Sixth Sunday of Easter

Sixth Sunday of Easter (A)

May 14, 2023

Text: John 14:15-21

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

            Suffice it to say, when you love someone, you treasure their words.  When my wife and I first began dating, it was a long distance affair.  Our entire relationship was based on words.  Emails, yes.  Instant messaging a little bit, back in the heady days of America Online.  But just ask my in-laws, the phone line was busy all evening, every evening, and late into the night, especially once we convinced them to spring for the unlimited long-distance plan.  But the best was when I’d open my seminary mailbox to find… a letter.  A hand-written letter from my beloved.  I’d find a private place to open it and read it.  And then I’d read it again.  I’d savor it.  Ponder every word.  And then I’d put it in my jacket pocket, and carry it with me, next to my heart, to classes, to chapel, and to work.  And during breaks I would take it out and read it.  And re-read it.  And re-read it again.  Ah, young love.  When you love someone, you treasure their words.

            And that is how we should take what Jesus says in our Holy Gospel.  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15; ESV).  Now, because Old Adam is ever the Pharisee at heart, we hear these words as strictly Law.  If you really loved Jesus, we say to others (and in our more honest moments, to ourselves), then you’d do a better job of keeping the Ten Commandments!  Of course, love for Jesus really does want to keep His Ten Commandments, and of course, you should strive to keep the Ten Commandments. 

            But I’m not sure the emphasis of what Jesus is saying to us here is that you obviously don’t really love me, because you do a miserable job of keeping my commandments.  Remember, He is speaking, first of all, to the Eleven, gathered in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday.  Judas has already gone out.  There is no question that the remaining disciples love Jesus.  There is also no question that their love for Him will fail, as He Himself says.  Okay, true.  That is why Jesus came.  But this is not a guilt trip.  If you really loved me, you guys would do better.  No.  “If you love me,” Jesus is saying… and you do, is the implication... "you will keep" (not an imperative, but a simple future indicative, describing the reality as it is)… “you will keep my commandments.” 

            The word “keep” also has the sense of “guard,” “observe,” “carefully attend to.”  I like to translate it, “treasure.”  If you love me, and you do, you will treasure… “my commandments,” yes, but not simply the Ten Commandments.  Contextually, it is a reference to the New Commandment Jesus gives in the previous Chapter, “that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are to love one another” (13:34).  See?  Jesus loves you.  You love Jesus with the love that He first pours into you.  And so the abundance of love that He pours into you overflows with love for one another.  “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  Really, He is talking about the Two Great Commandments: God loves you.  Therefore, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.   And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37-39). 

            But even more, He is using the word for “commandments” as He uses it at the end of Matthew: Make disciples of all nations by baptizing them and “teaching them to keep… treasure… all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20; Krenz translation).  That is to say, all His words.  Because, when you love someone, you treasure their words.  When you love Jesus (and you do!), you keep, guard, observe, attend to… treasure… His Words.

            For this reason, Jesus asks His Father to send another Helper…  Paraclete is the word… Counselor, Advocate, Comforter (as the King James has it)… all of the above.  Literally, the One called to your side.  To do what?  To remind you of Jesus’ Words.  To give you to treasure those Words.  To give you faith in your Savior and Redeemer.  At all times, but especially in times of trial and affliction… like the Apostles are about to experience when Jesus goes to the cross. 

            See, Jesus is going away from the Apostles, where they will not see Him, and where they cannot follow now.  That is, He is going to the cross to bear the sins of the world.  He is going into death.  He is going into the tomb.  And then, yes, He is rising from the dead, but the disciples will not have access to Him in the same way they once did, visibly, spatially, corporeally.  He will appear among them from time to time for forty days, but then He will ascend into heaven.  (We have the Feast of the Ascension coming up this week, Thursday.  I encourage you to be here.)  But now they really won’t see Him.  Not very often, anyway.  An appearance to Paul here (Acts 9).  A revelation to John there (Rev.).  He will be with them.  To the end of the age, in fact, as He promises (Matt. 28:20), and in a much greater way than before.  But they’ll have to believe it.  They won’t be able to see it.  Faith, not sight, is the way of Christ’s Church on earth. 

