“THE SPIRIT GUIDES YOU AND GIVES YOU JESUS”
Saint John 16: 5-15
Cantate: 15 May Anno Domini 2022
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
God is a mystery. The Trinity is a mystery beyond comprehension and beyond explanation. Witness this homily. But the truth of your God, His Oneness and His Godhead: Father, Son, + and Holy Spirit, has been given to you and your ancestors. For thousands and thousands of years, since Adam, the revelation of Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity has been graced to you.
One does not grasp God. The Lord God grasps you and cradles you gently. He pulls you from death and restores your life and your soul. One does not comprehend The Godhead. One receives Grace through faith to believe, to trust, and to confess.
The words of Christ in this morning’s Gospel are spoken before, a full two chapters in John’s Evangel before, His arrest, trial, crucifixion, and death. The “12” were still struggling with understanding what was about to soon happen. Their inclinations that their Master was going to be taken and killed were coalescing and becoming sharper in focus. Their understanding of the Resurrection was buried deep under their own sin, and weak faith. All this talk from their Rabbi about “going,” “going away,” had them sorrowful.
While it is normal to want to hold on to our friends, families, houses, homes, jobs, pets…it is sinful to deny the effects and realities of a broken and dying world. As the hymnist wrote: “change and decay in all around I see…”
What the “12” did not understand immediately they would come to receive—Easter Evening, the 40 days of Eastertide, and on the Feast of Pentecost.
The Apostles are gone from the physical world, resting in their own Holy Saturday tombs until the end of time; resting with Christ. So, Jesus’ words this morning are for you and yours!
Christ doesn’t just tell the truth He IS The Truth! For Him to be out of sight, visual perception, is not just good for you, it’s great for you—necessary—salutary—salvific!
When The Son steps back, when He goes to The Father, he doesn’t leave at all. The Lord is omnipresent. Jesus now has His Words given you by The Comforter. The Comforter is The Holy Ghost. You’ve already confessed The Spirit this morning as God, as The Lord and Giver of Life. You know that Christ is The Life and therefore you believe that The Holy Ghost gives you Jesus—all of Jesus. It is The Spirit that gives you The God/Man in Christ’s own words and in His very Body and Blood—His Words made flesh “for you.”
Does your spouse still love you while you fall asleep on the couch and can no longer “see” them or hear them? Do you still love and care for and protect your child if they are in a coma for several weeks and don’t know you’re in the room watching and praying?
Jesus wanted His followers, His brothers and sisters to believe in Him and His Word. That was His way—believe His Word and not the bread you could multiply. He did not bring any of you a crown—not yet. He has given you a cross that you might be conformed in His Holy shape. Faith IS the evidence of things not seen. You no longer see The Son. You don’t even see The Holy Ghost. But you see the servant of The Spirit, the Under-Shepherd of The Good Shepherd. The Eastern Church is correct that it is The Office of The Holy Ministry wherein you do “see” the Comforter. The Spirit brings you Jesus. Jesus comes in His Words and Supper. The called & ordained servant of The Word is The Holy Ghost’s servant—to audibly preach and teach and to physically and audibly and tactilely, distribute Jesus’ Body and Blood.
Yes, we all would much prefer Christ to be here like He was with His disciples before His Ascension. But this is His way. He is THE WAY!
He sent each and every one of you The Spirit when you were + Baptized. You are very temple of The Comforter. The Holy Ghost reproves, i.e., chastises, condemns, “calls out,” rebukes the world of sin. The Spirit does the same to your “old Adam.” Your guilt when you sin, your contrition, is the result of The Comforter smacking you hard with The Law—The Word of God. When you feel your sin, when you receive Jesus’ Forgiveness at font, confessional, and communion rail, The Holy Ghost is doing what He does—give you Jesus Christ Crucified for Forgiveness, Life, and Salvation.
The world is judged. Your sins are judged. All is judged and condemned from the “Fall” until the return of The Lord at the Parousia. All Judged in the bloody agony and sweat of The Lamb nailed to the tree—the vicarious sacrifice; the perfect atonement; the Paschal Mystery.
Is the mystery of the sending of The Comforter to you any more incredulous than the mystery of the Atonement; or the mystery of Creation; or the mystery of the Two-Natures of Christ…or the mystery of you being brought here today to receive God’s Body and Blood? All my The Comforter calling you by The Gospel.
Like the “12” you know Satan, the “prince of this world is judged,” the deed is done, one little word has felled him! You too have been guided into He Who is Truth.
Worry not that you can’t see Jesus…for now. Fret not that you can’t see The Holy Ghost. He speaks. He glorifies Christ. He shows you all things that The Father knows you need. You have forgiveness + and Peace.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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