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John 14:15-31 · Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
The Paraclete Is Not a Bird
John 14:23-29
Sermon
by Mark Trotter
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The reason the title of this sermon is, "The Paraclete Is Not a Bird," is because I never met a pun I didn't use. But it needs explanation. A parakeet, you know. It's a cute, little bird. But the word "paraclete" is probably a word you are not familiar with. It is a rather esoteric word. It is a technical term found mostly in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John. We read only a portion of that chapter this morning, but the word "paraclete" appears there several times.

It is a Greek word. The New Testament was written in Greek. It is one of those Greek words we aren't sure we know how to translate into English. It is translated a number of ways: "comforter," "counselor," "advocate," and a couple of other words as well. In the text that was read to us this morning the word used is "counselor." "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all these things."

In other translations of that passage the word is, "advocate." And in the 15th verse, earlier on, before the text we read begins, Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments and I will pray the Father and he will send you another counselor." If you are familiar with the King James Version, you know the King James version doesn't say "counselor," it says "comforter." In the Revised King James version it says, "helper." So you can see there is wide disagreement about how to translate "paraclete."

So some say, why don't you leave it alone. Let it rest. Just use the Greek. Just call it "the Paraclete." Which is consistent with what is being said to us in this passage. What is being said is that when Jesus leaves us, we will not be alone. He will return, or his spirit will return, or some other mysterious presence will be with us. Something like a counselor, or a comforter. So why don't you just call it the Paraclete.

Jesus was gone from them now. That was what the Ascension was all about. "He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty," as we recite that in the Apostles Creed.

This is the sequence. He was with his disciples for forty days after the Resurrection. He appeared to them at various times for forty days. This next Thursday is the fortieth day after Easter, Ascension Day. Next Sunday is called Ascension Sunday. That is why the Church instructs us to look at these passages today, because these passages are his last words to his disciples, the Farewell Discourse, it is called. He is going to leave them.

But before he left them he said that he would return. So they began to look for the second coming of Jesus. They looked for it with great anticipation and hope. When will it be? When will he return? That was the question.

There were two answers. One could be summarized with the word that we used in the text this morning, the word "paraclete." The other word is, "apocalypse." That is also a Greek word, but not as strange to us as "paraclete." "Apocalypse" has been used in public, in English, in our day. Some of you have seen the famous movie about the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now. If you are old enough, and I see a lot of you are, you will remember, "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," the famous Notre Dame backfield in the 20's or 30's.

The apocalyptic vision is of the end of history. It says, invariably, every apocalypse will say this, at the end of history there will be a great war between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Apocalypse is the literature of people who are oppressed. That is where it comes from. People who have abandoned all hope, and who are waiting now for God to intervene. They are waiting for God to send some supernatural hero to rescue them.

The apocalyptic literature that we are familiar with is Jewish apocalypse, especially the Book of Daniel, the father of all apocalypses. The Book of Daniel was written when the Jews were living under the tyranny of the Greek occupation of their land, about 150 years before Jesus. At that point in their life they looked back over their history and all they could see were hundreds of years of oppression by foreign powers, using Israel like a doormat. They look forward into the future and all they could see was more oppression. They couldn't see any way out of this. It would be only more of the same. So if there is going to be any way out of this, it has to come from above, from God, because there is nothing they could do.

All of this is made all the more poignant because, as Jews, they believed that God is good and that God is in control of history. So where is God in all of this? If God is good, why are bad things happening to us? If God is in charge of history, how come these evil people seem to be in charge of history?

The answer of apocalypse to that was, help is coming. And when it comes, it will be final and decisive. On that day everyone will know who is God. On that day, and this was especially important for them, those who had been on God's side will be vindicated, and they will reign for ever and ever. That is the vision of the Book of Daniel. It was written to give hope to those people who had no hope.

And the early Christians, to answer the question, "When will Jesus return?" borrowed Jewish apocalypse and rewrote it. They cast Jesus as the conquering hero who will come in the last days and defeat the enemies of God. That is when he will return, they said. He will return for the final battle.

That is how we got that book at the end of the New Testament called, The Revelation to John. A part of it was read to us as one of the lessons for this morning, the good part. After the bloody part comes the good part, the ending, where there is a new heaven and a new earth. That's apocalypse.

But it is not only found in the Bible, it is also found in contemporary literature and film. Wherever there is a hero who comes out of nowhere and single-handedly wipes out evil using incredible firepower to do it, that's the scenario of apocalypse. When we see those movies we think it is just entertainment, especially in those movies that employ special effects to blow up everything in sight. But the scenario is apocalypse.

I think we ought to pay attention to that, because apocalypse is written for, and is interesting to, those people who feel that their world is collapsing, those people who fear the future and what it holds, those people who feel that they have been abandoned or betrayed in some way, or some way overwhelmed by the events of their life. They're the ones that apocalypse is written for.

Sometimes I stay home in the morning to write my sermon, so I won't be disturbed. One morning the doorbell rang. It is not a happy sound to one who stays at home to be undisturbed. I opened the door and discovered two women standing there, nicely dressed, holding clipboards. "We would like to ask you some questions and discuss with you matters of great significance?"

Well that got my attention since I, too, am in a business that discusses matters of great significance. So I said, "Sure, fire away."

They said, "Have you noticed all the news about the earthquakes and the volcanoes erupting all around the world?

I asked them, "Where are you from anyway?"

They said, "We're Jehovah's Witnesses."

I said, "Well I'm a Methodist minister."

