There's So Much More to Say

John 16:12-15

12 I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. 13 He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

There’s So Much More to Say

Could there be a better confirmation passage than the one we read in our Gospel today? Jesus says to his disciples:

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.”[1]

You’ve spent almost every Thursday with me for the last 2 years and you know how in the last month or two I’ve been panicking: “There’s not enough time! There’s still so much to get through! We’ve got to try as hard as we can to get as much in as we can!” I don’t know that I have ever been able to commiserate with Jesus as much as I am when I hear him say,

“I have much more to say to you.”[2]

Of course, if I just opened the floodgates and let loose a non-stop flow of everything I think you should know, not only would we still be here a week from now, but there is no way you could possibly retain it all. It’d be like trying to drink from a firehose.

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.”[3]

There are things that you’re not ready for yet. There are experiences that you haven’t had yet. And until you do, there are passages and doctrines in Scripture that you can’t understand yet. I’m a pastor! I’ve gone through 12 years of focused theological training. My full-time job is to think about these things all day every day, and there are still so many things that I don’t understand and may never understand.

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.”[4]

Those are the words we heard Jesus say in John 16. He spoke these words to his disciples in the upper room on the night before he died. He still had so much more to say to them, but he still let the Jews take him away from them, and take his life from him. He still had so much more to say to them, but what he had been able to say to them was enough for them. There was still so much more growth left for them to do, but they had already come such a long way. I could say the same thing about you.

Dean, when I first met you, you were a goofy kid who was still figuring out how to use those gangly limbs of yours. It seemed like you were in a cast every six months. I think it was one of the first Sundays I was here, you made me spill my coffee almost all over myself because you were carelessly careening around the corner chasing after one of the other kids. Now you’re a very thoughtful and considerate young man, whose care for other people is evident and obvious.

Barbara, I think I went the first 2 years of my acquaintance with you without hearing your voice. Even when you did talk, it was so quiet. But now when I hear what you have to say, and the skill with which you’ve memorized Bible passages and catechism explanations, I thank God for the voice he gave you – a voice that has insight and understanding.

There’s still so much growth left for you to do, but you’ve both come a long way, and much more than that, you won’t go the rest of the way alone. You’ll have a pastor and fellow church members, but above all, you’ll have the promise Jesus gave his disciples:

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”[5]

That’s what these last two years have been all about – opening your eyes to see more and more of the truth, giving the Holy Spirit more and more opportunities to speak into your heart as we open his Word. That’s why, as painful as it often felt, I asked you to memorize Bible passages and catechism entries, so that the truth wouldn’t always be something you have seek out, but so that the truth could live in your heart and always be just a memory away.

You’ve come a long way. You’ve done a lot of good work, but the work doesn’t end today. Confirmation class may be over, but your walk in the Christian faith is only just beginning. There is still so much truth that you need to hear. There is still so much growth that you need to experience. There is still so much work for you to do. But today is not all about the work that you have done or need to continue to do. It’s about the work that God has done and continues to do for you.

Since it’s Trinity Sunday, and since I asked you to memorize the Apostles’ Creed for today, let’s take it an article at a time to remember what God has and will continue to do for you.

I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

The first person of the Trinity is God the Father. We confess him to be almighty – or, if you prefer the fancy Greek word, omnipotent. He made all that exists in six, 24-hour days with nothing but his word. The sun, moon, and stars, the land, sea, and sky, every living thing from plant to animal to human – they were all created by God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

But the Father didn’t stop working after the sixth day. He is not reclining on a Barcalounger in heaven passively watching as the world turns. He is still active in preserving the world, providing you with your daily bread. We just talked about this a couple weeks ago. Think about all the cogs in the vast machine that God created to put food on your table every day: your parents who provide for you, their employers who pay them, the grocers, the truck drivers, the farmers, the fertile fields and the rain in its season. God put all these in place for you.

There is so much more to say to you about the first person of the Trinity, i.e. about your Father in heaven, but what you already know is enough to lay a foundation for you. He created you. He preserves and provides for you. He protects you.

I can’t even begin to tell you the dangers and fears and anxieties you will face throughout your life. Even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to, because it would be more than you could bear right now. But I can tell you that your almighty Father in heaven loves you and cares for you. He created you. He preserves and provides for you. He protects you. Trust in him. Rely on him.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

The second person of the Trinity is God the Son, or, to use the one-word answer that works for every question in confirmation class, he is Jesus. You just recited his life story. We celebrate his life story for half the year every year from Christmas to Easter.

He is the Son of God from all eternity, who existed long before he was born. But when he saw your sin from his throne in heaven, he left his glory and majesty behind and became like you – a human being in flesh and blood, subject to the same temptations, exposed to the same dangers and fears – but better than you – perfect, sinless, holy in every thought, word, and deed every day of his life, until his death on a cross, where he forgave your sin and opened heaven to you.

