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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