With today’s Gospel we continue reading John Chapter 14, which we started last Sunday. We are preparing just now for the Ascension and Pentecost, so it’s very appropriate for us to hear Jesus speak at the Last Supper of his imminent departure, and of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Our passage begins: If you love me, you will keep my commandments (14:15).
God is the one who is to be loved, and he is the one who issues commandments. So there is no doubt that here we have an implicit claim of Jesus to divine status. According to the Rabbis, there were 613 commandments of the divine law. Although Jesus in St. John’s Gospel frequently speaks of his “commandments”, in the plural, we only ever find one. It’s the single law of charity. This is the New Law of the Gospel, the New Commandment, the Law of the Spirit. By the Holy Spirit, we are both prompted and enabled to love Jesus. And if we do that, we will spontaneously “keep his commandments”, or in other words, live according to his Law of love, which is the same as living according to his Spirit. This life in keeping with the commandments of Jesus, or life according to the Spirit, is expressed when our own life is conformed with consistency to the life of Jesus. That is: we have to live free from sin; ceaselessly worshipping the Father; bearing witness to the truth; ever responding in love to the love with which we ourselves have been loved; loving indeed according to the measure of the love of Jesus himself.
Jesus typically comes back time and again to the same idea, using slightly different formulations. So at the end of our passage we have: Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me (14:21); or again a bit later: If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love (15:10). This circular method of discourse would have been familiar from the Jewish Rabbis. But also: surely it somehow reflects the mutual relations of the 3 Trinitarian Persons, whose mystery, in a ceaseless interplay of life and of love, Jesus is here inviting us to enter.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper (14:16). The Greek word for “Helper” here is “Paraclete”. The translation we had until recently rendered this as “Advocate”. The Authorised Version has “Comforter”. The RSV has “Counsellor”. Knox has: “He who is to befriend you”. There is anyway deep consolation for us here. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, a prophetic text of Isaiah is cited to give Jesus the name “Emmanuel”, which means: “God with us” (1:23). Through Jesus, God is with us in a quite new way. And we in turn are raised up to be with God in a quite new, far more exalted way. This is a thought to dwell on. God is never absent from us. He is always available; always ready to listen; and always loving us. So we can always find God, not just above us, but within is. And our intimacy with God, in Christ, is to grow, and deepen, and mature: limitlessly, and throughout our life. In this way it’s to become ever more powerful, ever more fruitful, ever more all-absorbing. In Christ, in the Spirit, we are become children of God: and so as St. Paul puts it we cry Abba! Father!: in perfect confidence, and perfect love. And if ever we seem to feel God’s absence: let us be sure that that feeling is in us, not in Him.
As for the Spirit, the Paraclete: clearly he is no merely abstract principle, or symbol, but is himself a divine Person. The condition for his coming to us in power is the bodily departure of Jesus from this world: via his saving death, followed by his life-giving resurrection. Those baptised into the death of Jesus will then be able to share a much deeper union with him than the physical companionship experienced by the disciples. For through the Holy Spirit Jesus will remain truly present to us, with us, and in us. You in me, and I in you (v. 20) he says. This is the mystical union of which the Saints speak. In principle we all have this from our baptism, and we all have access to it at every moment in our daily life. But of course it admits of degrees, according to the measure of our faith and love; and according as we allow the Holy Spirit to take over and transform our hearts, our lives.
The world, he says, cannot receive the Spirit (v. 17). In the course of the Last Discourse according to St. John, “the world” is mentioned 30 times: always in its negative sense. We could define “the world” as those who do not have faith, those who actively reject Jesus, those who, in Pauline terms, live according to the flesh, and not according to the Spirit.
The world cannot receive the Spirit, for it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him. A consistent and constantly recurring theme in this discourse is knowledge. Jesus reveals, manifests, shows, speaks the word: about himself, about the Father, and about the Holy Spirit. We who receive that word, or manifestation, are then able to know Jesus, and to know the Father, and to know the Holy Spirit, and in that knowledge to possess them.
You might ask: but do I know the Spirit? Maybe not? And I respond: Oh yes you do: probably much more than you think! Otherwise why would you be here now? The Spirit is the one who prompts you to listen to the words of Jesus, and to accept them. He is the one who warms your heart, turns you towards God, kindles in you the desire for heaven. He inspires your prayer, and gives you an instinct for worship, for intercession, for silent adoration. He fills you with love and compassion for your neighbour. So these days especially we cry: Come Holy Spirit! We need the Holy Spirit! We need to walk with the Spirit, and according to the Spirit! Meanwhile we could define sin as non-love, and as rejection of the Holy Spirit. Sin is a deliberate blocking and frustration of the activity of the Holy Spirit: and all of us are capable of that. So these days especially also we take care to turn aside from our sin – any sin whatever - in repentance and confession.
Because I live, you also will live says Jesus (v. 19). “I live”, that is to say, “eternally in virtue of my divinity. From Easter Sunday I will live for ever also in virtue of my risen humanity. And through your share in that, you will share my own utterly blessed life, with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, for all eternity.” This promise is so big, so far beyond our merits or comprehension: really we need a life time in order to contemplate, rejoice in, marvel at its implications.
In that day you will know – through the Spirit of Truth (v. 17) – that I am in my Father (v. 20). Already we Christians know this by faith, informed by reason and by divine revelation. The Holy Spirit progressively deepens our knowledge of this truth, than which nothing is more true. In eternity we will see it all plainly, and know it clearly: and that will be our eternal joy.