Sermon by Rev George Hemmings
Sarah & I have learnt that we need to give our boys Micah and Joshua plenty of warning before we leave somewhere, especially if they’re having a good time. If we try to just say, ‘OK, it’s time to go,’ without any warning, they’re usually not too happy. You might need to do the same with your family or friends, especially if you’ve driven somewhere together.
In these few chapters of John’s gospel, that’s exactly what Jesus is doing. He’s preparing the disciples for his imminent departure. Now that Judas has gone out, now that the final betrayal has begun, Jesus knows that the Cross is inevitable. Jesus might’ve hoped that as he offered Judas the choice morsel back in verse 26, that Judas would see the light, that he would repent, that he would turn back. But instead Judas rejected Jesus, he turned to darkness, and was sent off into the night. And so now Jesus’ betrayal, his arrest and trial, his suffering and death are inevitable. The wheel’s been set in motion, as we say in English. So Jesus can say that the ‘Son of Man has been glorified,’ as though it’s already happened. All that remains is to prepare the disciples for what’s coming.
Did you see how Jesus speaks to them? It’s tender, and gentle. He calls them ‘little children.’ It’s not a patronising term, but a loving one. They’ve just shared the Passover together, something that was normally done in families, so it’s a fitting term. ‘Dear little children,’ Jesus says, ‘I am with you only a little longer.’ He doesn’t try to sugar coat it, or downplay what’s about to happened, but tells them plainly that he’s leaving. And so they don’t think that he’s just popping around to a friend’s for a cup of tea, or heading out for a holiday by the sea, Jesus says, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ He’s breaking the bad news that he’s about to go away, and that at least for the time being, they can’t come with him.
If you’ve ever gone away for a while you might leave instructions for those staying home. You might tell your children to behave themselves while you’re gone. You might ask your neighbours or friends to check your mail and put the bins out for you. You could ask your co-workers to look after some of your jobs. While he’s gone Jesus has just one job for his disciples, one new commandment. It’s a pretty simple one isn’t it? Simple enough a child could understand it. ‘Love one another, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’ You might think Jesus doesn’t know his Old Testament very well, because he calls this a new commandment. The covenant with Moses contained two very important instructions about love:
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your strength.’ (Deut. 6:5) and;
‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Lev. 19:18)
So how can Jesus call this new? It’s new because it’s part of the new covenant. It’s new because there’s a new standard applied. We’re to no longer love others the way we love ourselves, but the way that Jesus loves us. How does Jesus love? As we saw last week from John 13:1, Jesus loved his own to the very end, he loved them completely and fully. He demonstrated that when he got down and washed the disciples feet. When he humbled himself to serve them. And Jesus is about to demonstrate just how far his love goes on the Cross. For ‘no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15:13), and ‘9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.’ (1 John 4:9-10) How does Jesus love us? With love so amazing, so divine, it demands our life, our soul our all. He loves is inclusive, indiscriminate, universal. And he calls us to love each other in the same way. If we do, Jesus says, the whole world will know that we are his disciples. In his book ‘The Rise of Christianity’ the sociologist Rodney Stark explored how and why Christianity spread so far, so fast and had such an impact on the world in the centuries following Jesus death and resurrection. His conclusion was that Christianity did not grow because of miracles, or because of the Roman emperor Constantine, but because of the intense community. The news that God loved the world was revolutionary, and the call for us to not only love God but also to love each other shook the world. It was as Christians loved those who had been abandoned by the Roman world, loved those who were struck down with the plague, loved those who were mistreated, even loved those who persecuted them, that the world not only recognized that they were disciples of Jesus, but through them, and through their love, came to know Jesus.
It’s clear that this instruction to love one another had a strong impact on John. He mentions love almost forty times in 1 John. In fact if you go home and read 1 John this afternoon, you’ll see the idea repeated over and over again. God has loved us, so we should love God and love each other. And when we love one another the way Jesus loves us, we show God to the world.
But when John and the other disciples first heard this, do you think they were paying any attention? No! Their minds jumped to the most important thing Jesus had just said. ‘You’re leaving?’ is the only thing they can focus on right now. Did you see how much they struggle with this idea? Peter, Philip and Thomas all ask questions trying to clarify what Jesus is on about. Last week Peter was so worried about having no share with Jesus that he wanted not just his feet, but his head and his hands washed. Now he’s boldly saying that Jesus isn’t going anywhere without him. Peter’s not even content to be told that he will follow Jesus afterwards. He wants to go with him now! He’s even ready to lay his life down for Jesus! It’s ironic isn’t it? Really it’s Jesus who’s about to lay his life down for Peter. What’s not so ironic is what Jesus says next. As bold as Peter might be in the upper room, with a full belly, surrounded by friends, when he’s out in a darkened garden, in the middle of an angry mob, Peter will deny Jesus not once, not twice but three times.
It’s hard to think of anything that would’ve killed the mood more than that. As we saw last week, Jesus said that one of the disciples would betray him, now he’s said he’s going away and they can’t follow and he’s told them that even Peter, one of the inner circle, would deny him! They’ve left everything to follow Jesus and now it looks like it’s all about to go down the toilet. It’s bad news on top of bad news, on top of bad news. What would you say to someone in a situation like that? How do you comfort someone who’s just been delivered a bombshell?