I waited for their reaction, expecting them to scurry for cover. It didn't even faze them. They replied, "Do you know what the Bible says about all these events that are happening in our world today?"

Well that is exactly the question that the first Christians asked, and turned to apocalypse to find the answer. The answer of apocalypse is the time is coming when the Lord will return and defeat all his enemies, and punish the evil ones, and reward the good ones.

Apocalypse was not written to predict the future. It was not written in the first century to predict events in the 20th century. That is where the ladies with the clipboards got it wrong. Apocalypse was written to interpret the age in which it was written. It was to answer that question, "What do these events that are happening all around us mean?" For the early Christians, apocalypse was a word of hope. It said, Jesus will return soon and there will be a great battle, and you will reign with him forever.

But it didn't happen. They waited for it. It didn't happen. They prayed for it. Maranatha! Come quickly Lord Jesus! He didn't come, not as a warrior on a cloud.

But there is another opinion in the New Testament about how he will come, and it is found in the Gospel of John. Instead of the apocalypse, John gives us the Paraclete.

I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [Comforter], to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

John's gospel was the last one to be written, around 100 A.D. Which means that those to whom the gospel was addressed had been waiting seventy years for Jesus to return. Now it was apparent that he was not going to appear, not as apocalypse envisioned anyway, not bodily on a cloud with a sword in his hand.

What was apparent to the Christians was that they had to cope day by day with all the dangers and difficulties of this life. It was no longer sufficient to say to them, "Just hold on, Jesus is coming soon." Jesus was not coming, not for a long, long time. As he, himself, told us, "Nobody knows the hour or the day; only the Father knows."

Then John remembered other things. "I will send the Paraclete, the Counselor, to be with you forever." It's like that ending in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says, "Go now into all the world, preaching and teaching and baptizing; and lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

It is also like what happened in the Gospel of Luke, on the Road to Emmaus. Two despondent disciples walking down the road. They extend hospitality to a stranger. The stranger takes the bread at the meal and breaks it. They say, "It's the Lord! He is with us!"

He will come to you. "I will not leave you desolate." "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

So the Christians began to say, maybe we're not supposed to wait for someone to come and rescue us. Maybe we are supposed to keep on going. And when we do, we will find there is someone who walks with us. Not to rescue us, but to guide us. Not to save us, but to strengthen us, to give us peace.

Notice how this will happen. "The world will not see him." That means there's not going to be trumpets. There's not going to be fireworks. It's not going to happen that way. It is going to happen quietly. "You will know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you." The testimony of Christians for two thousand years is that he is with us.

Fanny Crosby, the great hymn writer of the 19th century, wrote hymns for the Moody revivals at the end of the last century. Those hymns have become a part of the devotion of Christians for all these years. "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine!" That is my favorite. She wrote over 8,000 hymns. In one of her hymns are these words:

I know I shall see in His beauty,
The king in whose law I delight.
Who lovingly guideth my footsteps,
And giveth me songs in the night.

To appreciate this you have to know that Fanny Crosby was blind. She became blind at the age of three. She lived a long life, into her eighties. These words summarize beautifully the Christian hope interpreted through her experience. "I know I shall see in His beauty, The king in whose law I delight." Not now. Sometime. In heaven she will see, but not now. Now she must keep on going, without sight. "So he lovingly guideth my footsteps, and giveth me songs in the night."

At the end of this service we are going to sing another hymn, "Come Ye Disconsolate," written by Thomas Moore, an Irishman, back in the 19th century. It combines beautifully two images that were read to us today: the image of the end in the Book of Revelation, and also this 14th chapter of the Gospel of John. Listen to it.

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
"Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure."

Robert Drake is a Tennessean who writes stories about growing up in that part of the country a generation ago. He told a story about Miss Caroline Walker, who was a music teacher. She had been doing it for as long as anybody could remember. She was something of a legend in her county in Tennessee.

She had two goals in teaching. One was to teach her girls to be ladies. So she taught them manners as much as she taught them music. She also taught them to play one piece perfectly for the May recital. She rehearsed them and drilled them all year long to play that one piece perfectly, including instructions on how to sit on the piano bench, to spread your skirt as you sit down, and how to announce the song by standing straight and holding your hands together at your waist.

The night of the recital came. It was held in the high school auditorium. Ten pupils of Miss Caroline's were there waiting for their turn. Ann Louise's turn came. She was terrified. She thought she was going to faint. She knew she would never make it, but it was her turn, so she moved forward to the wings where Miss Caroline was waiting.

She could see how nervous Ann Louise was. Her body had become stiff and rigid. Miss Caroline put her hands on Ann Louise's shoulders, and bent down to whisper in her ear, "You have worked hard. You know this piece. You have nothing to fear. And remember, I am counting with you all the way."

With a little shove she pushed Ann Louise out onto the stage where, all of a sudden, she was facing this large audience of everybody's relatives, including her own. She announced her piece, then spread her skirt, and sat on the bench. She noticed that she was much calmer than she thought she would be. She noticed that Miss Caroline was still there in the wings. She remembered the last words that she said to her, "I am counting with you all the way." She didn't say, "I am counting on you." She said, "I am counting with you."

And Drake wrote this. "She felt that they were held together by something beyond either of them alone. Teacher and disciple were as one. She realized that it was this that she had been preparing for all year long, this test. And the music, at her command, came cascading out of the baby grand into the darken auditorium full of joy and full of life, right on cue."

I will not leave you comfortless;
I will come to you.

So let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid.

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Collected Sermons, by Mark Trotter