            But He will not leave them as orphans.  He will not leave us as orphans.  Everyone in the room knew what He meant by the word “orphan,” by the way.  What is the refrain throughout the Scriptures?  You shall not neglect the fatherless, the widow, the sojourner among you, the three most vulnerable groups in the ancient world, because there is no one to provide for them.  God promises that He will provide for them, and He wants to do it through the generosity of His people.  But here Jesus applies the first category to His disciples.  “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18; ESV).  I will not leave you destitute.  I will not leave you unprotected.  I will not forsake you.  First of all, “I will come to you,” He says (v. 18), a reference to His resurrection appearances and His presence with His Church in Word and Sacrament.  And the Paraclete will dwell with you, and be in you (v. 17).  And in this way, even as I am in my Father, you are in me, and I in you (v. 20), and so you are in the Father, by means of the Paraclete who is with you and in you, the Holy Spirit.  You are caught up in the life and love of the Triune God. 

            Because of the Words.  That is why you treasure them.  The Words bring about the relationship, the communion, the life together with and in God.  Like the words of my beloved.  Look, those many words, in many ways, over many hours, and many miles, made a marriage for Sarah and me.  So we treasured those words.  And that is just a small picture of the way the Words of Jesus Christ bring you into the love of Jesus Christ, the love of the Triune God, overflowing with love for one another.  Treasure those Words.  Hear them.  Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.  Maybe even get a small Testament, to carry the Words in your pocket, next to your heart.  Or even better, memorize them.  Memorize them, so that no one can take them away from you.  Be in Church.  And in Bible study.  Be immersed in the Words.  Eat them.  Drink them.  In the body and blood of Jesus.  Hold them sacred.  Above everything else.  Live by them, and in them.  Will you often fail to treasure His Words, and so fail to love Him?  Sure you will.  Just like the disciples.  That is why He came.  That is why He died.  For the forgiveness of your failures.  And that is why He grants the Paraclete, to call you back continually into His Words, and into His love.  This is why husbands and wives say to one another, words like “I love you.”  “I forgive you.”  “I am committed to you.  Till death us do part.”  The words call us back into relationship.  Treasured words.  Powerful words. 

            Now, the world doesn’t get this.  Kind of like how love letters really only bring joy to the couple involved in the sending and receiving of the letters.  Most of my friends had no idea why I was suddenly so happy.  Because they didn’t receive the words.  This is probably where the analogy breaks down, as every analogy does.  I did have one friend, a little older and wiser than me, who, even though he didn’t get to read the words, rejoiced that I got to read the words, because he’d known his own joy with his wife.  He was happy for me.  There is probably something there about how Christian brothers and sisters rejoice with one another in their common salvation, and the mercies of God poured out on us in Christ.  But in any case, the world doesn’t hear, or read, or care about the Words we treasure from our Savior, the Bridegroom of the Church.  So they don’t love Jesus, or see or know the Paraclete.  Nor do they see the risen Jesus by means of the Paraclete, in the Words of the risen Jesus.  And so, they don’t come into the love and communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

            In fact, it is even more tragic than that.  They don’t come into the life of the Holy Trinity.  They still walk in death.  That is why the Church must preach!  For that is how the Spirit comes, giving ears to hear, faith that loves Jesus, and so treasures His precious Words.  Those who do hear and believe, and so love Jesus, and treasure His Words, they never see death.  Which is to say, you.  Even though you die, yet shall you live.  And because you live and believe in Jesus, you shall never die.  That is what Jesus says to you this morning in our Gospel: “Because I live, you also will live” (v. 19).  You will live, and that, by the way, is just another future indicative, simply describing your reality as it is.  You.  Live.  Because Jesus lives.  Just as the reality is that you love Jesus, and so you treasure His Words. 

            And so, if I may close with the last words of our text as rendered in the Unauthorized and Amplified Pastor Krenz Translation: “The one having my commandments (my Words!) and treasuring them, that one loves me.  And the one who loves me will be loved”… indicative, it is simply the reality… he “will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (v. 21), that is, reveal myself to him, by my Paraclete, in my Words.  The Words give Jesus.  Jesus gives life.  So you love Jesus.  So you treasure His Words.  So you live.  For Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.