Essential Things
Ever consider yourself essential? How often did you use or hear the word essential? Or, how often did you consider the essential things in your life? What are your essentials? Probably haven’t given it much thought, right? That has all changed! Back on March 28 our Governor Ron DeSantis joined other governors closing down many businesses, restaurants, schools, sporting events, nail, hair salons, and many public places. Things that many of us thought were essential!
Only “Essential” organizations would be allowed to operate. I wrote letters for each of my employees stating that they were an essential employee, because they were employed by an “Essential” business. Exempt because my company was part of the Essential Infrastructure, identified by the State of Florida and the US Department of Homeland Security. To be honest, not everyone was pleased! Some felt that we should all stay home where it is safe! And, as we have come to know now for the vulnerable, I am sure that isolating was and still is the proper response. We were and to some degree are still confused, many are scared and even angry. We are uncertain of what we are facing. We have all heard many reports and read way too many opinions on what the correct way forward is for us. Early reports: Washington Examiner, Florida could be the next New York in the Coronavirus Outbreak, “The state is quickly becoming the next national hot spot for the Covid-19 virus, yet health experts are concerned its government is woefully unprepared.” Bay News 9: “There will likely come a point when there will be no more ventilators to shuffle around, and when that happens, what next?” Orlando Sentinel: “Projections say that the state could run out of ICU beds by April 14.”
We are all very confused, concerned and many are downright afraid! Who do we listen to? What is going to happen next? What has happened to our normal life? What are we to do? The economy is tanking, our retirement accounts are very quickly shrinking. How to pay the bills when I have been sent home, no job to go to? What about the kid’s school? Graduation, Sports: no baseball, tennis, basketball, hockey, my vacation! What will happen if I get sick? What do you mean, I can’t go to church? Way more questions than answers! Only “uncertainty!”
As if you needed me to get you back in touch with your own feelings of uncertainty, let’s consider the Gospel Lesson for today and those that we have been hearing over the past few weeks. Jesus has been preparing His disciples and friends that He was leaving them. Last week he told His disciples that He was going away to prepare a place for them. Then He told them that they knew the way to the place where He was going. More confusion! Thomas said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus answered by saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know the Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Not only are they feeling separation anxiety, they are confused. The man that they gave up everything to follow is about to leave them. First, they didn’t really understand what was going to happen to Jesus, they had no idea what was going to happen to them, and where they were going to go. Many of the disciples had left their homes, their wives and families and their livelihood to follow Jesus.
They had given up their sources of income, and were far away from the security and comfort of home; “their old normal!”
How about us? When we are about to lose something valued, someone important, someplace familiar, don’t we become disagreeable and feel depressed? Only human. I am sure that the disciples were feeling all of these: some kept it to themselves, and others like Thomas, questioned and questioned. Confused, concerned and lost!
Have you ever wished you could speak with Jesus face to face, so that you could share your deepest thoughts, concerns and fears with Him? Imagining His face as He listened to you with understanding and then, loving feedback?
Have you ever thought, “If only we’d been there when Jesus was around!” It would have been much easier. He would have explained everything to us, and He would have told us just what to do! He would have been such an encouragement. Whatever we were doing, He’d be positive about it and we’d know that we were doing just right! All doubts would be gone. Right?
Unfortunately, I’m not so sure that we would have understood better than we do right now, probably much less. Especially when we consider the Gospels, we can find proof that the people around in Jesus’ day didn’t get it either! They were right there with Him 24/7 and still didn’t get it. Some of His closest friends betrayed and denied Him. Even the beloved disciple ran away in the garden. Most of the people couldn’t really figure him out, He was very compelling, but puzzling. Some even thought that He was mad! His own family didn’t believe Him. Then, He promised that he was going to be around with His people from that day to this (forever). In fact, He promised that it would be easier, not harder, in this new mode. (He would be with them.)
His people would be able to do things that they were unable to do when He was physically present. But how? How is it possible that He will be “around?” And, going away, all at the same time?
Jesus left them a promise. In verse 16, Jesus told the disciples that God would leave them a helper, an advocate. Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.”
