The Spirit Whom the World Cannot Receive: A Meditation on John 14

In our Gospel reading for this week, we continue with the dialogue John records of Jesus and His disciples before He goes to His Passion.  Beginning in verse 15, Jesus tells His disciples:

“If you love Me, keep My commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—  the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”(NKJV)

Jesus teaches His disciples, that to love Him is to keep His Word—a Word that is as simple as believing in Him and loving each other, and as complex as the whole witness of Holy Scripture.  Faith and Love are the marks of His people, given to them by His own grace, love, and mercy, so that the disciples become branches of His Vine.  They live, because He lives, and gives His life to them.  To remain in the love of Christ, is to remain in Faith and Love.

Of course, if we look at this from our sinful human perspective, it will cause us to despair.  Who among us has the recourses in himself to keep all of Christ’s Word?  Who believes without doubt, every Word that has come to us from God, every second of our lives?  Who loves without end, preferring not only insult and injury but even death itself, to save or preserve our neighbor?  In reality, we have weak faith at best, and tepid love, preferring to love ourselves and our own opinions more than anything else.

This frightening disparity between what we are able to do, and what God calls us to do, is what causes us to despair of our own works, merit, or ability before God.  When we see the Father manifested through the Son, we see what perfect Faith and Love look like.  We see the Son who not only keeps every Word of His Father, but is Himself that very living Word.  We see the Son who not only loves the Father, but casting aside His own divine prerogatives, lays down His life for the life of the world.  Jesus is the full measure of God’s call to every man, woman, and child to believe His Word and keep it.  And there is no way we can meet that standard, as people born in sin and depravity.

But then, we are not called to rely on our own resources, either to believe or to love.  While Jesus was the perfect keeper of the Law, that was not His primary mission.  Rather, His mission was to fulfill the Law for our sake, so that by His sacrificial death and resurrection, He might give to us His own victory over sin, death, and hell.  What we cannot do, He has already done through His Cross. What we cannot believe, He has already brought to completion.  Where our faith and love are decrepit and twisted, His Faith and Love have overcome all things.  This is His Good News, His Holy Gospel, to every man, woman and child upon the face of the earth:  that we are saved by Him, through Him, and in Him.  He is our Faith, and our Love.  He is our life, our sweetness, and our hope.  He is all that we are called to be, and cannot attain.  He is our victory, and our life that cannot die.  He alone is our Savior.

And it is for this reason that He has sent the Comforter to us.  His Holy Spirit, who comes to bear witness to Christ through Word and Sacrament, bestows to us faith to believe this Holy Gospel, and divine love to give to both God and our neighbor.  The Holy Spirit comes, not to glorify Himself, but to glorify the Father through the Son… and the Father and the Son glorify the Spirit, as He works the salvation of all who will hear the Word of Christ, receive His Faith and Love, and live as branches grafted into His Vine.

While the Holy Spirit comes to all through Christ’s Word, not all will receive Him.  Some will hear Christ’s Word of Law and Gospel, and rather than receiving the free gift of grace, they will return to their evil darkness, spurning the light.  The world which rejects the Word of Christ cannot receive His Holy Spirit, nor can it believe or love unto eternal life.  Though the Holy Spirit is sent to all, even as the Word of Christ is preached to all, the Spirit will not stop anyone from blaspheming Him.  If the darkness of hell is what we want, an eternity of despair and darkness unilluminated by the beautiful light of Christ’s Word, He will not force us into heaven, or into communion with the Holy Trinity, the holy saints and the blessed angels.  The world that rejects the Word of Christ cannot receive the Holy Spirit, and cannot be the disciples who live through Jesus.

And so, even in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, we are called to the same courage that Jesus calls His first century disciples to.  We are called to hear the Word of our Savior, by which we receive the promise of the Holy Spirit, who takes our paltry human faith and love, giving to us instead the Faith and Love of Jesus.  We live by a faith not our own, and love with a love not our own, saved by a grace that is not our own, given to us by a Savior who has rather made us His own.  We receive His Holy Spirit through His Holy Word, and live by His power and grace.  But if the world scorns you for your life in the Spirit, your Faith and Love given by Christ through His Word, even so, be of good cheer—you are in the very best of company.  For it is here, in this place, scorned by the world’s unbelief and wickedness, that you find the eternal blessed communion of all the saints in light:  the very eternal communion of the Most Holy Trinity.  The works of darkness, together with those who keep them, will pass away.  But the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who live by it, shall abide forever.  Amen.