Monday, May 3, 2021

The Good Paraclete [Easter 5]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.


READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

  • Isaiah 12:1-6

  • James 1:16-21

  • St. John 16:5-15




Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!
In the Name…
To you all, my true children in the common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
 
Who speaks to us today, saying,
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
 
The Name or title, there is “Paraclete” in the Greek. Yes it is translated as “helper”, but that is only part of the meaning of that title. Another part is “comforter”, which we also may be familiar with as it is in our favorite Psalm, “…thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” You will also need the word “advocate” in your heads for today.
 
All those definitions are part of the root meaning behind the title “Paraclete”, but you may be interested in knowing that, as a title or a name, St. John is the only person to use it in the entire Bible. Job uses it as well, in 16:2, but in the negative. This rarity of usage is going to help us define this Name that the Holy Spirit takes upon Himself.
 
There Job says, “I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.” He calls his “friends” who have come to comfort him in his loss and disease, miserable comforters. They are not just “miserable”, they are “evil”, “troublesome”, “laborious” comforters. 
 
Now, a simplistic summary of Job and his evil comforters is this: Job spends his time lamenting his misery, but confident God has made him righteous, and his friends spend their time trying to convince Job that he is evil and deserved the miseries he got.
 
So it is, in casting doubt on God’s justification by faith of Job, his friends are preaching evil comforts. In attempting to call evil what God has declared good, they are teaching evil. Job cries out for the Good Comforter, the Good Paraclete for he believes in Him. He says in v.16: “Even now, my witness is in heaven. My advocate is on high.”
 
God’s Word presents us with the lie, the evil comforter, next to the truth, the Helper Jesus sends, that the truth might shine even brighter for you. The lie is the “Evil Paraclete” who comes to drown us in a sea of sins. These are not false accusations, either. Every one we have committed and every one deserving of eternal punishment. The devil does not need false witnesses against us.
 
But it is not our sins that drown us, but the guilt and despair that comes from the accusations, because they hit home. In front of our Judge, we have no case and no hope for reprieve. We know the Prosecution has an airtight argument. We cry out together with Job: “The Lord has delivered me into the hands of unrighteous men and thrown me to the ungodly” (Job 16:11) with Job in v.11.
 
At the end of that chapter, Job then unwittingly comes to the solution and makes a demand from the courtroom. In a moment of clarity amidst his suffering, he prophesies saying in 16:21, “O that a man might plead with God As a man with his neighbor!”
 
What an interesting idea! That God would converse with man, not through a whirlwind, as He did with Job and Israel in the wilderness, but with a mouth, face-to-face. Job confesses in 42:5, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” And confirming this fleshy confession, the Lord answers Job’s prayer for relief for himself and his friends. Not just relief, but forgiveness.
 
Repent. Yes, the Comforter comes to comfort, but comfort from what? From only earthly troubles? Was Job only complaining about how his family was gone and his body hurt? No. Job complained about the righteousness that God promised to him not manifesting itself in his life. Job took God to task and said if Your righteousness is mine, then where is it?
 
Dear Christians, going back to our favorite Psalm, 23:4, the comfort of the Lord that you plead for so much is a rod and a staff, instruments of correction and punishment. We beg God for comfort in our affliction (Ps 119:50). Ecclesiastes 4:1 says, “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.”
 
No comfort from heaven and no comfort from earth. So it is that at the proper time, the Good Comforter has come. And He has come in the true sense of the Good Paraclete. For “paraclete literally means “called next to”, as in the Lord will be called to be next to us and He will be calling us to be next to Him.
 
Jesus, our Advocate as St. John says in 1 John 2:1 and 2, “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins…”, is called next to us. He is called not as life-coach or as a spirit or angel, but as a man. He is called to be born of a virgin and be made man. This is as “next to us” as you can get.
 
But wait, there’s more. He gets even more “next to us” in assuming our nature into God. Meaning, He feeds us His Body and Blood and baptizes us in order that we become a part of His Body; more Christ-like. 
 
Second is His call to us to be next to Him. This is His Spirit’s call of the Gospel, the call to convert from unbelief to belief. For He calls you to His eternal glory in Christ (1 Pet 5:10). The call is first a call to repentance, for Jesus “…came not to call the righteous, but sinners…” to repentance (Mk 2:17).
 
This Call is no small thing. This calling from God to repent and believe the Gospel has the same power behind it that made all things. As we hear in Genesis 1, when God calls something, it is what He says. However, just because there is infinite force behind the call, does not mean that it is irresistible.
 
For God calls out in peace and calls you for peace (1 Cor 7:15). The Call is an invitation to be with Him, to feast with Him for eternity. As St. Matthew says 22:4, “Tell those who are called…Come to the wedding feast.” And this feast is meant to gather. For the Helper calls, enlightens, sanctifies, and gathers the whole Christian Church on earth, as Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires, take the water of life without price.”
 
Here now is the true call of the Good Paraclete, the Good Shepherd: “Come”. Not “wait till you’re ready” or “make yourself ready” or “just admit that God hates you”, but a pure, unconditional invitation. What is the subject of the call? All that glorifies Jesus, as He said in the Gospel today.
 
The Evil Paraclete calls for silence just as the Apostles were called and charged to not speak or teach in the Name of Jesus at all (Acts 4:18). Because silence leads to unbelief and a resisting of the Call and “…none of those men who were called shall taste my banquet” (Lk. 14:24).
 
The True Paraclete, however, proclaims the Lord’s death until He comes, in the Lord’s Supper. The Good Paraclete calls out and gives God’s justification of sinners by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake. The Helper then gathers these Called ones into His Called Body, His Church, where His pure Gospel is taught and His sacraments administered according to it. 
 
Maybe we are not as bad off as Job, but there still resides in us the sin of an evil comforter. In Christ, God leaves us a true comforter. He does not leave us comfortless or as orphans (Jn 14:18), but sends Himself to purchase comfort for us upon the cross. 
 
This purchase is then forwarded infinitely in the Paraclete, Who desiring to glorify Jesus and hand over what is His (Jn 16:14), creates the Holy Church where the Holy Gospel, Holy Baptism, and the Holy Supper is made to graft you into the True Vine. 
 
By these things, the Paraclete calls you out of your unbelief. By immersing yourself in these things, you find yourself called next the Holy Spirit. For the true calling and comfort of God is only found in Christ and therefore only found in the gifts He gives. Such that, when we are guided to the Word and Sacrament, we know and believe that we are being guided to all truth and therefore know that the Paraclete is among us.
 
 










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