What does Jesus say? ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’ On the surface it sounds like a good, Aussie sentiment; ‘Now worries mate’ or ‘No biggy,’ or ‘She’ll be right.’ But Jesus does more than say no worries. He doesn’t peddle platitudes. Because when it comes to really comforting someone those sayings are rubbish. They fail to acknowledge grief and despair, or pain and suffering. They’re paramount to saying just get over it. That’s not what Jesus does. Instead he offers true comfort. ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled,’ he says, ‘Believe in God and believe in me.’ He urges the disciples to trust in God and to trust in him, to have faith that God and Jesus are in control. After all, he’s told them that what’s about to happen is not a shameful defeat, but the ultimate glorification of the Son, and of God. It’s on the Cross that God’s glory, his love and grace, are most clearly revealed to the world.
And Jesus tells them not let their hearts be troubled, because what he’s about to do is for their, for our, ultimate good. Jesus needs to go to the Cross in order to prepare a place for us in heaven. As we are, stained by our sin, covered in our failures, we’re not fit to enter into God’s presence. Imagine what would happen if you turned up to the Hilton Hotel, or the Sofitel, dressed in rags, covered in dirt and dust. You wouldn’t be allowed to enter! As we are, we’re not fit to enter into heaven. But Jesus says he goes to prepare a place for us! It’s only by his death on the Cross that we can be forgiven, that we can have our sins washed away. Jesus says he is the only way we can enter into God’s presence, the only way we can get into heaven. He is ‘the way, and the truth and the life, no one can come to the Father except through him.’ (John 14:6).
This is why Jesus must leave the disciples, this is why he must go to the Cross. If he doesn’t we’re stuffed, because without him there is no getting to God! There is no way we can get into heaven, except through him, and only through him dying on the Cross for us. This should be real comfort for the disciples; this is why their hearts should not be troubled. Even though Jesus is going away for a time, they will see him again when he returns to take them back to be with him for eternity. This is real comfort for us, when we face the trials and pains of this world. When we lose loved ones, when we face sickness and death, when we face challenges and strife. When we are confronted with all the pain and suffering that comes from living in a fallen world, we can find comfort in the truth that Jesus has gone before us that he has prepared a place for us in heaven, that where he is we may be also. Jesus assures us that he must go, so that we can know, so that we can be with him and the Father.
But this isn’t enough for Philip. He’s not satisfied with a promise for the future. He can’t quite believe just yet, so he asks Jesus to show them the Father. You can hear the tinge of sadness in Jesus reply to Philip can’t you? How can he be asking that? Jesus answers him, ‘Don’t you know?’ It’s one thing for the Jews, for those who haven’t been called, who haven’t followed, who haven’t been taught by the Father not to understand. But it’s another thing for the disciples, who’ve spent years with Jesus to still not get it. So Jesus says to Philip, if you’re still struggling to believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, believe in the words I’ve spoken and the miraculous signs I’ve performed. We’ve called this sermons series signs of the kingdom because that’s what Jesus says his works are. Signs that point to God’s Kingdom, signs that show that God’s Kingdom is at work in the ministry of Jesus, signs that Jesus is the King, that he is God. Jesus says the signs are to help us to believe that he is who he says he is.
And the incredible thing is that Jesus promises that we will do even greater works than these! It is true that the apostles did some pretty amazing things, and that around the world today, in areas not as closed to spiritual things as our Western society, that miracles still occur. But, even so it’s hard to imagine disciples, or us, doing things more spectacular than raising Lazarus, or feeding the five thousand. What does Jesus mean then, that we’d do greater works? The clues are there in what follows. We will do greater works because Jesus is going to the Father. Now that Christ has died and is risen, now that he’s been glorified, we can know him and make him known in a new, in a greater way. We can show people who he is, what he has done. On this side of the Cross, after the dawn of God’s Kingdom, Jesus expects that we will see greater things, more people coming to know him, after he’s gone.
But this doesn’t mean he’s completely out of the picture. Did you notice that these greater things are contingent upon our prayers. And that it’s Jesus who answers them. He is still at work. In a way they are still his works. He hasn’t left, he’s still with the disciples, and he’s still with us. Praying in his name isn’t invoking some magical words that make things happen as the sons of Sceva found out in Acts 19. It’s prayers offered in full accord with what his name stands for. John puts it this way in his epistle;
1John 5:14 And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.
Jesus promises that he will still be with us, working in and through us, both as we love each other, and as we pray asking that he help us be living signs to his kingdom.
When we celebrate communion, as we are about to do, we say the words, ‘We eat this bread and drink this cup, to proclaim the death of the Lord.’ After Jesus washed the disciples feet, after he ate the last supper with them, after he shared these words with him, he did indeed leave them, as he passed through death on the Cross and then returned to the Father’s side. But then straight after we say those words we go on to say, ‘We do this until he returns, Come Lord Jesus.’ We draw from the source of true comfort, that Jesus will return, that where he is we too will be. That we will be with him for eternity, dwelling in the Father’s house, in his very presence. And while we wait for that day to come, let us also not forget to love one another as he has loved us. To proclaim him to the world in the way that we love, to show that he’s not really gone, but is present in us, and within us, as we love each other and the world with the same radical love that he has for us.
