God be with you

 

06 12 2022 Sermon

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

 A young person once asked me, “Pastor, what’s your favorite Bible text to preach about?” and my reply was, “Any good story.” Taken individually, today’s texts could all be good stories. Taken together, they are designed to present the Holy Trinity to us, God as Father, Son, and Spirit.

Triangles are often used as an image of the Trinity because equilateral triangles have 3 equal sides. This image is a play on the triangles by connecting three of them.

There are several other ways people have used to explain Trinity: as water, ice, and steam; as peel, flesh, and core of an apple; as shell, white, and yolk of an egg. These and others like them are declared by theologians as heresy, because they don’t give the complete story. However, they are definitely useful images when explaining the Trinity to children!

You may remember that I am not particularly a fan of preaching about Trinity. I don’t remember the exact quote from a textbook during seminary, but it went something like this:
people spend too much time trying to explain the Trinity and not nearly enough time living what Trinity has taught us. Trinity is a mystery, and God likes it that way. … So, let’s focus on a good story instead.

In the Gospel reading, it’s the evening of Jesus’ arrest. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it’s a Passover meal. But in John, it’s just supper, because Jesus will become the Passover Lamb as he dies on the cross at the same time the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the temple.

At this supper, the night before he dies, Jesus wants the disciples to know what will happen next. He is preparing them for life without him, and how he wants them to continue his ministry. Because he knows it will be hard, he tries to prepare them as well as he can.

 Let’s imagine ourselves in the room with Jesus. We’re sitting around a table enjoying supper: some hummus and pita bread, lots of fresh vegetables, a variety of olives, maybe some hard-boiled eggs. There are jugs of wine for drinking and olive oil for dipping the vegetables and bread into.

Jesus begins, “Hey, guys, I need to tell you some things. Later tonight I will be arrested. There’s going to be a trial, and I will be convicted, and then I will be executed. This is all according to God’s plan, so don’t worry. I’ll send God’s Spirit to be with y’all. The Spirit will guide you and teach you everything you need to know.”

If this were the first time you heard this, how would you feel? Stunned? Disbelieving? Scared? Yeah, me too. And, yeah, that’s got to be how the disciples were feeling. Even though Jesus had talked about this in the past, tonight he talked as if it was about to happen in just a few hours.

They try to puzzle it out, and it doesn’t make sense. How can the mission continue if he dies? Jesus assures them that God’s Holy Spirit will come to them. They are to trust the Spirit to lead them just as Jesus has led them up to this moment. If I were in that room, I know what I would be thinking: What are you talking about? How is that possible?

We know now, of course, what Jesus was talking about. We know God’s Holy Spirit to be a very real presence in our lives. But at that moment, in that room while the disciples were gathered over supper, the things Jesus was saying were crazy, unbelievable.

To truly understand this moment in the disciples’ lives, we have to remember that the crucifixion hadn’t happened yet. The resurrection hadn’t happened yet. The disciples didn’t know what it was like to sense the presence of God’s Spirit. And Jesus knew that. He was trying to prepare them for the future without him as a physical presence.

And he was also trying, once again, to explain that he, Jesus, is also God. He is one with God, even as he is the human rabbi they have loved and followed and learned from for the last three years.

Last Sunday we, the Church (with a capital C), celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We read the story of the wonderful chaos of Jews from many lands hearing the good news of the resurrection in their own languages. God’s Spirit is the way God communicated with those in the crowd that day. The story in Acts tells us thousands came to believe in that moment. They trusted in God’s Spirit speaking through Peter and the other disciples.

 The Holy Spirit is the way God communicates with us today. We may feel God’s presence in a hug or handshake or over a cup of coffee or tea. We may hear God’s comforting words through others as we grieve the loss of a loved one. We may hear God’s message during prayer with a sudden insight into how to solve a problem or situation. We may discover a message that seems written just for us as we read the Bible.

 When our own lives feel dark and we are worried the worst possible thing will happen, we can trust that God knows about it and cares that we are scared or grieving or in pain. When our lives are filled with joy and brightness, we can trust that God knows about it and rejoices with us. How do we know this? Because God, once upon a time, appeared to us as a human who laughed and grieved, felt joy and sorrow, just as we do each day.

Let’s rejoice that God is with us, however we feel and know the Divine Presence. Amen