There is so much more to say to you about the second person of the Trinity, i.e. about your Saviour Jesus, but what you already know is enough to lay a foundation for you. He loved you enough to die for you. He saved you by forgiving you. He’ll come back to take you home to be with him forever in heaven.

I can’t even begin to tell you all the ways that you will continue to sin against him, or the guilt and shame you will carry. Even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to, because it would be more than you could bear right now. But I can tell you that your Savior loves you and cares for you. He died on a cross to save you. He forgave your sin. He still forgives your sin. Rest in him. Find relief in him and rejoice in your salvation.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

The third person of the Trinity is God the Holy Spirit. He’s the one who, as Jesus promises, will guide you into all the truth. He’s the one who will be with you no matter where your life takes you. If your family moves away, or if I do, and I am no longer your pastor, the Holy Spirit will still speak to you through God’s Word no matter who your pastor is. If you go off to university on the other side of the country where you don’t even have your family around you, the Holy Spirit will still be with you through the Scriptures and the sacraments.

The Holy Spirit’s work is called sanctification. He’s the one who created faith in your hearts. He’s the one who made a home in your heart at your baptism. He’s the one who sustains and strengthens faith in you through your continued use of his means of grace.

There is so much more to say to you about the third person of the Trinity, i.e. about the Holy Spirit, but what you already know is enough to lay a foundation for you. He ignited the spark of faith in your heart, and he fans it into flame. He is with you always and will teach you how to apply God’s will to your life.

I can’t even begin to tell you all the doubts and questions and crises of conscience you will have. Even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to, because it would be more than you could bear right now. But I can tell you that the Holy Spirit loves you and cares for you. He breathed life into you through the Word of God, he keeps your heart of faith beating through his means of grace. He guides you into all the truth. Learn from him and lean on him for faith and for life.

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.”[6]

But I thank God for you, for the work that he has done and continues to do for you, for the Holy Spirit he promises you, and for faith that will guide you into all the truth. God go with you and create in you an insatiable hunger to hear more – not from me, not today, but from your God, every day for the rest of your time of grace. Amen.

[1] John 16:12

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

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Jesus Promises Pentecost Peace

John 14:23-27

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Jesus Promises Pentecost Peace

One of you asked me a good question last Sunday that I probably don’t explain enough: “Why have we been lighting the candle that’s in the baptismal font?”

First of all, did you notice that we have been lighting that candle? For those of you who did, do any of you remember when we started lighting it? It was on Easter morning. For the last 7 Sundays, that candle has been lit. Maybe you noticed. Maybe you didn’t; that’s OK. But now I’m really going to test your memory. Without looking – and only 4 of you could see it from where you’re sitting anyway – do you remember if that candle is lit right now? It’s not.

Allow me to explain. That candle is called the Paschal candle. It’s a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, and so we light that candle on three resurrection-related occasions:

1. We light it for funerals, as a reminder of the joy that we have that all who die in faith will live forever, because of the resurrection of the dead.

2. We light it for baptisms, because as Paul said, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”[1] Our baptisms are what connect us to Jesus’ resurrection and make us beneficiaries of it.

3. And finally, we light the Paschal candle on Easter morning – and every Sunday morning in the season of Easter – as a reminder of the 40 days that Jesus spent with his disciples between his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven.

So, every time you see a flame on the wick of that candle, you can think of spending eternity with Jesus because of the resurrection from the dead.

“Great, pastor! Now you tell us, now that – barring any future baptisms or funerals – we won’t see a flame on that candle for another 310 days. I’m definitely not going to remember this by the time Easter rolls around next year.”

That would be a fair criticism. But I also think that it would reflect the way the disciples must have felt around Pentecost. They had just spent the last 40 days soaking up every minute that they could of being with the resurrected Jesus. Every time they looked at him, they could still see the nail marks in his hands and be reminded that Jesus was victorious over death. He rose from the dead. He is the all-powerful Son of God.

Every time they listened to him, he opened their minds to understand another portion of Scripture that they hadn’t been able to understand before. They had heard those passages before. But now they saw them in a totally new, Christ-centered light, with Jesus providing the fulfillment of so many promises they had been waiting on.

And now he was gone, ascended into heaven never to be seen on earth again until Judgment Day. They spent the next 10 days waiting and wondering what was going to happen next. I’m sure that some of them were wishing that Jesus had never gone, that they still got to bask in the glow of his resurrection, but it wasn’t to be.

And yet, even though Jesus was gone, he hadn’t abandoned his disciples or orphaned them. He was fulfilling a promise to them – a promise we read in John 14:

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”[2]

That’s quite a promise! The Holy Spirit would come to be their Helper, to be with them, to live in their hearts, to empower them to do amazing things, but, above all, to teach them all things and to remind them of everything Jesus had said to them.

