Cantate 2020 Sermon
Cantate – John 16:5-15
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY
10 May A+D 2020, Pr. Mark Preus
But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
Sorrow filled the disciples’ hearts because Jesus was going away from them. They had sorrow not because it was a sad thing for Jesus to go to the Father, but because they didn’t consider the reason why Jesus was going. They didn’t ask, “Where are you going?”
So when we feel sorrow because we feel that Jesus is not near us, it is because we are not considering where Jesus went for us. He went to the Father. The way was through suffering and the cross, through pain and feeling God’s judgment against sin. The way was His rising from the dead on the third day, and finally ascending into heaven so that He might fill all things. Why did Jesus go to the Father? Jesus went to the Father to save us from our sins, to win for us a righteousness that is flawless, spotless, perfect and complete, and Jesus went to the Father to save us from eternal judgment and from the devil.
These are beautiful and comforting truths, which we still have today because we have the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, in the Gospel and sacraments. This is why Jesus says,
Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
He tells us the truth. He doesn’t lie. If you are struggling with understanding the truth; if a lot of arguments from the world and your own mind struggle with the truth of Scripture, and your own guilt and need cloud your understanding, then know whom you have speaking to you. Jesus, who has never lied. He speaks the truth that sets you free.
It is to your advantage that He went to the Father. Where are you going? Are you going to the Father, or are you running away from sins that are too strong for you? Do you look to the Father boldly and with confidence because He is the giver of every good and perfect gift? Why do you stay away from Him, failing to pray? It is because you are still learning to believe the truth, and Jesus knows that. He knows what sorrows fill your heart. And He knows that you need the truth, and so He gives you the Comforter, the Paraclete, who will take all that Jesus earned for you, all that Jesus did and won for you, and He will declare it to you. He will tell you how Jesus went to the Father. It is to your advantage that you can’t see Jesus now, because now you have the Holy Spirit, who comforts our hearts with the truth of Jesus’ victory over your sin and all sadness.
And when He has come, He will convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
The Holy Spirit convinces the world of the truth of three things, sin, righteousness, and judgment. These are the most important topics to understand in all things theological. What is sin, what is righteousness, and what is judgment? Everyone argues about these things, even if they don’t use these words. What is sin? What is evil? Who can tell another that he has done wrong? Who is a sinner? What is righteousness? What is good? What is the right thing to do? Who is righteous? What is judgment? Who will be judged? Why will he be judged? Who has the right to judge?
And the only way to be convinced about the truth of sin, righteousness, and judgment, is by the Holy Spirit, as Paul says to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12:3), “[N]o one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” The answer to the questions of what sin, righteousness, and judgment are can only be found in Christ going to the Father for us.
The Holy Spirit convinces us of the truth because He tells us of Jesus going to the Father. The Comforter explains by Jesus going to the Father what sin, righteousness, and judgment are. This is why Jesus says,
…of sin, because they do not believe in Me…
Now this seems to be a novel explanation of what sin is. Jesus himself says through His apostle John that “sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4) Isn’t that a better explanation? Even the heathen can understand that in some way. Sin is breaking the Law of God. It is doing wrong. But Jesus says the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, will convince the world “of sin because they do not believe in Me.” Is this a contradiction?
Not at all. Jesus is our Substitute. He was “made of a woman, made under the Law, that He might redeemed those who were under the Law.” (Gal. 4:4-5) This being “made under the Law,” shows that He is placed under the Law that we are under. Our being under the Law means that we are sinners. The Law tells us that we have sinned against our Holy Creator, who made us to love, and we haven’t. But that is as far as our knowledge sin can go. We can only know sin as it condemns us and drives us away from God and heaven, and into “wrath of God that is revealed from heaven again ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” (Rom. 1:18)
Jesus died under the Law. “God made Him who know no sin to be sin for us.” (2 Cor. 5:21). “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).” (Gal. 3:13) In other words, He died for all lawlessness, all sin. Therefore if you want to understand what sin is, you need to know whose it is, and who has power over it, and what power it still has. All sin was made Christ’s, because He suffered beneath the Law for all sin. He is thoroughly acquainted with the vileness, evil, power, and punishment against every sin. No one knows truly sin except Jesus. But how does He now know it? He owns it to send away from you. He felt its evil, and it killed him, but now He has power over it. He defeated all sin by fulfilling the Law. He did what is good and He suffered what is evil.
