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Not as Orphans (May 5, 2002)
"I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming
to you." John 14:18
Jesus is about to leave his disciples but he promises
them "I won't leave you comfortless" or "orphaned".
The Greek word here is "orphanos". He will send an Advocate,
the Holy Spirit. Jesus will be with them through the Holy Spirit. There's
no real differentiation here between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Jesus
promises he will not leave them comfortless, bereft, orphaned. The truth
of the Christian faith rests entirely on this: by faith Christians know
Jesus has kept his promise for 2000 years. Through the power of Jesus
people have known, as Paul said on the Areopagus in Athens, that indeed
God was nearer to them than they believed.
People have known that He is alive, he is with them, no matter what, that
they have not been bereft. This has been the core power of Christian faith
down through the ages. Otherwise, it is all meaningless ritual and mystery
and whatnot. But with this it is truth and light for our day. In every
age the Church is in danger of losing its soul by too much concentration
on outward symbols or empty slogans but whenever that has happened people
have recovered their faith when they've heard in their hearts that Jesus
is alive, He is with them, he has not left them bereft or orphaned.
This is the last Sunday of the Easter season in which this truth - that
Christ is alive and is with us always - has been proclaimed in our hearts
loud and clear. In truth, every Sunday is an Easter Sunday. It is why
we worship on Sunday, and why the early Christians, who were Jews, changed
the day of meeting to Sunday. They knew Christ as the Risen Christ who
would be with them, as he said, "to the close of the age." We
are not as orphans, we are not alone.
At the moment Jesus told this to his disciples they were spiritually running
on empty. The future looked bleak.
When we run on our own, thinking it is all up to us, we can carry ourselves
just so far. What we need is the knowledge that we are about is really
important, that we truly matter, that life itself is important and worth
living, that we can go on. And nothing does that like knowing we are cared
for and that Someone else is with us. This is what Jesus is saying to
his disciples. I will not leave you. If you keep your part of my friendship,
by obeying my commandments and loving one another, then because I live
you will live also.
There is enormous strength in this. No faith in the world, I am convinced,
has so demonstrated so completely God's commitment to us as has Christian
faith. On the cross Jesus gave his all for us to bring us to God, and
before the cross Jesus told his disciples what it would mean: that his
broken body and shed blood was for them, for the forgiveness of their
sins, and that if God cares about you so much as that and promises never
to leave you what must that mean for you and your life in a difficult
world. Where so many religions proclaimed God or gods somehow against
people Christian faith said clearly God wants to shower us with his love
and blessings, to give us all good things, to lead us into abundant life.
We are reminded of all of this in this holy sacrament. And we draw enormous
strength from it.
Years ago a school teacher was assigned to visit children in a city hospital.
She received a call requesting she visit a particular child. The teacher
was told the child's class was studying nouns and adverbs and they were
worried he would be behind.
When she arrived outside the child's room she realized it was in the burn
unit. No one had prepared her for what she saw. But she felt she couldn't
just turn around and walk out, so she said, "I'm the hospital teacher,
and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs."
The boy barely responded. She stumbled through the lesson, ashamed at
making him work at all. When she came back the next morning a nurse said,
"What did you do to that boy?" She started to apologize, but
the nurse said, "You don't understand. We've been worried about him,
but ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed.
He's fighting back, responding to treatment. It's as though he decided
to live."
Months later the boy explained he had completely given up until he saw
the teacher. Then he figured, "they wouldn't send a teacher to work
on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?"
God comes to us in Jesus Christ in this sacrament to say I will never
leave you nor forsake you. He wants to give us strength. He has come to
help us work on the turmoil in our lives. God wouldn't send a Teacher
to work on these things if there was no point, would he?
"I have not left you orphaned."
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