Sermon for Easter 6: "Never Alone"

+ Easter 6 – May 17^th, 2020 +

Series A: Acts 17:16-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the beginning, the Lord declared all that he made to be good. Creation, with its greater and lesser lights, its flora and fauna, its creeping things that creep on the ground. The Lord declared it not just good, but very good. There was, however, one thing that was not good in Eden. It was not good for the man to be alone. So God made Eve as a helpmeet and companion and wife for him.

Over these past few weeks, I imagine that each in our own ways, we’ve discovered that ancient truth. It is not good for man to be alone. Even when we know it is good to love and serve our neighbor by distancing from them for a short while, still, it is not good for man to be alone. 

We can be thankful for the technology that allows us to connect with friends over video chat and family over great distances or across the living room, but it’s still not the same as actually being present with those same people in the same room.

We can appreciate the phone call, the letter, or a wave from a neighbor as they drive by the house, but it’s still not the same as catching up over a cup of coffee at the same table.

We can be grateful for all that schools and teachers are doing to provide our children with online learning and countless resources, but Zoom meetings aren’t the same as sitting in the classroom with your friends and learning together.

We can be glad that we have the ability to stream an online service like we’re doing right now. But it’s not the same is it. Virtual church is a bit of an oxymoron if you think about it. It may be a good, temporary, thing, but it’s also good not to get too used to this either. For it’s no substitute for the regular Sunday gathering of the baptized in our Lord’s house, in our Lord’s presence, surrounded by his gifts, together. 

One of the things we’ve learned these past eight weeks, is that it’s not good for us to be alone.

After all, from the beginning, God created us to be in communion, in fellowship with him and with one another. For God himself is an eternal communion: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the eternal three in one. The Trinity in unity and unity in Trinity, as we confess in the Athanasian Creed. 

Here in John 14, Jesus is preparing his disciples for what is to come in his crucifixion and after his resurrection and ascension. Though the disciples don’t know it yet, they will be tempted by their own flesh and the devil to believe that they are in fact alone, that God had abandoned them and that Jesus had left them on their own. But this was not so.

“If you love me, keep my commands.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be^[c] in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

Our Lord knew that it was not good for his disciples to be alone either. I will give you another Helper, an Advocate, the Comforter. Jesus is promising them – and you – to send the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Truth, who will lead and guide them in the truth of God’s Word. He is the Spirit who testifies of Jesus, constantly pointing the disciples and all believers to Jesus’ death for you, his resurrection for you, his word and baptism and Supper given for you. He is the Spirit who is present with you, for you, and indeed dwells in you by our Lord’s very promise.

Jesus sends his Spirit not only do the work of God for his disciples - comforting them, strengthening them, encouraging them - but He will also do the work of God through them. He will dwell with them and be in them (14:17). The Spirit will lead them to keep the commandments of Jesus. The sacrificial love of Jesus becomes the sacrificial love of His disciples and the world will know God’s people by the love they have for one another and for the world (14:12, 15, and 21; cf. 1 John). “I will not leave you as orphans” Jesus promises.

And that is a good promise for us to hear. Because if we’re honest, it’s easy to feel alone and isolated right now. To feel distant not only from one another, but from our Lord and his promises. This is one of the many ways sin corrupts and infects everything and everyone around us, with the loneliness of sin. That feeling of despair that drives us to hopelessness. Will this ever end? What if my sin is too great for God to forgive? Will he abandon me? 

You see, it is not good for us to be alone. 

This is why Jesus was made man for us. So that we are not, and never will be, alone. So that we will never be abandoned from God’s mercy or orphaned from his grace or lost to the grave. So that his promise to us of dwelling and living with him – not virtually or digitally – but truly and presently and in the flesh, so that it will happen and does happen in his Word and Supper where he dwells with us.

In our time of isolation, remember that Jesus himself knows our aloneness and lostness and abandonment better than anyone, for he himself endured that on the cross. Jesus was forsaken by the Father that you might always be with Him. Jesus was left alone on the cross to take all of our sin, all of our lostness, and our death upon himself. And to give you everything in exchange – his eternal life. His holiness. His grace, mercy, and abiding peace.

This is why Jesus continues to send his Spirit  to you. To do the same work for you and in you as he did for the disciples. To comfort you in the cross of Jesus. To strengthen you in his Word. To encourage you in the way of his commandments. To work for you as well as dwell in you by the washing of water and the word where this Holy Spirit was poured out upon you. To continue, like a good hunting dog, to point you to Jesus crucified and risen for you. 

To remind you that the Father sent his Son for you. The Son died and rose for you and sends the Holy Spirit to you. The Holy Spirit dwells in you. And you are never alone.

In the Name of + Jesus. Amen. 

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard and keep your hearts in Christ Jesus. Amen.