Introduction
Key themes: revelation, seeing and believing
Key words: a little while, say,
Background
One of the characteristics of John is the use of metaphors, of stories within stories, of layers and layers of meanings. Don’t panic, there will not be a test, this is not about how clever or insightful you are. We need to keep coming back to these scriptures because the Holy Spirit continues to reveal and explain, as we grow in our knowledge of ourselves and of God. The key is your relationship with God.
John 16 comes between the “remain in me” discourse of chapter 15 and the “prayer for the disciples, they’re going to need it” in Chapter 17. Last week, in chapter 15, Jesus warned his disciples that the world was going to hate them.
This week, he sharpens the warning. People are not going to like Christians, because they really do not have any personal knowledge of God or Jesus. It is not because they are particularly brilliant or particularly stupid. Their actions are determined by the fact they do not know the Father or Jesus.
This is a way of knowing that is more than intellectual, more than having heard about, but a way of knowing that is based in relationship.
A. The revelation of rejection (v1-4)
Read:
NRSV
¶ "I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling.
2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.
3 And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me.
4 But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. "I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.
The start of this chapter continues John’s theme of “seeing and believing”; but it sets the stage for the disciples looking back and remembering. Their trials and tribulations would serve as a revelation, a way of seeing and believing because Jesus had said times were going to be tough, and look, they are! The trials, instead of disturbing their faith, would increase it, they would be a further confirmation or witness to Jesus.
We need to bear in mind three contexts here. One is the context of the disciples and how they were. As the chapter goes on, we see that the disciples were a little unnerved by the way Jesus was talking. He was warning them of their own death as well as his. Their reaction. Denial, is a perfectly normal one. Secondly, we need to bear in mind the context John was writing in, probably after the destruction of the Temple, when Christians were facing increasing opposition. Much of what Jesus had warned the disciples about was happening already and continued to play out around them.
Our final context is ours. How do we need to hear what Jesus is saying to us this morning?
Discuss: what is your reaction to this passage?
Points:
1. Don’t expect being a Christian to be easy. Jesus is not providing an easy way out or an escape. We need to hear this today; don’t stumble when hard times come. And they will come. None of us know what is around the corner; it may not be pleasant.
2. Secondly, there is a difference between knowing about and knowing and believing, as in placing your trust in and behaving as if it were true. We need both; we need to listen carefully and think through what Jesus says to us, but we also need to act on them.
3.Don’t panic if you screw up; I believe Jesus is specifically preparing the disciples for the harsh reality that they were going to let him down, that despite their brave words they would all abandon Jesus to face his death alone.
B. The revelation of the Holy Spirit
Read vv5-15
5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’
6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.
7 ¶ Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:
9 about sin, because they do not believe in me;
10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer;
11 about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
Vs 5 and 6
Was Jesus concerned that the disciples were only worried about their own future, not his? This is not how his new community was to act, they were to be concerned for one another, including their leader, not just for themselves. However, the disciples were concerned and bewildered and the focus of their attention was on themselves.
This is one of those passages which rattled the cages of strictly monotheistic Jews. I can just imagine the frantic conversations out of earshot. “Look, I am just getting my head around Jesus being God, I mean, he must be, to turn water into wine and feed bread to all those people. But what is he talking about, the spirit of truth? Counsellor? Are there three Gods? Is this another way of God being with us? What on earth is he talking about?”
Of course, the problem was that Jesus wasn’t talking about things on earth at all.
There are other questions to ponder. The Holy Spirit is clearly present and active in the Old Testament, and also in Jesus’ own ministry. It is not like Jesus tagged the Holy Spirit into the salvation game when he died. I think the difference is in relationship and in the way the Holy Spirit works in the world.
Vs8
There are 3 aspects to the new ministry of the Holy Spirit
1) to the world, conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment
2) to the disciples, giving them direction and truth
3) To Jesus, revealing him more perfectly, to and through those who represent him
Vs 9 The essence of sin is unbelief, that is, a total rejection of God’s message and messenger.
V10 The Holy Spirit is holy, and He confronts us all with the inescapable reality of the otherness of God. God’s character is an absolute standard to which everything else must be compared.
Jesus stands as the ultimate revelation of who God is; a righteous God who chooses to make a way for us to return to him, a way that is possible. Jesus returns to the Father as the ultimate representation or parable of why he came; so that we too could return to the Father.
