The Sixth Sunday of Easter May 21, 2017

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Today I want to ask: Which commandments?

Jesus talked about hisown commandments, not the Old Testament Ten Commandments of Moses. I think that this is important because so many people think that Christianity is just about keeping the Ten Commandments, that we be good people, and so we will go to heaven. That is not Gospel. That is not even Christianity. The Jews can say that based on the Old Testament and the Law of Moses. Of course it is important that we be good people, and the Ten Commandments are a good guide for us Christians, especially when we read them as Martin Luther explained in the Catechism. But Law, even the Law of God, is about what we people must do or not do. Gospel is about what Christ has done and is still doing for us.

So, if Jesus is not talking about the Law of Moses and is talking about hisown commandments, what are those commandments? First, in the context of the Last Supper of today’s Gospel reading in John 14; in the previous chapter Jesus had said, 13:34-35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Then in the next chapter Jesus says, 15:12-13, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The old Law of Moses had said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I think the new commandment of Jesus, the law of mutual love, means that the disciples in their community, or we in our church fellowship, live our lives in a way that reflects Jesus. God is with us, God is in us. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit “dwells with you and will be in you.” To “dwell” is not a temporary thing. God takes up permanent residence in our lives. And Jesus says that this means the whole Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is what we confess and celebrate in Baptism. God is with all of us Christians, and so how can we fight with each other? How can God fight against himself? How can Christians fight against themselves? It should be natural that we love one another.

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” I think Jesus could also have said, “If you love me, love one another.” Now Jesus knew the hearts and minds of his disciples, just as he knows our hearts and minds. And he knows how hard it is for people, even for believers to really love one another. Just look at all the fighting and disagreements and splintering of the Christian church in the last 500 years since the Reformation. Not everyone even in our church, both local and national, feels the same about everything, and sometimes it causes problems. Or there are people who are just hard to love, hard to get along with, including myself. And so Jesus knows we need help. This is why he promised to send us help. The Helper is the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” He is the “Spirit of truth,” which means that he will reveal to us the truth. He will reveal the true meaning of the Gospel. He will explain the love of God. It was that love which died for his friends. It was that love that died for us. It was that love that forgave our sin so that we could love Jesus. That is the mutual love between Jesus and us. That is the same love that Jesus wants us to have in our Christian fellowship. And so if we have this mutual love with Jesus, we will have the same mutual love with one another.

We love Jesus because he first loved us. We love other people because Jesus first loved them. Therefore we love those whom Jesus loves. That is the foundation of all Christian ethics and behavior. J

esus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Today I remember two other commands of Jesus. In the Book of Matthew, the first and last words of Jesus’ public ministry are imperatives, commands. Matthew 4:17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” And Matthew 28:19-20, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” T

o keep these two commandments we really do need the Help of the Holy Spirit. First, “to repent” means to have faith. To repent means that we know that we are sinners and need the help of God. To repent is to receive the forgiveness of sins won for us through the death of Jesus on the cross. The Holy Spirit works in our hearts so that we might believe. To repent simply means to be a Christian and to live in the forgiveness of the Cross. And to do that we do need the Holy Spirit as our Helper.

Secondly, for evangelism we definitely do need the Help of the Holy Spirit. This year as we observe the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, we pray that the Holy Spirit would guide us to use this opportunity to evangelize. We pray that the Gospel would reach the hearts and lives of many more people. In Japan every church knows that evangelism is very hard and that we cannot do it by ourselves. That is why Christ sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to be our Helper.

Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans.” To give us help and guidance and comfort and hope and strength, the Holy Spirit and Christ are with us “to the very end of the age.”

Amen.

Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church

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