The Comfort Of The Comforter
John 15:26-16:4
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. John 15:26 26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Jesus makes two promises to His disciples in today’s Gospel. The first is that Christ promises to send the Paraclete to His disciples. That Greek word, Παράκλητος, is translated as “Helper” in our version; it means literally “the one called alongside.” Even our Lord knows that it is much more effective to comfort someone when you are right there alongside that person; social distancing just doesn’t cut it. Other versions translate the word as “Comforter.” God the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, will be given to – called alongside – the disciples to help them and to comfort them in this world.
They will need the Paraclete because their Lord is leaving them, in a manner of speaking. Christ must ascend to the Father to sit at His right hand and from there rule all thing visible and invisible. But this does not mean that Christ will break His promise. He had told the disciples before His ascension, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). On the night in which He was betrayed He assured them, “I will not leave you orphans” (John 14:18). Though Christ ascends into the heavens, He is with his disciples continually through His Holy Spirit – the Paraclete – which He promised to send to them.
So, just how will the Paraclete do what His name says? The Holy Spirt is a true helper in times of temptation. When the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh want to entice us with sin and worldly pleasures, the Holy Spirit is there to help us in those moments. In temptation He helps by testifying of Christ to us. Nothing douses the flames of temptation faster than calling to mind what our Lord Jesus has endured for the sake our sins. The Holy Spirit testifies to us about what Christ suffered for our sake, for the very sins which are tempted to commit. In the moment of temptation He reminds us that Christ has united us to His death in Holy Baptism, so that we know that “our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Romans 6:6).
This is a help which the world cannot offer because the world wants to lure us into all sorts of different sins and vices. It is only the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, who helps us in the hour of temptation by testifying of Christ to us, what He has suffered for our sins and borne in His body for their sakes, and also the gifts that He gives to us by baptizing us into that death for the sins of the world. When temptation strikes, we may turn away from the temptation and turn toward the Parclete, seeking His help which is Christ’s.
The Holy Spirit is also our true comforter. The comfort He offers, like the help He offers, is something the world cannot give. The comfort He gives is the comfort of sins forgiven. All Christians have the same adversary, the Devil, who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). All Christians live under the Devil’s accusations, for he is “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10), who is continually bringing our sins before our eyes. The devil wants us to think about our sins at all times; he does this to drag us into either pride or despair.
When the devil confronts us with our sins, pride responds by heaping up all kinds of good deeds to try to outweigh the evil we have done. Pride tries to silence the accusations of the devil by smothering those accusations with more and more good works. Those that see they have no good works because “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) go the opposite direction and despair of their sins, thinking that they are beyond salvation because of the wicked things they have done.
In the midst of such accusations comes the Paraclete, the Comforter, whom Christ promises. He comforts us against the devil’s accusations by testifying to Christ’s work done for us. When the devil wants to throw your sins back in your face, that is when the Holy Spirit comforts your conscience by directing your gaze away from your sins. He redirects your attention away from your own works, and He testifies to you of Christ’s death which atones for all your sins. The Paraclete reminds you that Christ’s innocent suffering and death is the only thing you can put between you and God’s wrath whenever you feel guilty over sins present or long past. The Holy Spirit reminds you of the Gospel and urges you flee to Christ for refuge against all the devil’s accusations.
Many survivors, nearly half, are age 70 and older, but ages do vary greatly purchase cialis without prescription by cancer type. Family, home, demanding careers and busy social lives can leave you with very little time to take the decision. cheap levitra http://deeprootsmag.org/2016/03/08/to-the-ages-of-ages/ You may think that this is a get viagra cheap deeprootsmag.org and will tell you how to get levitra samples. It can also attack and buy tadalafil in canada destroy endocrine cortex causing further complications. 2. When the devil accuses you of your sins and reminds you of all that you deserve because of them, the Spirit bids you to flee to Jesus and plead His works and His merits, because only His merits and suffering can calm the troubled conscience. You and I deserve death and Hell because of our sins. This is most certainly true. But Christ has died to atone for the sins of the world so “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). All Christ’s merits “shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:24-25). This is the comforter of the Comforter.
There is yet one more way in which the Paraclete helps and comforts us, and that is in our prayers. Christ gives us the Holy Spirit at our baptism so that we might receive the adoption as sons, or as Paul says in Galatians 4:6, “God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father.’” Without the Holy Spirit we would be unable to pray, because prayer takes faith. So the Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts so that we learn to call God “Father” and call upon Him as our dear heavenly Father in every need. The Spirit helps us to pray so that we can “be serious and watchful in our prayers” as Peter wrote in today’s epistle lesson (1 Peter 4:7b).
But even then, there are times when prayer escapes us and becomes difficult if not impossible. St. Paul writes, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). He helps us in prayer by reminding us pray, leading us pray, and giving us the words to pray. But for those times when words fail us – when we are so overwhelmed and burdened with sorrow, grief, and worry – the Holy Spirit helps us in our great need by interceding for us with “groanings which cannot be uttered.”
So the Spirit helps us pray and calls to mind that we truly are children of God and heirs of all the heavenly blessings with Christ Jesus, the Only-Begotten Son of God. For St. Paul says, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together” (Romans 8:16-17).
That last bit of Paul there, “if indeed we suffer with Him,” leads us to the second promise Christ makes to us in today’s Gospel lesson – the promise of suffering and hardship for the sake of the Gospel. Jesus tells the disciples that they will be booted from the synagogues and killed for the sake of their testimony about Him. Jesus promises that they will suffer with Him, for He was cast out of the synagogue in Luke 4.
Already in Jesus’ lifetime people were afraid to confess Christ because John tells us in John 9:22 that “the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.” If these things happened while Christ was with them in the flesh, they would only intensify after He ascended to the Father and was physically with them no more. Just as the prophets were killed and John the Baptist was beheaded for their testimony, so all the disciples, save one, would be persecuted and eventually murdered for their confession of Christ as the crucified and risen Messiah who takes away the sins of the world.
Suffering with Christ is simply part of being united with Christ in Holy Baptism. Being persecuted for having the pure Word of God goes along with being adopted as sons of God through faith in Christ. As it was in the Old Testament, so it was true in the New, and is still true today. Suffering is part of being a son of God. But this is why the Paraclete is given: to help us testify to the Gospel and confess Christ no matter what the outcome, and to comfort us when we suffer any hardship for the sake of Christ.
Dear fellow redeemed, now we see what a great gift Christ promises to us today. He sends the Holy Spirit to be our Paraclete, our Helper, and our Comforter in every temptation, every trial, every affliction, and every need. He sends the Paraclete so that in all hardships and dangers of body and soul, whatever they might be, we fix our eyes upon the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. He testifies to us daily that by faith in Christ’s merits and death our sins are forgiven. He testifies to us that we are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus and so can call God our heavenly Father and approach Him in every trial and need. He testifies Christ to us so that we may be able to endure all things for His sake with joy, knowing we are His and He is ours no matter what the devil, the world, or the flesh does to us.
And He testifies Christ to us right here at this altar where Christ Himself is delivered to us really and truly in the bread and wine which is His body and blood. There is no more intimate interaction with Christ than right here where He lovingly places His body and blood into us, and thereby gives us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. There is nowhere else on earth than right here where we are united with Christ and also those who are with Him in heaven – those who have gone before us in the faith and who now rest from their labors.
In this world of sin, trial, trouble, and hardship, the Comforter comforts us with everything we need. And the only thing we really need is Christ. And He is yours.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
