Acts 16: 9 – 15 John 14: 23 – 29
In this wonderful Easter season, we are thinking about how we relate to Jesus now he has risen from the dead. In this Gospel passage from John 14, Jesus tells us three ways in which we can know him now, in our own lives and church community: - 1. through loving obedience; 2. through the Holy Spirit; and 3. through the experience of Christ’s peace.
1. Loving Obedience. In English, as you will have heard from this pulpit on many occasions, that the word ‘love’ is a very slippery word. ‘I love strawberries’ – ‘I make love’ – and ‘I love you’ - all mean very different things, and indeed in the Greek in which the New Testament is written, those three meanings are expressed with different words which makes everything much clearer.. But there is another Greek word in the New Testament which has a very special meaning for Christians. If I say the Greek word ‘Agape’ I think that, by now, most (if not all) of you will be saying to yourselves ‘Ah Yes! That word is becoming part of my Christian vocabulary!’ It means the sort of ‘love’ that Christians are supposed to exercise.
I was thinking of it recently in connection with our Golden Wedding, because the wedding service gives it clear expression. It is a full commitment that goes far beyond emotion. It is love ‘for better, for worse; for richer for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy law...’ Nowadays we talk about unconditional love. That fully committed, self-giving of oneself in love is what ‘Agape’ means, and this is the word which Jesus uses in verse 23. “Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come and make our home with him’”.
Let me give a further illustration of how this unconditional love works in practice. In various contexts, most of you will have heard me talk before about two kinds of love which you observe in family life. In one, it is made clear to a child that love has to be earned. If you are a good boy or girl, and do what you are told, then I will love you. My love is provisional, and may be withdrawn if you do not do what I say, behave in the way I wish, or become the sort of person I expect. This is always a potential disaster, as the child grows up feeling that they must always strive for love, and it produces a driven life and (somewhere deep within their psyche) they will unconsciously go on trying to please their parents until the end of their life.
The other kind of love you see in families and other relationships is ‘Agape’ love. It is unconditional and does not depend on how the child responds. If the child behaves badly, of course there will be a cloud hanging over the relationship and there is a problem which must be resolved. But the love remains. And the child grows up knowing deep inside that he or she is loved – not for what they do or say, or become – but because of who they are. They are the children of the parents, and the love that emanates from the parents will never waver, whatever happens. If that unconditional love is present, the child grows up with proper self-esteem and confidence, and will please his parents out of love, and not simply because he is commanded to do the right thing.
It is this family setting which is in Jesus’ mind in these verses 23,24. Look at this word translated here ‘obey’ – in Greek ‘Tereo’. It’s primary meaning is not to do with military or parental commands – ‘Do this – or else!’ It is a natural obedience which happens in any loving relationship – and which indeed proves that love exists. I love you and I want to please you, and so it is natural for me to do what you wish. It’s not hard – it’s a pleasure, even if it puts me to a lot of trouble. In the Alternative Service Book , there was a lovely phrase in the Communion Service when we used to say that to fulfil the Lord’s command is ‘our duty and our joy’. That’s it exactly.
And so Jesus is not saying here, ‘Unless you do exactly what I command, I won’t love you!’. He is saying that – in his risen presence with us (individually and together) – his love fills our hearts, and (if we have really glimpsed what that love means), our natural response is to want to please him and do what he wishes.
And within that loving family home, we dwell with God the Father and our risen Lord, where it is our joy to please each other with blessings and willing obedience. The risen Lord blesses us with his presence and unconditional love, and we respond with a wholly natural, happy obedience.
And, of course, conversely, in v 24, if that joyful obedience is not present, it proves that we have not caught the vision of the risen Lord who pours his love into our hearts. We may have read the words, but we have not understood the true meaning of love.
In all the talk of a multi-cultural society and all the rest, there simply is no other religion on earth which comes within a thousand miles of this intimate relationship of self-giving personal love, which we find expressed here. It is very precious, and we really need to let it sink into our innermost being, as we think about the living, risen Lord who is here in our midst now, as we meet to worship and to pray. So we know the risen Christ through our personal, loving/obedient relationship.
2. The Holy Spirit. And into that loving family relationship, there comes the Holy Spirit who joins the family party (so to speak) to help us in our relationship with the risen Jesus. Jesus wants us to know, and take to heart, everything he taught his disciples and followers, so that we can learn and put them into practice now – 2000 years later. How does this happen? The answer is that, if we read the Gospels regularly, carefully and prayerfully, the Holy Spirit will bring to our memory those teachings which the Lord wants us to have in the forefront of our minds.
The teachings of Jesus in the Gospels will be generally familiar to you. You will have read them in your Bibles, and heard them read in Church – although I suspect that there is actually a lot which you have never noticed. When we study a Gospel in a group, so often we come across a passage, and people are totally astonished! ‘Did Jesus really say that?’ Shock, horror! Or perhaps the opposite – ‘”How absolutely wonderful – I had never noticed that before!”
But however familiar we are with the Gospels, we need the Holy Spirit every day of our lives to draw alongside us, and remind us of words we already know, or point us to passages we didn’t know existed. And when that happens, the scriptures open up in an entirely new way. They become alive! They become relevant! They jump off the page! They speak to the situation we are currently facing, whether good or bad, and we hear Jesus speaking personally to us as he did to those disciples in his lifetime.
So we relate to the risen Jesus, firstly, by living day by day in a relationship of love, whereby he lives to bless and guide our lives, and we respond in loving obedience. And secondly, we relate to the risen Jesus through the Holy Spirit, who brings the written words of Jesus in the Gospels to life, just as of he is speaking to us personally.
3. The Experience of Christ’s peace. The third way in which we find in this Gospel passage that we relate to the risen Jesus, is through his personal gift of peace which we can experience in good times and in bad. And it’s a quality of peace which can come from no other source.
And we are not speaking here just about an inner tranquillity – although that is of inestimable price, especially in times of trouble. We are talking about peace within the Church. When we exchange the Peace in this service, are we gifting to one another that special peace that comes from the risen Christ? Or are we just going through a formality? If we are truly exchanging the peace which the risen Christ gives, then we experience his true presence here in our midst.
I usually read verse 27 at funeral services because it obviously has a special relevance. I also read the opening verses of this chapter (John 14) where Jesus says in verse 2: ‘In my Father’s house are many rooms....I am going there to prepare a place for you.’
I want to end by getting you to notice those two verses in this chapter. In verse 2, Jesus says he is going back to the Father in order to prepare a ‘home’ for us. In verse 23, Jesus says that the Father and he will come and make their home with us here. (The Greek word is ‘mone’ and these are the only two times that precise word appears in the New Testament).
What a privilege and what a promise we have here to reflect on in this Easter season. God the Father and the risen Jesus will come and make their home with us here - in the fellowship of the Church and in our hearts. And when we die, the risen Jesus (whose ascension we celebrate on Thursday), we know that Jesus has gone ahead of us to prepare our final home in heaven. Our true home is where that special love is. No wonder St Paul writes in that famous chapter that Agape love is the greatest of all, and lasts for ever.
Discussion Topics
1. Consider the meaning of ‘loving obedience’ in family life and in the life of the Church
2. How can we make the teaching of Jesus come alive for us and relevant to our lives today, as it did for the disciples who first heard it?
3. How can we make that special peace which Christ promises become real for us in our personal lives and in our Church?
4. Sadly the word ‘home’ has very unhappy connotations for many people who have grown up in dysfunctional and sometimes abusive families. Consider ways in which this passage might be interpreted to help them understand it, especially through the fellowship of the Church.
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