| May 20, 2001 Acts 15:1,2,22-29 + Revelation 21.10-14,22-23 + John 14:23-29 |
| Last week, John speaks of Glory This week, he speaks of Peace.Both are powerful, nurturing, and tangible signs of the Spirit’s presence in human life – they are the treasures of the incarnation. What is of concern here is the status of the disciples after the departure of Jesus. This whole section of John’s Gospel deals with what and how the disciples are to live (which is obedience) and relate to this world (in love), especially as they wait for the return of Christ, using certain gifts to sustain them in the wait. |
| Peace is one of them, and it is the immediate consequence of the indwelling or the realized union of God Father and Son living in the disciple. “An abiding presence”. a Comforter, Counselor, Consoler, Advocate, Strengthener, Helper, Someone to stand by you…….. allterms struggling to express in English, the Greek word. “Paraclete.” This gift, this “Spirit” sets the disciples off from the world. It is how and why they are in this world and not of this world. |
| The “peace” of which John speaks is ultimately the overcoming of fear – a kind of total well being. Like “love” it is, for John, the hallmark of being a disciple of Jesus. This gift then, which is the center of today’s Gospel is not the absence of trouble. The world’s peace is the peace of escape, denial, avoidance, a “peace” that comes from refusal to face things. |
| The peace which Jesus offers us is the peace of conquest, something that no experience in life can ever take from us. It is the peace which no sorrow, no danger, no suffering can make less. It is independent of outward circumstances. This peace frees us from fear, not from trouble. |
| One of the drawbacks or weaknesses of the Pentecostal movement we have experienced in our generation is that it proposed that the presence of the Spirit was manifested by a kind of outward giddiness or wide eyed joyful piety that generated prayerful gestures or postures and was accompanied by a certain genre of music and vocabulary of prayer like: “Praise the Lord!” or a chorus a “Amens” and “Alleluias” to every good feeling and sentiment. While there certainly may be nothing wrong with that experience or piety, it is far from what John was expressing and proposing as the Gift of the |
| Spirit. The sense of this Gospel is that manifestations of the Spirit’s presence in one’s life is more in terms of Courage and Hope. The spirit filled in John’s gospel are those who stand before tragedy, disappointment, pain, and sorrow with courage. They are not overcome by the inevitable confusion, doubt, and fears in this life.In fact, the real witness to the spirit is that Fear does not run their lives, Hope does. They do make decisions out of fear: caring about what others will think or say about them, they make them out of love and obedience to the Will and Word of God. When we know what is right, it is the Spirit that makes us bold. When we know how to face injustice, our own disappointments, or the challenge of our own death, the gift we have will be sufficient, because we are not alone. |
| We proclaim the Gospel of John today, and we bear witness to the gift we have received in the Spirit of God. a spirit of courage and of hope made all the more powerful by the indwelling of God in our hearts, our minds, and again through the sacrament of this table, in our very flesh and blood. |
| “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” he says to us, and that is the whole, entire, heart of the Gospel and it is the Word of the Lord. |