hold his hands over you in blessing from his throne at the right hand of the Father.

The Ascension of our Lord is good news for you and for me. It is not about Jesus leaving. It is about him being with us forever in a different way. It is not a farewell, it is a “mission accomplished.” His hands were not waving goodbye, they continue to be held over us in eternal blessing.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 14, 2023

by Jeffrey Spencer | May 15, 2023 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 14

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 14, 2023

John 14:15-21

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Although we are still in the Easter season, our gospel readings for both last Sunday and this Sunday take place before the resurrection. We might think of them as flashback scenes. Jesus is preparing his disciples for all that is to come. He is telling them what will happen and what to expect in the days ahead. He is laying the groundwork for what his church will look like after his death and resurrection.

Jesus is also seeking to calm the hearts of the disciples, which, as we heard last week, had become troubled. Jesus had told them that he would be leaving them soon, and this news caused quite a stir. The disciples became nervous. They became anxious and afraid. And so, as we heard last week, Jesus said to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

Today we pick up right where we left off last week. Jesus is continuing to speak to the disciples, preparing them for what was to come. He had a lot more to say to them. In fact, Jesus will go on for four entire chapters with his farewell address to the disciples!

In the snippet we hear from this much longer farewell address, Jesus again speaks to the disciples’ troubled hearts. He addresses this visceral, primal fear they have of being left alone. And in doing so Jesus uses a word that is the same in both English and Greek. He uses the word orphanos, orphan – one whose parents have died. An orphan in the ancient world was especially vulnerable, but we know the sting of that word even today.

I felt a bit of that sting last week as, for the second time in my life, I stood before the Mother’s Day cards at Rite Aid and had that stinging reminder that I wouldn’t be needing one for my mom, who died a year and a half ago. I delight in the opportunity Mother’s Day brings for lavishing my wife with gratitude for what a wonderful mother she is to our three sons. I am also grateful to have a wonderful stepmother who I love very much and has been a tremendous blessing in my life. (She got one of the OHLC-made cards.) I also acknowledge that I’m only a half-orphan, and that I lost my mom later in life than some people do. I’m not trying to stir up a pity party.

But, as many of you know, there is something primal about losing your mother, and it reared up in me again as I looked at those cards. There is something existentially painful about losing the one who carried you in her body and delivered you into the world and nursed you at her breast and took care of you when you were sick and always called you on your birthday and was a constant source of unconditional love in your life. Losing that person leaves you feeling a little lost. The world just feels different without that person in it. It feels a little colder.

The word “orphan” captures this experience, and this is the word Jesus uses to name the fear the disciples were experiencing. They were afraid they were about to be orphaned. They were afraid they were about to lose Jesus, the one who gave them new life. They were afraid that that they were about to lose the one who loved them more than anyone else they had ever known.

Speaking to this primal fear, Jesus gave them a promise. “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus said. Jesus promised that he would not leave them alone.

Jesus promised he would send “another Advocate” to be with them forever. This is a vaguely legal term for someone who would defend you and protect you. The opposite of this is the Accuser, the devil, who goes on the attack, trying to drag you into despair. Jesus promised to send the Advocate, someone who will forever be in their corner, defending them from these attacks, protecting them from the evil one.

This Advocate, however, also has a soft side, a tender, nurturing side. In fact, some Bibles choose to translate the word “Advocate” as either comforter or helper. This Advocate both defends and comforts. You might think of it as a Mama Bear, who will both hold you close in the warmth of her love and tenderness and will also rip the face off of anyone who dares to mess with her cubs.

This Advocate Jesus is talking about is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit holds us close in God’s love while fiercely defending us from our enemies of sin, death, and the devil. “This is the Spirit of truth,” Jesus says, “whom the world does not know, but you know, because he abides with you and will be in you.” And so they will never be alone. They will always have the Holy Spirit.

Jesus also promised the disciples that he himself will come to them. “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says, “I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.”

This refers specifically to the fact that the risen Jesus will literally come to them, and they will literally see him. But it also alludes to how Jesus will come to his church after his ascension. That Spirit of truth will make the risen Jesus known to us. That Spirit of truth is his Spirit, which will be with us forever, giving us life with him. Jesus promises that by this Spirit his disciples will know that he is in the Father and that they are in him and that he is in them. That’s a lot to get your head around, I know, but the essence of this is simply that Jesus will not leave his disciples, then or now, alone. He will come to them. He will be with them. He will not leave them orphaned.

Jesus also says that “those who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

It is easy to hear this, along with what Jesus says earlier about how those who love him will keep his commandments, as a litmus test of sorts, as if there is something we must do to prove we really love Jesus before he will reveal himself to us. But that isn’t quite right. Jesus isn’t giving a litmus test so much as he is giving a description of how his disciples will experience his presence once he has left. Those who love him – and it won’t be everybody – will have and keep his commandments. To keep Christ’s commandments does mean to obey them. You can’t say “I love Jesus, but I don’t want him telling me how to live my life.” But to keep Christ’s commandments is so much more than mere obedience. To “keep” is also to preserve. It is to hold close. It is to treasure. This is not a burden or a begrudging obligation. Instead, for those who love Jesus, it is an honor and a joy to hold his teachings close.

On December 31^st of this last year I got the shocking news that my beloved professor, Jim Nestingen, had died. Not everybody loved Jim. While he was a world-renowned academic, many of his fellow scholars found him a little too backwater with his thick North Dakota accent and his stories from the prairie. He was always more at home in church fellowship halls than in academia. He could get salty in his language and a little too earthy in his illustrations. He could also be very outspoken in his criticism of certain bishops and the direction of the church. So, not everybody loved him.

But many did. Jim has a cadre of students who loved him, myself included, and in the months following his death we have gathered in various ways to share his stories, to remember things he said, to encourage one another to continue in what he taught us. We’ve all pulled out our favorite books and essays and articles of his. There is an effort to collect and keep and preserve his writings and any videos of his lectures. None of this is done begrudgingly. None of this is a litmus test to prove our love for him. This is all the organic response of students who love their teacher.

How much more, then, do the disciples of Jesus have and keep and preserve and treasure his teachings, his commandments, his words? We will never obey them perfectly in this life, but we have and keep and preserve and treasure all that Jesus has said, all that he has taught, all that he has commanded, as the organic response of disciples who love our Lord. It is what we do in response to the One who first loved us and gave himself for us. It is what the church is and does. And Jesus promises us that as we continue to have and keep his commandments, we will know the love of the Father. He promises that he himself will reveal himself to us. We will not be alone. We will not be orphaned. He will continue to make himself known to us.

The fear the disciples had still shows up among Christ’s disciples today. We are desperately afraid of losing the people we love, the people who love us. When we do lose them, there is a vulnerability, an ache, a sting. We feel a little lost. The world feels different, a little colder.

Jesus speaks to this primal fear we have, this universal ache. In a world where people lose mothers and mentors and all kinds of other people who are dear to us, Jesus promises that we will never lose him. In a world full of loneliness, he promises us that we will never be alone. Jesus sends us the Spirit to be our Advocate and our comforter and our helper. He comes to us himself by that same Spirit, dwelling in and among us as our risen Lord. As we keep and preserve and treasure his Word, he reveals himself to us, filling us with the love of the Father.

“I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus promised the disciples.

This is his promise to you too.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church