And so we come to know sin as it should be known, as forgiven and removed from us as far as the east is from the west, when we believe in Jesus. This is the truth the Comforter convinces me of. He teaches us that Christ died for me, for the sins I see in my life that the Law shows me, for the guilt that presses me down, but the Comforter convinces me to see the truth, that Jesus went to the Father, and on the way, He took my sin, drank down the cup of God’s wrath against it, and so utterly destroyed sin’s power, and sent it away packing. And so the Comforter draws me away from the world that doesn’t believe in Jesus and into the Holy Church, where sin is far beneath me and all the saints whom the Holy Spirit has called and baptized and to whom He given faith. When you believe in Jesus you believe the right thing about sin, that it is forgiven. The only sin that remains is not believing in Jesus, because that is making God a liar, that is saying that Jesus didn’t conquer sin, and that is claiming authority over sin which only Jesus has.
…of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more…
The Holy Spirit convinces the world of righteousness. The world argues about righteousness all the time. Some believe they find righteousness in their arguments, with their mind. They imagine that they have righteousness when they make the right argument. So they will think they are right to deny that Jesus rose from the dead, or that this or that is a sin. But they fail. Most of the greatest philosophers of all time have shown by their lives that they are not righteous, and history records it. Only look at Plato or Nietzsche, and you’ll see that.
Some believe they find righteousness by their good conduct, by the power of their wills. They learn to choose what is good and reject what is evil. They compare themselves to others, and see that their conduct is better than another’s, and they conclude that they are righteous. But their standards only reach to what the eye can see, and even then they are shown to be proud and unmerciful, as if righteousness could exist without mercy.
Some believe they find righteousness by their experience, through their emotions. This is mysticism and is very common, especially among Pentecostals and New Age folk, or of those who find God by looking at the beauty of the mountains and nature. They imagine that because they have had a direct encounter with God that filled them with a sense of awe and wonder, they must be righteous. But this all depends not on any truth that can be verified, but on their own speculation about what they feel.
The Holy Spirit convinces us of righteousness because Jesus goes to the Father, and we don’t see Him. What does this mean? It means that our own righteousness, which is from the Law, cannot save us. All righteousness from the Law is something you can see. So the one who trusts in his mind, sees that he is right from his own deductions, but he is wrong, because he can’t see righteousness. He can only see his thoughts, which perish when he returns to the earth. The one who trusts in his morality and willpower sees that he is more righteous in outward works than other people, but he can’t see true righteousness, because he is ignoring his own heart, from which evil thoughts constantly come. The one who trusts in his own experience thinks he is righteous because of his feelings, but his feelings will fade just like his righteousness, which is not more than a feeling, but precisely only that – a feeling.
But Jesus knew with His mind everything that is right. He decided in His heart, with His will, to submit to the Father’s will and do and suffer what is right. He experienced with all the feelings flesh and soul can feel, what is good as well as the righteous punishment of all evil. He went to the Father. He fulfilled all righteousness. He knows the right answer. He knows the right action. He feels the right thing. He is righteous, and His resurrection proves it. He rose, after bearing all the sin of the world, He rose righteous and pure and holy.
Where is righteousness then? It is not to be seen. It is not to be gained by thinking or willing or feeling and then looking at what you thought or willed or felt and saying, “There’s my righteousness!” No, the Holy Spirit convinces us to look for our righteousness only in Christ, who has gone to the Father and fulfilled His will for us and acquired for us a righteousness that is not revealed through the Law, through what we do or suffer, but through the Gospel, through what Christ has done for us and suffered. We don’t see this righteousness. We claim it by faith. We believe in Jesus and we have complete and full righteousness. The Comforter convinces you of this by preaching the Gospel to your heart and telling you to forget your thoughts, and your decisions, and your feelings, and listen to the truth about Jesus. He is your righteousness, as Jeremiah calls Him, “The Lord our righteousness!” (Jer. 23:6) You are righteous not by thinking, willing, or feeling, but by believing that Christ is your righteousness, that He went to the Father specifically with you in mind, to win for you what you see lacking in your life, but there is no lack in Him, and you believe in Him, and you are comforted. It is to your advantage that He went away.
