John 14:15-31
Jesus Promises a Counselor from God
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe.30 I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, 31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
“Come now; let us leave.
I often wonder about the Mystery of the Holy Spirit...Jesus was a Man, if it is fair to call Him a Man, and had a ministry and people would listen to Him and what He was teaching (when He dwelled on earth...The Mystery of the Spirit is furthered by Jesus leaving earth...I have many times thought how nice it would be if Jesus and continued to this day to dwell among us...But we really should be happy and glad for Jesus that He got to go back to the One who had sent Him...If we really love Jesus, then we are happy that He is back with His Father, for the Father is greater than Jesus...
Jesus told His disciples that before long He would leave this world and that we would not see me anymore...So Jesus would leave us and the earth and go back to heaven...But He did not leave us as orphans...He would come back to us on the day of the Pentecost...On that day you will realize that He is in His Father...We would learn that with the Holy Spirit that we are in Him and He is in us...Whoever has His commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves the Messiah...He who loves the Anointed One will be LOVED by God, and also by Jesus...Where there is Jesus, there is LOVE...Where there is the Holy Spirit, there is LOVE...So as Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit, He generously gave us love...Love does not seek oneself, but seeks others, the beloved...And thus Jesus gave us LOVE through His Gift of the Holy Spirit...
So the Holy Spirit on the day of the Pentecost was left on earth by Jesus, to help the Disciples to lead others to the Truth...When we believe in Jesus and listen to the Holy Spirit, we are able to hear God and His Will and be led on the Lighted Path of an Abundant Life...
So let us listen for Jesus...Author and Priest Brennan Manning wrote, “To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life...Jesus listened...In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)...The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them...The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable...They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.”...
Jesus said these things about the Holy Spirit, “If you love me, keep My commands...And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of Truth...The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him...But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you...I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you...Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see Me...Because I live, you also will live...On that day you will realize that I AM in My Father, and you are in Me, and I AM in you...Whoever has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me...The one who loves Me will be LOVED by My Father, and I too will LOVE them and show Myself to them.”...Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, LORD, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”...Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves Me will obey My teaching...My Father will LOVE them, and we will come to them and make our home with them...Anyone who does not love Me will not obey My teaching...These words you hear are not My own; they belong to the Father who sent Me...“All this I have spoken while still with you...But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you...Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you...I do not give to you as the world gives...Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid...“You heard Me say, ‘I AM going away and I AM coming back to you.’...If you loved Me, you would be glad that I AM going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I...I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe...I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming...He has no hold over Me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I LOVE the Father and do exactly what My Father has commanded Me...
Jesus came to glorify His Father...And when Father spoke from heaven and said, “You are My Beloved Son…” But the Holy Spirit comes as a mysterious dove...We do not read where Jesus would glorify the Holy Spirit...The Holy Spirit was like tongues of fire, brought in by a violent wind...And the Holy Spirit had also glorified Jesus at the Pentecost after His death and resurrection...
When the day of Pentecost came and the Disciples received the Holy Spirit, they were all together in one place...Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting...They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them...All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them...Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven...When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken...Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?...Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?...Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”...Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”...Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”...
The Advocate now had came, sent to His Disciples by Jesus from the Father—the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father...The Holy Spirit, at Pentecost, was testifying about Jesus...And so His Disciples were testifying about Jesus, for they had been with Him from the beginning...
Jesus was in heaven, now the Advocate had came to the Disciples...So when Jesus left He sent them the Spirit of Truth...The Holy Spirit had came and was proving to the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in Jesus; about righteousness, because Jesus had gone back to His Father, where we can see Him no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned...
So the Spirit of Truth had come to Pentecost...He was guiding the Disciples into all the Truth...He did not speak on His own; He had spoken what He had heard, and He told them what was yet to come...The Holy Spirit had glorified Jesus because it is from Him that He had received what He will make known to the Disciples at Pentecost...All that belongs to the Father is Jesus'...That is why I said the Holy Spirit will receive from Jesus and what He had made known to others at the Pentecost...
The Holy Spirit had enabled the Disciples...Now Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say...These people are not drunk, as you suppose...It’s only nine in the morning!...No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
on the name of the LORD will be saved.’
“Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through Him, as you yourselves know...This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross...But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him...David said about Him:
“‘I saw the LORD always before me...
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken...
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay...
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’...
“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day...But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne...Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay...God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it...Exalted to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear...For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, “‘The LORD said to my LORD:
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”’
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”...
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”...
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins...And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit...The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the LORD our God will call.”...With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”...Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day...
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer...Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles...All the believers were together and had everything in common...They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need...Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts...They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people...And the LORD added to their number daily those who were being saved....
The Holy Spirit has spoken...The Truth has spoken...
Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to change our lives...But people are most of the time not wanting to change...We seem we would rather change the Bible than to change ourselves...But the Bible cannot change, because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever...Let us follow His Spirit and His LOVE...Pope Francis wants us to be aware that listening for the Holy Spirit and following Him is not always comfortable...Pope Francis said, “To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us...Because He moves us, He makes us walk, He pushes the Church to go forward...And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!'...But don't bother us...We want the Holy Spirit to doze off...We want to domesticate the Holy Spirit...And that's no good...Because He is God, He is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where...He is the Power of God, He is the One who gives us consolation and strength to move forward...But: to move forward!...And this bothers us...It's so much nicer to be comfortable.”...