The testimony about Jesus and its consequences

Sermon for Exaudi – the Sunday after Ascension

1 Peter 4:7-11  +  John 15:26-16:4

For forty days the Paschal candle was lit during our services here, until it was extinguished this past Thursday when we celebrated Jesus’ ascension into heaven. As I said after the service, it seems a little strange, not having it lit anymore. Imagine how Jesus’ disciples felt during those strange ten days between Jesus’ Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. It was a strange time of limbo, a time for those 120 Christians to do little else but pray and wait.

The eleven apostles didn’t know how long they’d have to wait, but they knew, more or less, what they were waiting for. They were waiting for the Helper, for the Holy Spirit to come to them. They were waiting for what Jesus’ promised: for the testimony of the Holy Spirit—the testimony about Jesus!—and for the beginning of their testimony, too, and for the terrible consequences of it that Jesus referred to in today’s Gospel. That testimony now belongs to us, to the Church that’s built upon it and that still holds it out to the world. That means that the consequences of the testimony also belong to us. But so does the help of the Helper.

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit after His ascension. He would send Him “from the Father,” because that’s how it works in the Holy Trinity. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, but also from the Son, as we confess in the Nicene Creed, in the sense that the Son is responsible for sending Him into the world from the Father. The Spirit’s work is to testify. But this is important: Notice what the content of His testimony is: “He will testify about Me.” The Spirit’s testimony is about Jesus. He tells what He has seen and heard about Jesus, and, as a Person of the Holy Trinity, the Spirit knows Jesus perfectly. He testified about Jesus throughout the Old Testament and throughout the New. When He spoke by the prophets in the Old Testament, the focus was always on the coming Christ. Now it’s on the Christ who has come. Any supposed testimony of the Holy Spirit that doesn’t focus on Jesus, or that doesn’t tell the truth about Jesus, isn’t coming from the Holy Spirit, but from an unholy spirit.

How would the Spirit of truth testify about Jesus? He would do it in three ways. First, through signs and wonders and various miracles, starting with the miracles of the Day of Pentecost which we’ll consider next week. It was about Jesus, because those signs were always connected to the apostles’ preaching about Jesus, the message that He was the promised Christ, that He suffered for our sins, that He was raised to life for our justification, that He has ascended on high and reigns over all things at the Father’s right hand, that He will return one day for judgment. This outward testimony of the Spirit was important as the apostles began to spread the Gospel throughout the world. But it was temporary; that testimony has been given. It’s done.

There is another testimony of the Spirit, in the hearts of the apostles, enabling them to teach (and to write!) about Jesus correctly. He guided them into all truth, as Jesus said He would. He emboldened them to preach the Gospel of Jesus with new-found courage and conviction—just as He had done, by the way, with the Old Testament prophets, as Peter writes: the Spirit of Christ who was in [the prophets] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Then there is the testimony of the Spirit in the hearts of the hearers of the Gospel as He works through the preaching of the Word, enabling the hearers to believe and understand the Gospel of Jesus. As Paul writes, No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And again, The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, enabling us to cry out to God as our dear Father. You can be confident that, whenever the Gospel is preached, the Spirit is there with His divine testimony, working to convict, to convince, to comfort, and to strengthen our faith in Jesus.

But the Spirit doesn’t testify alone. It’s always connected with that preaching. Jesus goes on in our Gospel, And you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. These words aren’t spoken to all people. They’re spoken to the apostles who were “with Jesus from the beginning.” Theirs is the eyewitness testimony, the testimony on which the Church is founded, together with that of the Old Testament prophets. And, just like the Old Testament prophets, the apostles recorded for us the very words that the Holy Spirit gave them and has faithfully preserved for us in the holy Bible.

You and I cannot offer such testimony. We were not eyewitnesses to everything Jesus said and did, or to His death, or to His resurrection. We can testify to the faith that each of us has in that testimony. We can and should tell the world that we have been convinced that the apostles’ testimony is true, and that Jesus is risen and reigning and returning. But when we invite people to church, when we invite people to know the Lord Jesus, we’re not inviting them to come and hear our testimony. We’re inviting them to come and hear the testimony of the Holy Spirit, through the testimony of the apostles (and prophets), through the Church that has been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief Cornerstone.

The testifying that the apostles would do was essential. Without it, there would be no Christian Church. But their testifying would not be without consequences. And Jesus wasn’t about to hide those consequences from them.

They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is rendering service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me.

If the Holy Spirit was testifying about Christ in the Old Testament, and if He would continue that testimony in the New Testament era, then you see that the Old Testament Church is really the same Church as the New Testament Church. But, as Jesus predicts here, most of the Jewish people would reject Him and His apostles after Him, proving that they never really knew God the Father rightly, that their version of the Jewish religion was a sham. And they would keep up the sham. They would keep their synagogues. They would hold onto customs and rituals and traditions of the Old Testament. But their Christ-less religion would not tolerate the preachers whom Christ sent out. The synagogues should have naturally turned into Christian churches when the Spirit and the apostles testified there, but instead, the Christ-less Jews would excommunicate the Christian Jews from the synagogues. And they would go further than that. They would persecute and execute the apostles and many who believed the testimony of the apostles, thinking they were serving God as they did it. But they weren’t serving God, Jesus says. They have not known the Father nor Me.

Now, you and I can’t be put out of the synagogues. We didn’t grow up attending one like the apostles did. (Like Jesus Himself did!) But the testimony about Jesus that we believe, the testimony about Jesus that we confess in the world, still draws hatred from Jews and Gentiles alike.

I recently read about a Christian pastor in a foreign country (somewhere in Asia, I think) who requires people to answer a set of questions prior to being baptized. The first question on the list was, “Are you willing to be put to death for being baptized as a Christian?” Another question: “Are you willing to be mocked and ridiculed in the marketplace for being a Christian?” Another: “Are you willing to lose your job for the sake of Christ?” Another question: “Are you ready to be disowned by your father?” I want you to really think about those questions, and your answer to them. Because, over the centuries, Christians have had to face some or all of these consequences for their testimony about Christ. It’s not unexpected. It shouldn’t be unexpected. Remember that I told you beforehand, Jesus says. And when it happens, we shouldn’t be like the student protesters this week who went on a hunger strike…and then complained about how unfair it is that they’re hungry. No, when it happens, before it happens, before you spend another day calling yourself a Christian, you should know what it is you’ve signed up for (or will sign up for).

Who would testify about Jesus, knowing that consequences like these will follow? Only those who believe that Jesus rose from the dead and lives and reigns forever at the Father’s right hand. Only those who believe that heaven is our home and that even death can’t rob us of our eternal life with Christ our Savior, who suffered the same things for us, that we might be saved from sin and death. Only those who know that the consequences of not testifying about Jesus are far worse than the consequences of testifying about Him. Because if we don’t testify, who will? And if no one does, who can be saved?

It’s a lot to ask, a lot to expect. If only we had a Helper to guide us, to strengthen us, to comfort us through it all, to testify along with us and to shore up our testimony? Ah, but we do. The Helper has come, and He is still here. And next week we’ll celebrate the day of His coming. May the Helper, the Spirit of truth, grant you all the help you need, to believe in the testimony about the Lord Jesus and to confess Him before the world, no matter what the earthly consequences may be. Amen.