…of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
Many will cling to Jesus’ words, “Judge not lest ye be judged,” not to humble themselves, but to prevent others from humbling them. No one wants to be judged for his sins. But we need judgment. The government judges. Parents judge. Families judge each other. Friends judge each other. Employers and employees judge. So much judgment, and the judgment goes on. And so the world and our flesh look for judgments to help us, that we might be avenged by someone going after us, that the one who did wrong would stop doing wrong. But the source of anything needing to be judged is the devil, the ruler of this world. He flatters the world like he flattered Eve, and says, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” But he lies. We are not God. Jesus is God. He proved it by going to the Father, by rising from the dead. He laid down His life and He took it up again. He is the Son of God, who became man, and who has obeyed God in everything. Therefore He says in John 5(:30), “As I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I seek not My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” He submitted to God’s judgment in our place.
The conscience is a sensitive part of our souls. When we are afraid of judgment we hide ourselves, we try to come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons why we should not be judged or why we should be shown mercy. We seek our own will not to be judged. But Jesus said, “Not my will, but thine be done.” He submitted to God’s judgment against us, and in so doing, He judged the devil as a liar and a murderer. This is why He says (John 5:22-24), “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father…Amen, amen I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
It is Jesus’ will that you not be judged, because He judged the devil on the cross when He went to the Father. The devil who rules the world with false excuses, with trust in themselves, with pride and anger and greed and lust and selfishness, and with sin and self-righteousness, this liar was condemned and judged on the cross as the liar he is, when Jesus did what God really said, and showed that every word of God is true. He rose from the dead as He said He would, and the devil is routed. He can’t throw God’s Law at your conscience anymore. He has been cast down, as the Spirit of truth teaches us (Rev. 12:20), “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.”
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you in all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
The apostles couldn’t bear many things that Jesus had to teach them, because we can only receive them when Jesus goes to the Father. The Spirit of truth guided the apostles in all the truth, by all the truth, with all the truth that Jesus proved was Yes and Amen. The Holy Spirit is not a separate God, but proceeds from the Father and the Son, and so He does not act alone. The Spirit is not separate from the Father and the Son, but when you hear Him, you hear the Father and the Son. He told the apostles of Christ’s second coming as He brought to their remembrance all that Jesus had taught them. These things were written in the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. We have the voice of the Spirit in the words written by the Apostles. Therefore we have the voice of the Father and the Son. We have the Word of God.
He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
Jesus is glorified when the Holy Spirit takes what belongs to Him and declares it to you. Jesus is glorified when you are convinced that He has truly taken your sins away. He is glorified when the Comforter comforts you, convinces you that if your own righteousness is full of sin and error, yet Christ’s righteousness is perfect and covers all your sins, and God is pleased with you and at peace with you and Jesus is glorified when you believe this because you are trusting in what He did for you, and He did it all for you. The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus when He convinces you that you don’t need to be afraid of the devil, that his power is destroyed, that Jesus has taken the power of death away from him, silenced his lies, and rescued you from his power by teaching you the truth, that Christ is risen free from all the chains that bound you, but He was bound to the cross with your sin, and beneath your judgment, and His righteousness overcame it all, and He lives for you. He went to the Father for you.
All that is His, His victory over sin, His righteous fulfillment of the Law, His overcoming the devil and death and hell – this is yours because the Holy Spirit takes it and declares it to you in the Gospel and sacraments, as Jesus said to the first pastors, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whosever sins you forgive, they are forgiven.”
And this is the new song. The Lord has done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arm, His only begotten Son, has gotten Him the victory. He has made known His salvation. He has revealed His righteousness openly to the heathen, to the world, and the Holy Spirit has convinced us that this righteousness is ours; it doesn’t condemn us, it saves us, because it clothes us with Christ, and God see us pure and good and holy. This is a perfect and good gift that comes down from the Father of lights. It is ours. And it is reason to sing the truth with joy and with all our hearts: Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.