Better to have the Spirit-Advocate by our side

Sermon for Cantate – Easter 4

James 1:16-21  + John 16:5-15

It’s the 29^th day after Easter. In eleven days, we’ll celebrate the Ascension, and ten days after that we’ll celebrate the Day of Pentecost. Today our Gospel reading, still from Jesus’ discourse with His disciples on Maundy Thursday, begins to turn our attention to the visible departure of the risen Christ and to the gift that the risen Christ would give to His Church on the Day of Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Earlier that same evening, John chapter 14, Jesus had already begun to speak of the Holy Spirit. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

You notice, Jesus calls Him here “another Helper.” That’s because the disciples already had a Helper there with them—Jesus Himself. The Holy Spirit would be “another Helper.”

Let’s take a moment and understand this word “Helper.” It’s been translated in different ways: Helper, Comforter, Counselor, Advocate, or simply the transliterated “Paraclete.” I favor the translation “Advocate.” It’s someone who is called to the side of a person to speak up on their behalf, like an advocate or an attorney in the courtroom. In his first Epistle, St. John calls Jesus our Paraclete, our Advocate: My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. Jesus has been called to our side by God the Father, to speak up in our defense. If we sin, whenever we sin, the Law accuses us before God and condemns us. But we have a Paraclete, an Advocate in the Lord Jesus. He speaks up in our defense, not defending our sins, not lying to the court as if we had no sin, but making the case before the divine court that He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, that He suffered for them and made atonement for them on the cross, and that God has made a solemn promise that all who flee to Christ for refuge will be safe from condemnation. There He sits, at the right hand of God, our Advocate.

So now Jesus speaks of another Helper, another Advocate, the Holy Spirit. He had begun telling His disciples that He would be going away soon, and they were sad about it. He told them, you shouldn’t be. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

It’s to our advantage that our Advocate who is the very propitiation for our sins should sit at the right hand of God the Father and speak up for us before God. As St. Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter 8, Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. It’s to the Church’s advantage that Jesus is there at God’s right hand.

And it’s also to our advantage to have that other Helper or Advocate, the Spirit of truth, here by our side, wherever the Church is gathered throughout the whole world, advocating on our behalf before the world.

Here’s what Jesus says the Spirit will do: And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

He! He will convict the world, rebuke the world, show the world its fault. Because He’s our Helper, our Advocate, called to our side to speak up for us. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak with His own voice. He does it with ours, with the voice of His Christians, of His Church, of His ministers. See what power Jesus attaches to the speaking of His Word, the power of God the Holy Spirit to show the world its fault.

He will convict the world of sin…because they do not believe in Me. Just a couple of weeks ago, an Italian man died. He was an atheist. His young son was given the chance to ask the pope about his father, whether he was saved or not. The pope pointed to some good deeds the boy’s father had done and told the boy that God was very pleased with his father for those things, and that God surely received him into heaven, even though he didn’t believe in Christ. Is that the voice of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus’ words in our Gospel? On the contrary, that’s the voice of the Demon. The great sin, according to Jesus, the sin that the world refuses to acknowledge, is not to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God and our Advocate before the Father—and we’re talking about the real Jesus here, the One who reveals Himself in the Scriptures, not the idea of Jesus that many people have, the false Jesus who is whatever people want Him to be. Where there is true faith in Christ, all sins are covered, all sins are forgiven. Where there is no faith in Christ, none of the good works of men will save them from condemnation. Men will have to answer for every misdeed, every careless word, every sin, including the great and terrible sin of not fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things.

He will convict the world of righteousness…because I go to My Father and you see Me no more. What does righteousness look like? Where does it come from? If you give enough to charity, if you speak up for the oppressed, if you go to church once in a while, if you pray, if you refrain from injuring anyone, if you serve your neighbor, if you serve your country, if you raise children—does that make you righteous? It may, in the eyes of the world. But the world is wrong. We’re all sinful by nature, down to the very core of our being. The only way to become righteous before God is through faith in the Righteous One, Jesus Christ. He is our righteousness. But He ascended to His Father. Righteousness lived here on this earth for 33 years. The world saw Him—and crucified Him. And now He’s unseen. No one can be righteous before God, unless He who is righteousness sends it down to us from heaven, sends Himself down to us from heaven. And He does! But He doesn’t do it visibly. He does it through the Means of Grace. He sends His righteousness down to us in the preaching of the Gospel, in the waters of Baptism, in the Holy Supper, and it’s received through faith. Righteousness is found here, in the Church, because this is where the invisible Christ gives us His righteousness through the powerful working of the Holy Spirit in the appointed means. It’s rightly said that outside of the Christian Church, there is no salvation. But the corollary is also true: inside the Christian Church, there is salvation! And all are invited by the Holy Spirit to enter it.

He will convict the world of judgment…because the ruler of this world is judged. The world rejects the true God. The world rejects His holy Word and His holy Ten Commandments. The world rejects the Jesus who died for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification. If you’re not with Jesus, you’re against Him. If the Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is not your God, then the devil is your ruler. You live enslaved in his kingdom. But the ruler of this world, the devil, already stands judged. And judgment is coming on the world. Not the judgment of humans destroying the planet. But the judgment of Jesus coming back to judge mankind by the standard of His holy law. All who are found in the devil’s kingdom when Christ comes for judgment will receive the judgment of their ruler, the devil. So this is the Holy Spirit’s message: flee from the devil’s kingdom now! Come into the kingdom of the light, the kingdom of Christ, where there is forgiveness for every misdeed and every careless word! The entrance is free! Do it today, because tomorrow may be too late! To stay in the devil’s kingdom is the worst kind of foolishness.

There’s more to say about our Gospel—about how the Spirit will guide His Church into all truth and glorify Christ as He does it—but let this be enough for today. We don’t have Jesus living visibly by our side. But we do have One who is just as divine, just as powerful, and even more helpful than the visible Christ would be. Better to have the Spirit-Advocate by our side in this world. He is the good and perfect gift who has come down to us from the Father of lights. Amen.