The disciples struggled with Jesus around, it was going to be even tougher in His absence. All would be lost, unless? In His place Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, the “Advocate.” This word advocate is an attempted translation of the Greek “parakletos”, which means literally “a person summoned to one’s aid, one who helps.” It could also mean, advisor, legal advocate, mediator, counselor, or intercessor. In 1 John it is applied to Jesus’ present ministry as “the one who speaks to the Father in our defense.” The Spirit’s function here is to represent God to the believer as Jesus did when He walked in His incarnate state.
Jesus said that He would ask the Father to give “another” Advocate to be with them forever! He means here another of the same kind, as Himself, Him, not a different kind! Sometimes we might think that the Holy Spirit is something completely different from the Father and Son. And it is something new on the scene. Not so! The Holy Spirit is and has been God’s presence at work in the world since the beginning. From Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) we know that the Spirit of God was at work in the creation of the world. (Genesis 1:2) The Spirit was giving life to plants, animals and humans. The leaders of Israel were given power & direction by the Spirit: Moses, Gideon, Saul, David; earlier Prophets: Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah & Ezekiel. All these and others were guided by the Spirit of God and given messages for the people. Through the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah, we know that the Lord promised to give His Spirit and message to His people so that they would become eager to obey God’s law and teachings. The prophet Isaiah reminded the people that it was by the Spirit that God guided the history of Israel from the beginning. When the people disobeyed the Spirit, they would be punished. But, when they followed the Spirit, their lives and hearts would be transformed and purified. Their hope for the future was that God’s Spirit will renew them and their relationship with God and send them a new ruler filled with wisdom and justice. (Isaiah 11:2-5)
Then the Spirit was quiet for hundreds of years.
That was until John the Baptist, the Elijah, the one prophesized by the law and the prophets came, saying that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit.
For the writers of the New Testament, Jesus is seen as the one who fulfills the vision that inspired the prophets. Luke reports that an angel told Mary that the Holy Spirt would come down to her, and God’s power would come over her and that her child Jesus, would be called the Holy Son of God. Jesus’ relationship with God is again emphasized at His baptism when “the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove” (Luke 3:22) At the beginning of His ministry Jesus read a passage from Isaiah to the people gathered on the Sabbath and declared that the Lord’s Spirit had come to him and had chosen him to tell the good news to the poor (Luke 4:16-19)
Jesus was now offering something more personal and individual, specifically to His disciples and friends. The same Holy Spirit that had visited specific people at different times in history was now coming to them. He would direct their decisions, counsel them continually, and remain with them forever. But now, He would dwell in them when Jesus had departed. This distinction marks the difference between the Old Testament experience of the Holy Spirit and the post-Pentecostal experience of the church. The individual indwelling of the Spirit is the specific privilege of the Christian believer.
Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What are they? “The first is this, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Meaning that you must put your trust in Him as a believer. By doing so, He would send the Spirit to be with you forever. Not only for our life on this earth, forever! Jesus promised that He would not leave us orphaned! Not only does the Holy Spirit come alongside but comes inside us. One of the most devastating thoughts that anyone can have when going through those times of uncertainty or trouble is that, “I am alone.” After that comes self-pity, and then the thought that “no one cares.” These are common feelings, but they are unnecessary for the believer. Jesus assures us that the Advocate, the paraclete, a helper in the Holy Spirit will always be with us. No matter what happens, what goes wrong, He is with us. Times when caring for a sick child, the believing parent is never alone. A believer is not alone in the hospital facing death, standing over a fresh grave, or at work, or in uncertain times like the ones we are facing right now, with the unknowns of this COVID-19 Pandemic. He is with us.
So, as I began, what are the essential things in your life?
Several weeks ago, a friend stopped by when we were down at the lake. As we were talking, I asked her about the COVID-19 stuff. Without a moment’s hesitation she said, “I am not going to live in fear, if something happens to me, I will be fine, I have Jesus and He has me right in the palm of His hand!”
Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”
This, my friends, is the essential thing in our lives.
AMEN.