That’s the promise we saw fulfilled in our reading from Acts this morning. 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Father sent the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples in dramatic fashion. There was a sound like a violent wind even though no branch swayed and no leaf stirred. It was mysterious and inexplicable, and it got everyone’s attention so that a great crowd had formed, and, just at that moment, the Holy Spirit filled Jesus’ disciples and enabled them to begin speaking languages they had never studied before:

Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues![3]

At least 15 different languages were suddenly being spoken by these uneducated Galilean fishermen. It’d be like if you heard a dozen Newfies down on holiday from Fort Mac suddenly speaking the most beautiful French and Spanish and Portuguese, Nuer, Swahili and Cantonese. These things just don’t happen.

And then, on top of that, there were tongues of fire on top of their heads, but no one was burning. No fire alarms were going off. No one was frantically shouting, “Stop, drop and roll!” It was a miracle. It was the Holy Spirit whom Jesus had promised.

But the Spirit hadn’t come to make a spectacle. He came to strengthen faith, bath in the disciples and the crowd that had gathered. The only reason for the sound of the wind and the sight of the flames and the sudden speaking of different languages was so that everyone in the city that day could hear the truth about Jesus in words they could immediately and completely understand.

It’s the same thing that the Spirit does today. No, he doesn’t use flames to identify who the truly faithful are. No, you do not have to speak in tongues to be filled with the Spirit. But the Holy Spirit does still help you, by teaching you all things and reminding you of everything that Jesus has said.

That’s why we’re here, because every Sunday you can guarantee that you will be reminded of what Jesus has said. You will be reminded that God loved the world so much that he sent his Son to save it. You will be reminded that Jesus loved you so much that he willingly gave up his life on a cross to save you. You will be reminded that the Spirit still works in your hearts every time you hear God’s Word.

Our translation of John’s Gospel calls the Holy Spirit “the Advocate” here. But he’s far better than Johnny Cochrane or even Camille Vasquez. He’s not a lawyer who argues our case before the judge. He’s our Helper. He speaks to us through God’s Word. He helps us to understand what God says there. He helps us to understand what Jesus did there. He helps you apply these words to your life as you live it.

After your salvation, the Holy Spirit is the greatest gift God has given you, because even though Jesus is gone, God is still with you. Even though that candle out there is no longer burning, and even though we don’t have tongues of flame flitting about on our foreheads, the Holy Spirit has kindled in your heart the fire of his love. He fans your faith into flame every time you hear God’s Word, and he facilitates Jesus’ next promise:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.[4]

The peace that Jesus mentions here is central to the festival of Pentecost. Jesus is gone, ascended into heaven. In many ways, it feels like we live in a godless world. We’re reminded of it in the movies we watch, the sins that our society celebrates, the apathy and indifference, even the open hostility against God and those who believe in him. That doesn’t sound very peaceful, does it?

Then you add all the person problems and anxieties, e.g. the fear and loneliness we face, the uncertainty about our futures, the regrets about our past, the challenging positions we’re put in at work or school, the relationships that are fractured or broken. Again, that doesn’t sound very peaceful, does it?

But that’s why Jesus says, “I do not give to you as the world gives.”[5] The world would define peace as the absence of danger, a lull in the conflict, a lack of trouble. The peace that Jesus gives us is so much better than that.

Jesus gives us peace by giving us hope and a future in his salvation. We don’t have to wonder how our stories are going to end. We don’t have to fear our unworthiness or be ashamed of our sin. They’ve all been forgiven in him, and we’ll end up in heaven where he will make his dwelling with us forever.

Jesus gives us peace by giving us his Holy Spirit to keep us strong and confident in his Word. To assure us that we are not imagining our salvation or fabricating some fairy tale to make us feel better. We have peace because of the objective reality of what God has done for us. The Father loved us enough to send his Son. Jesus loved us enough to die for our sin. The Holy Spirit continues to show his love for us by living within and strengthening us in him.

There is an objectivity to the peace that Jesus gives us. The events of our lives don’t have to be peaceful in order for us to have peace. We can even be at peace when we’re feeling anxious and afraid, guilty or unworthy. We have peace because of what Jesus has done and is continuing to do for you. We have peace in his blood and peace through the Holy Spirit who teaches us all things and reminds us of everything Jesus has said and done for us.

Obey his teaching. Cling to his Word and to the promise of the Holy Spirit who works in our hearts by faith and you will have this peace today and everyday. Amen.

[1] Romans 6:3,8,5

[2] John 14:25,26

[3] Acts 2:9-11

[4] John 14:27

[5] Ibid

[6] John 14:24