We all have those moments in our lives that we will never forget. They may be times of triumph, times of joy. They may be times of pain or loss. Or they may just be times spent with people who we don’t see nearly as often as we would like to. Nevertheless, we cannot forget certain moments that take place within our lives. One of those moments for me came right at seven years ago. Amy and I were visiting my parents in Meridian, MS. My dad’s mom had just passed away after a fairly short battle with cancer and we were spending some time visiting with my parents after things had somewhat calmed down and gotten relatively back to normal. I remember sitting in their living room talking with my dad and asking him a question about a connection between two families in town. He couldn’t immediately think of how they were connected or related, so he looks at me and says, “Let me call mama real quick and ask her.” Hearing those words escape from my father’s mouth, I sat in silence knowing that he would realize what he had just said, but I didn’t know how he would react once it hit him. Luckily, my father didn’t lose it. After remembering that calling her was longer an option, he laughed it off and said, “Well, I guess it’s going to take me a while to get used to this isn’t it.” You see, no matter how much he knew that she was not there anymore, he was still dealing with her not being just a phone call away. It’s that moment that somewhat defines for me what it means to lose someone we love, someone whom we hold dear to us.
Jesus’ disciples are preparing for such a time. Perhaps a better way to say it is that Jesus is preparing his disciples for such a time. Jesus is “fixin’” to leave his disciples. However, Jesus is not going to leave his disciples without some support. He is not going to leave them completely without his presence. We mentioned last Sunday that he was going to send the Helper, the Holy Spirit to guide the disciples, as well as all other believers, us included. The Holy Spirit rests upon us and works through us to accomplish good works for God’s kingdom and also applies the salvation achieved by Christ to us. He applies the salvation that Jesus accomplishes in his leaving of the disciples. Christ is going away from them, but he’s not going away for good. After his resurrection, he will appear to his disciples once more before his ascension. You see, he also isn’t fully going away because he is eternal. Yes, the man known as Jesus may have died, been resurrected, and then ascended into heaven, but the Christ, the Son, the second person of the Trinity is eternal. He has been since before the foundations of the earth, he is now, and he will be for all eternity.
In our text for today, Jesus is continuing to speak of the oneness that exists between he and the Father. He speaks of the fact that those who love him and those that keep his commandments, that they will be united with both himself and the Father. So often we try and overthink things. We try and explain everything so that we completely understand it. Well, I’ll be honest with you; this union here that exists not only between the Father and the Son, but also between the believer and Christ is something that I don’t think can be fully understood. It can be somewhat explained and identified, but full comprehension just doesn’t seem a reality. I know that we are united with Christ in some way and that we are found in him and he in us and that his righteousness is granted to us. I also know that because of all believers being united to Christ and to the Father, that we are in turn all united to each other as well. This was the impetus for the new commandment that we looked at several weeks ago about loving all other believers. Numerous biblical commentators on this aspect point out the other side of the coin and say that if we do not love, or even hate, other Christians, then it is as if we are hating or failing to love Christ himself.
I fully acknowledge that often times loving our fellow Christians can be a difficult task. I say this pointing out that there is a great difference that exists between loving and tolerating. I’ll be the first one to tell you that I tolerate a lot of folks that I would quite say that I love like I ought to. You probably can say the same thing. However, I don’t want that to come off as if it is a good thing or something to really be proud of. But, it can be a difficult thing to truly love another person. In all honestly, there are times where we struggle truly loving even our own family members, much less others. Holiday gatherings, that find us with 20 or so of our closest relatives in a confined space for a few days, tends to test our love for our own family. I don’t know that’s it’s possible to start a family vacation without a little arguing as the car is being loaded with luggage, kids, and all the necessary supplies. Regardless of how difficult it is to love all others, that is what is commanded of us. If we love Christ, then we are to keep his word and his commands to love one another.
All of this brings us back to the person of the Holy Spirit. You see, without the working of the Holy Spirit on and in and through us, we don’t possess the ability to truly love one another. We barely possess the ability to tolerate one another, much less love. To quote the well-known words of Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” We can do anything through the power of Christ. Look at the words of verse 26 here in our text where Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit is coming, “whom the Father will send in my name.” In other words, the Holy Spirit is coming from the Father on account of Christ; he is coming from both Father and Son. The power of Christ is made available to us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within all believers. It’s how we said last Sunday that Christians have been able to do such great works, even greater works than Christ, since the time of his ascension. Truly loving one another is an example of those great works.
Then, as Jesus ends his introduction of the Holy Spirit and prepares to bring a close to the events in the upper room, he tells his disciples of the legacy (as R.C. Sproul calls it) that he is leaving behind. He says to them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you.” In other words, the peace that Christ speaks of isn’t peace in terms of everyone getting along. The peace that Christ is imparting to the disciples is the peace that Paul writes about in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This peace that Christ is leaving us with is the peace of having satisfied the wrath of God, having paid the price that was owed for our sins. Can you imagine the anxiety and the unrest that would exist if this were not true? There’s already anxiety and unrest even with Christ having paid the price for our sins. Imagine if our forgiveness and our atoning for our sins was still left up to us. Imagine if our religious system resembled that of biblical Israel, of the Jews. So often, we take the cross for granted and we cannot even fathom our lives without it.
Because of the fact that Jesus has paid such a price and gives such peace, he can say, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” Don’t misunderstand Jesus’ words here. The Father isn’t greater than the Son in terms of his substance or divinity. The Father is simply greater in terms of his economy or hierarchy of redemption. Hence, the Father sending the Son into the world and not the other way around. Jesus was telling his disciples that they should rejoice because he was soon to go back to his place of glory, back to the right hand of the Father Almighty. He was leaving the world with a peace that it had not known for quite some time. In fact, it was a peace that was unknown since the time of Adam. For the first time since that Fall, since sin was introduced into the world, the wrath of God was satisfied in full. For the first time since the Fall, man had peace with God. And this all came about through the person and work of Jesus Christ. And it was applied to us by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Before leaving from that place, Jesus reminds his disciples that he is leaving them. He tells them that the ruler of this world (i.e. Satan) is coming, but that he will not overtake him. What he is about to do, he does out of obedience to the Father. Through this work, the world will know the extent to which the Father loves them. In essence, Christ is telling them to go forth girded with the truth of the Holy Spirit, armed with the Word, and blessed with the peace of God. What an amazing way for our Savior to leave his disciples. What an amazing way for our Savior to leave us. Jesus Christ came to this earth, lived the life to perfect, was crucified, dead, buried, and rose again from the grave. All this he did in order to give us peace with God so that we may carry on with our chief end, our primary purpose, of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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