YOU WILL NEVER WALK ALONE

Many years ago, I asked a candidate we were interviewing for the ministry  if he had ever seen the Holy Spirit at work in his church. It was meant to be a challenging question because we don’t give the work of the Holy Spirit much attention in the “mainline church.” But after giving the question a little thought, he said that people in his church seemed to enjoy one another’s company when they gathered at fellowship events. I call this the “reserved” version of the Holy Spirit and in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we see that the Gifts of the Holy Spirit do include… kindness, gentleness, joy, and love, among others. When the Holy Spirit is alive within a person and moving freely in a group, you will see God’s people at peace and in harmony, as they show His love to one another.

But in the second chapter of the book of Acts, we encounter the Holy Spirit as an agent of renewal, power, and energy. We’ll get to it in a couple of weeks, but it was moment when God’s people were energized and reborn as zealous witnesses to His ministry and resurrection. People who spoke in different languages could understand one another and there was a oneness of purpose that swept through their community. New people joined and old people embraced new possibilities. I am sure that God’s people were kind to one another. They may have also been patient, but they were neither bold nor helpful… until the Holy Spirit swept through them. In this view, the Holy Spirit is a transforming agent of change (which is hardly the church’s strong suit).

Holy Spirit, work within us so that we can love another and come to rest in a place of peace and abiding joy! Holy Spirit, get a hold of us. Wake us up and set is on fire with zeal and a iron-clad commitment to tell and show the entire world that Christ is risen! And then there is a third view of the Holy Spirit, as an unpredictable and wild part of the Holy Trinity. In many people’s eyes God is something like a stern Father who keep yelling at the neighborhood children to behave. Jesus is His loving and understanding Son, who understands that we’re doing the best that we can and who also sticks up for us when his Father gets angry. But they keep the Holy Spirit out of sight, for fear that he will get someone excited about their potential, or challenge them with the truth.

The Holy Spirit, it seems, is a Peacemaker, a radical change-agent, and an unpredictable truth-teller. But in our passage today, we meet the Holy Spirit as a Paraclete, which means someone who is “called to walk alongside.” In ancient times the term “paraclete” often had legal overtones, as in a lawyer who argues your case, but for some time now, it has meant something like, “comforter, advocate, encourager.” When Jesus came up beside Cleopas and his friend on the Road to Emmaus, he showed some of the ministry that the Holy Spirit would be doing after he ascended… when he listened to them, challenged them a bit, and explained Scripture to them… so that their hearts would be warned.

A joy-giver, change-agent, truth-teller, and paraclete- the Holy Spirit is all of these- but today, our attention is turned to our Paraclete. ¹⁵”If you love me,” Jesus said in the 14^th chapter of the gospel of John, “you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.¹⁷This 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. ¹⁹In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹They 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.”

If you love me you will love one another, Jesus noted, because love demands a response. If you love me, you will live out my words because they will burn in your hearts. As we have journeyed together, I have been your Advocate and I have showed those things that are dear to me- like mercy and justice- and now, I will give you the Spirit of Truth, who will keep my words and work alive in your hearts. He will continue showing you what you must do and reminding you that I am the Truth. There are some who won’t believe this because they are consumed with lies, but you will enjoy a deep and abiding relationship with this Advocate… and it will last forever. Oh friends, I will not leave you orphaned! No I won’t. I won’t abandon you and leave you frightened and vulnerable. I am giving you a Paraclete who will walk alongside you… when you’re dancing with joy and when your sobbing in the darkness. I will walk alongside when your running downhill as fast as you can and when your struggling to get to your feet. You and I will always be in relationship and you will draw strength, knowing that I am in the Father, that I am in you, and you are in me. You will never walk alone because the Comforter will always be at your side. This is the truth. Hold it tightly until we meet again. Amen.