Our passage this week is John 14: 15-21. We continue in the time after Jesus’ Resurrection, yet before His Ascension. The disciples will begin a new phase of their lives of Acting on their faith in the world. It begins with them and is a faith community that continues with us.
So, the Father, who is calling the Son home-the Son who will return again, will not leave the disciples 'in the lurch'. Another will come, the Holy Spirit, to dwell in their hearts. This is no less that Jesus coming to reside in their hearts. The rest of the world won’t get it, but we will understand. It is how the love of God will continue into this new phase of God’s plan. So, Jesus no longer in our lives, but, in our hearts, the power of God up close and personal.
This is the framework for understanding how we will act as Christians in the world:
John 14: 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I
am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world
will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will
live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my
Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who
have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me
will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
So, how
then will the Devil get into the system to undermine what God does for us? How about making it more important to believe the right thing than to do the right thing?
According
to the Google, ‘doctrine’ “is a codification of beliefs, principles, or
instructions held by a group (in this case Christians) acting as a
framework for understanding and acting in the world.” As a framework for understanding and
acting in the world, I hope those verses are clear.
We
understand God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a framework of understanding
how God has chosen to act in the world. In this case, we are speaking of the Doctrine of the Trinity.
HOWEVER-and
if you are NOT a fan of rabbit hole diving, stop reading here. HOWEVER, because this is so important, how will
the Devil seek to undermine it?
It could start with a close reading of the passage that ends up with something like this: ”So we
have God who is forever and all-powerful above us and surrounding us, invisible
yet all-embracing who is ALSO AT THE SAME TIME a human being who came to live
among us, tempted in every way and yet without sin who is ALSO AT THE SAME TIME
a Spirit, well, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, God inhabiting our hearts.”
Some may consider
that seriously cool. Others may consider
that seriously confusing.
This was so
cool and confusing that the Whole church (of the time) got together in Nicaea
in 325 and in Constantinople in 381 and codified (made a Doctrine)
that God is Three in One. God is in
three ‘persons’ (Divine Persons, not human persons except…Jesus…) and it has
been labeled in history as the Doctrine of the Trinity.
Now, there’s
the key word, not Trinity, but Doctrine.
Something the church likes to do is to borrow ideas and concepts from the rest of the world to illustrate what we are trying to say. But we often use those ideas and concepts poorly. What I have in mind here is that we do not
just have a Doctrine of the Trinity, we have a Trinitarian Formula (borrowing
and messing up a basic principle of mathematics or maybe chemistry-but for Jesus). We use this at baptism, “In the name of the…1…
Father, and of the…2… Son, and of the…3… Holy Spirit”.
This is how
the numbers break out for our Scripture passage for Sunday:
Jesus is speaking here: 15 “If you
love Me(2), you will keep My(2) commandments. 16 And
I will ask the Father(1), and He(1) will give you another Advocate(3), to
be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit(3) of
truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him(3) nor knows Him(3).
You know Him(3) because He(3) abides with you, and (3)He will be in you.
18 “I(2) will not leave you orphaned;
I(2) am coming to you. 19 In a little while the
world will no longer see Me(2), but you will see me(2); because I(2) live, you
also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I(2)
am in my Father(1), and you in Me(2), and I(2) in you. 21 They
who have My(2) commandments and keep them are those who love Me(2), and those
who love Me(2) will be loved by my Father(1), and I(2) will love them and
reveal Myself(2) to them.”
SO…see how
easily this can draw the joy and power of these words of Christ? Like a freshman lecturer in college starting , "Allow me to bore you as we contemplate the
Godhead" (yes, Godhead is another name for the Trinity).
If we get
stuck here, the Devil wins. We lose out
on the deeper knowledge and understanding of how God acts in the world and how WE are to follow.
But if we choose to STOP here, the Devil wins even more. We
believe that God is in Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
and you better get that down pat or else you aren’t doing your faith
right. Few people would say that
explicitly, but it is laced implicitly across our faith. Get this right or you don’t move on.
This is
when a Doctrine, an important piece of defining our faith, becomes an
Idol, when it takes on a life of its own, when its purpose is “getting it right”
and does NOT continue to its Real purpose, "doing it right", as a framework for acting in the
world.
When the Bible, or some part
of it, some set of verses, some proof text, when these become how we understand Jesus' words to “keep my commandments”, when we start somewhere else than Jesus' commandments to sum up the law, to Love God and Love Neighbor, then we’ve
been derailed from our faith.
Thus endeth the trip down the Rabbit Hole.
Pastor Pete
