6th Sunday of Easter, May 18/21, 2017
John 14:15-21 - … 21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."
People just can’t seem to handle being alone. We have more gadgets and gizmos than ever before, smart-phones laden with various apps to help keep us connected—all to help keep us from being alone. Ironically, the more we fear being alone, often the more lonely we are. The Barna Group recently did a study on loneliness and found that the majority of people who felt lonely are in the younger age bracket, the roughly 18-35 year olds. These are the people who are the most connected out of any of us—and yet they’re the most lonely! They have hundreds of Facebook friends, maybe dozens of followers on Instagram or Snapchat—and yet, IRL—in real life—the technology they rely on also isolates them from the rest of the world.
As believers in Christ we can feel lonely from time to time too. It can feel like we’re the only ones who see the world the way we do, the way that God’s Word has taught us to see it. Jesus’ own disciples felt that loneliness too in the upper room, as Jesus told them He was going to the Father. And yet, Jesus wants each of you to know that no matter how lonely you feel, you’re never alone. You’re never alone—if you love Jesus.
1. You will keep His commands.
First of all, though, we have to clarify what it means to love Jesus. There are a lot of people in this world who say they love Jesus. But what does that really mean? What did it really mean to Jesus for someone to love Him? Before Jesus died and rose again, before He ascended to His Father’s right hand, He wanted to make sure everybody knew what it means to truly love Him. So He told them, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (v. 15). If you love Jesus, you will keep His commands. There’s always been one single litmus test for being a true follower—and lover—of Jesus: to keep His commands, to abide in His Word. “If you abide in My Word,” Jesus said, “you are My disciples indeed” (Jn 8:31).
And we’re not just talking about outward obedience here. Think of the way the car-lover treasures his ’65 Shelby Mustang, how he carefully parks it in the locked garage every night because he doesn’t want it to get stolen or vandalized, and yet how at the same time, he takes it out of that garage every week and gently opens it up and lets it run on the highway. If you love Jesus, you will treasure His commands—His teachings—the same way. You’ll never want to lose them from your life and you won’t tolerate anybody trying to mix Jesus’ truth with the world’s falsehoods. But at the same time you won’t keep Christ’s teaching locked up. You’ll take it out regularly and give it a spin—studying it, believing in it, and living it each and every day. If you love Jesus, you’ll keep His commands.
This was something Jesus’ disciples needed to hear. Very soon, they’d be tempted to abandon Jesus and everything He taught them. As society shunned them and politicians attacked them, the loneliness would be intense. There would be a lot of pressure from the world to just give up and give in.
We need to hear it too. In our own fear of being left alone, it’s tempting to take God’s Word and Sacrament for granted. If you love Jesus, you will keep His commands. You will treasure Christ and His teachings, living them out in your life. You will trust Christ to always be there for you—even when it seems like He’s not!
2. The Father will send the Spirit of truth.
In fact the only reason we can love Jesus is because we’re not alone. If you love Jesus, if you hold to Christ’s teaching, the Father will send the Spirit of truth.
Over the last three years the Twelve had enjoyed Jesus’ counsel and help, but now Jesus was leaving. And yet just because He was leaving, that didn’t mean Jesus was going to stop taking care of His disciples! “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth” (v. 16-17). Jesus’ presence with His disciples on earth had been temporary. Now He would give them a permanent Helper, the Spirit of truth. And we know who this Spirit of truth is: He’s the Holy Spirit!
Jesus’ disciples wouldn’t be left to try to love Jesus on their own. They would have the Spirit of truth—who they already knew! He already had dwelt with them, working faith in their hearts to believe in Jesus as their Savior. And He would continue to be with them! As the Spirit would be poured out on them at Pentecost, He would be that Helper who would comfort them and reassure them of God’s love in Christ. They wouldn’t be alone!
And neither are we! We were alone, once. We were spiritual orphans, born into the loneliness of spiritual death. We had nowhere to go, with no idea that there was anyone out there who loved us. But all that changed. You were born again of water and the Spirit (Jn 3:5). The Holy Spirit entered your heart and gave you the greatest comfort of all: God has washed you clean of sin in the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus, and made you His own child. You’re not an orphan anymore!
And that same Holy Spirit is still with you, even now! He’s not with you because you love Jesus—it’s the other way around! You love Jesus because the Holy Spirit is with you! And the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of truth—will remain with you forever!
3. Jesus Himself will come to you.
And the Holy Spirit doesn’t come alone. He doesn’t come by Himself. The reason He can do all that He does is because He brings Someone with Him when He comes to you and dwells in you. If you love Jesus, the Father will send the Spirit of truth, and even Jesus Himself will come to you!
“A little while longer and the world will see Me no more,” Jesus said, “but you will see Me” (v. 19). Jesus would be gone, not to be seen again until the Day of Judgment, but that didn’t mean Jesus was leaving His disciples as orphans to fend for themselves. He said, “I will come to you” (v. 18). They would see Him again—not with their physical eyes, but with the eyes of faith. By the Spirit’s working, Jesus would come and make His home in their hearts. This is what the theologians call the mystical union, this miracle that the risen and ascended Jesus dwells in us through faith in Him.
As people who love Jesus, it’s easy to be afraid that we’re going to be left alone—that as the world rejects Him, they’re going to reject us too. Yet even if everyone in the world abandons us, we’re never alone! Jesus said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (v. 21). The same Jesus who died and rose again for you ascended to His Father’s right hand so He could be with you and reveal Himself to you, scars and all, in His Word and Sacrament! If you love Jesus, Jesus Himself will come to you!
And when Jesus comes to you and reveals Himself to you, He brings the greatest blessing of all. He said, “Because I live, you will live also” (v. 19). You will live—and Jesus isn’t just talking about heaven! You live already now because of Him! His life is yours! He is in the Father, the Father is in Him, and He is in us (v. 20). He has brought you from death to life by the power of His Word. He has rooted you and grounded you in His love, the love that is so wide and deep and high that it has separated us from our sins as far as the east is from the west (Eph 3:17-19).
And as long as Jesus dwells in your heart through faith, it will be His love that shines forth! It will be His love that enables you to hold onto Him, His love that empowers you to treasure Him and His Word, His love that inspires you to love one another—as He has loved you.
Many can’t handle the thought of being alone; but you and I don’t need to worry about that. We’re never alone. We have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with us always. We can come to them anytime for anything. God’s love is always with us. If you love Jesus—trusting in Him as your Savior—you’re never alone. Amen.