{Prayer}
Betrayal … Denial … Hatred … Harassment … Grief.
These five words … these five words could easily describe the plot line of really any daytime soap opera.
These five words … they can also describe the emotional status of the disciples. Let me explain.
Before the ascension of Jesus into heaven which we observed last Sunday, before the resurrection of Jesus on Easter, before the death of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday, before the betrayal of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, before all this … Jesus gathered with his disciples in an upper room to celebrate the Passover, to institute for you and me the Lord’s Supper.
You see, even though today we are observing Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples … Jesus gathers his disciples together in an upper room on the Thursday night of Holy Week. He gathers them together to talk with them, to help them prepare themselves for what is about to happen and for who is about to come.
After Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet and taught them what it means to be serve, after Jesus celebrates the Passover with them … the mood of this evening changes.
Jesus tells them that one of them will betray him and that Peter will deny him three times. After Judas mysteriously gets up and leaves the group, Jesus begins to comfort the disciples. “Do not let your hearts be troubled” he says. “Trust in God; trust also in me” (John 14:1). Already, before Jesus tells them how the world will hate them because of their association with Jesus, before Jesus tells them that they will be persecuted and harassed because of Jesus … their hearts are already troubled.
In the midst of learning about the hatred, the harassment, the persecution … Jesus tells the disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Yet even in that discussion, Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to leave them. It’s no wonder they don’t ask him where he is going. We here Jesus say, “Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief” (John 16:5-6). It’s no wonder that the disciples are filled with grief, it’s bad news after bad news after bad news.
Then Jesus says the most confusing thing yet … “It is for your good that I am going away” (16:7). “It is for your good that I am going away.” Can you see the questions going through their heads. “Wait? Why? Why is it for our good that you go away? How is it good?”
The reason … the reason the disciples don’t understand? It’s this. Jesus has to go away because, that is the only way he could carry out his Father’s mission. By Jesus going away, going to the cross to suffer and die for the sins of the world, that is the only way to fulfill the plan of salvation.
But there’s another reason, another reason why Jesus has to go away. To truly understand this reason … we need to go to the beginning. We need to go beyond the beginning of our text and go back to the beginning.
Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Before God said “Let there be light” in verse three, before God creates male and female in verse twenty-seven … God in verse two describes the earth as being formless and void. Earth is an unformed wasteland with nothing but darkness and chaos.
But honestly … we don’t have to go back to the beginning of time in order for our world to feel like that. We just need to look around at the world we’re in. We just need to turn on the news, look at people’s comments on Facebook and Twitter. We just need to walk into any doctor’s office or large box store to see darkness and chaos.
And this darkness and chaos … it’s been around for a long time. We didn’t have to go through a pandemic to realize it. Darkness and chaos, brokenness and isolation have been around long before the pandemic. If anything, the pandemic magnified the darkness and chaos, the brokenness and the isolation of the world which surrounds us.
Yet in the midst of all this darkness and chaos … there is hope. In the midst of the brokenness … there is hope. In the midst of isolation … there is hope. There is hope because hovering over the chaos of what will be the new creation is the Holy Spirit.
Genesis 1:2 says, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters with anticipation, hovering over the waters focused on what coming next … a new creation! And why? Because this is what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit makes things new.
But the problem is … we just don’t know who the Holy Spirit is. We don’t spend the time we should in understanding the Holy Spirit or actually engaging the Holy Spirit. The Son, Jesus, sure we do that. The Father, yeah, we do that too. But the Holy Spirit?
You see, the Holy Spirit isn’t a force like gravity or from Star Wars. The Holy Spirit isn’t a thing or some sort of abstract idea. Scripture says and we confessed a little bit ago that the Holy Spirit is a person. Scripture says that the Holy Spirit speaks words of truth (Heb. 3:7). Scripture says that the Holy Spirit feels our anger and our pain (Eph. 4:30). Scripture says that the Holy Spirit thinks and understands (2 Cor. 10-11). The Holy Spirit comforts and convicts (John 14:26). And why? Because the Holy Spirit isn’t an idea. Like the Father and the Son … the Holy Spirit is a person.
And of all these things which the Holy Spirit does … if we had to choose which one is the Holy Spirit’s favorite … I would say that the favorite is to create. To bring order out of chaos. To bring beauty out of brokenness and to bring creation out of isolation. In the beginning, at the Pentecost event, and even now … the Holy Spirit is sent in order to create all things new.
Jesus says, “Unless I go away, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, will not come to you” (John 16:7). Even though the disciples didn’t understand, Jesus knew that he had to go in order to complete, to fulfill his Father’s the plan of salvation and so that the Holy Spirit would come. For the time being … Jesus’ job had ended. It ended so that the job of the Holy Spirit would begin.
With the sending of the Holy Spirit to the disciples on Pentecost … the disciples were made new. They were recharged with the sure and certain promise that they would never ever again be alone. With the sending of the Holy Spirit, they would never again be without hope. With the sending of the Holy Spirit, they would never again be without God. Living in them, the Holy Spirit would speak to the disciples, comfort them, help them understand the good news of Jesus’ love and forgiveness.
Through this Pentecost event, the disciples went out and spread the message of Jesus. Had they not spread that message … you and I, as well as millions and billions of other people would not know of Jesus and would not be saved. You and I … without the Holy Spirit, we would have no hope, we would be lost in the darkness, brokenness, and chaos of sin. We would be lost in isolation from God. But we aren’t … we aren’t lost. We aren’t lost because the person of the Holy Spirit lives and dwells within you.
Is the betrayal, denial, hatred, harassment and grief the disciples experience with Jesus leaving a good thing? Yeah, it is. It is because the Holy Spirit comes to create clean hearts. Living within them, living within you and me … betrayal is turned into faithfulness; denial is turned into acceptance; hatred is turned into love; harassment is turned into happiness; and grief is turned into joy! Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
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