V11 The third area where the Holy Spirit convicts us is in the area of judgement, this is judgement on rebellion and self-will.
V12-13 The disciples didn’t get it all. They just could not understand, they weren’t mature enough or had enough time. One of the tasks of the Holy Spirit is to teach people,
V14-15 The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ
So, what does this mean for us?
Discuss: what are the links between the way the Holy Spirit works in the OT and the new way?
OT Creation, Revelation, wisdom, glorifies God, praises God
NT revelation of Christ, teaches us (wisdom), glorifies CT
i.e. same job but centred around Jesus now
The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is as relevant and immediate as when the gospel was first written.
There are some who talk as if the Holy Spirit is only at work in the church, only at work in certain members of the church, only at work in those members of the church who do certain things. But scripture tells us here that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world, exposing what sin and rightousness and judgement are. You only have to look at the movies to see these themes played out again and again.
I took one of my daughters to see “Pirates of the Caribean - Dead Man’s Chest” last week, and leaving aside any comment on the totally unsatisfying ending which simply set the scene for a sequel, the movie explores Captain Jack Sparrow and his internal motivations. Is he in fact a good man, doing bad things, or will he in fact continue betraying his friends. A darker theme is the ongoing corruption of Elizabeth Swan, who far from the sweet and innocent girl she appears to be, turns out to have the soul of a pirate and happily tricks Jack by kissing him, which in itself is a betrayal of her relationship with her fioncee.
Ah, it’s all too complicated. But the point is, and there is a point, the world is still interested in issues of sin and righteousness and judgement. For all the apparent disinterest in the church, people are still interested in the big questions.
Our challenge is to observe and make sense of what is going on out there, and keep an eye on what God is doing in our society. There is a danger for the church in every generation to separate itself from the world, because we are afraid of persecution and hard times. We create safe little Christian ghettos for ourselves and even in such a secularised country as New Zealand, we can effectively isolate ourselves from what God is doing in our society.
That, I think, is tragic. God wants to redeem our world and our country and He chooses to use us. The truth is not simply the truth about ourselves. We individualise and psychologise, if that is a word, as if salvation is just for us. But if the Holy Spirit is at work in the world, then we need to be getting our heads around it.
Here’s the thing. Trying talking to anyone outside the church about sin and righteousness and it will probably be a very short and one sided conversation. But trying digging down deeper in the themes of some of the movies and TV shows around, and I suspect for many, there will be the opportunity to do explore.
C. The revelation of Jesus’ reappearance
Read (John 16:16-24)
16 ¶ "A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me."
17 Then some of his disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying to us, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?"
18 They said, "What does he mean by this ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about."
19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, "Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’?
20 Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.
21 When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.
22 So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
23 ¶ On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
Who knows what this means? The disciples certainly didn’t and we need to be careful approaching it.
The most obvious answer is that Jesus was continuing to prepare the disciples for his death and resurrection.
We don’t need to imagine what the disciples were saying as John records it for us. They were not happy. The concept of “going to the Father” perplexed them. They didn’t understand, they knew they didn’t understand and they didn’t like it.
When I was in high school, for three years running, my chemistry and physics teachers told us, I know you think you know but actually, reality is more like this. The model of the atom that was appropriate in year 9 and 10 was inadequate in year 11 because we needed to be able to understand about charges on atoms. Then in year 12, we had to abandon that model and learn about energy levels, ionic and co-valent bonding and I can see I cam losing people. Then in year 13, we had to learn about clouds of atoms, . By the time I got to university, I had to learn about something else which I won’t go into because I can’t remember and Tim is the only one who is interested anyway.
The point is, my teachers didn’t dive in with a university understanding of the structure of the atom. I didn’t have the language or the tools to even think about it, let alone understand it. And when I became a teacher myself, I got a much better handle on the way people need to build foundations and the ability to think in a certain way before they are able to usefully get their heads around certain concepts. One of the things about assessment is finding ways to get people to use the right words in the right way, as a way of measuring whether they understand something or not. Ultimately the final test of understanding plays out in the real world.
Another illustration is light. Sometimes we talk about light as if it is a particle and sometimes as if it is a wave which just goes to show we don’t really understand light at all. But with a fair amount of study and thought we can figure out some useful explanations. But when you first get into this, the paradox can be unsettling.
Why was Jesus so obscure?
Vv23-24 the verb “ask” means “to ask a question, rather than ask a favour. I’ve always looked at this in terms of prayer, but today I am thinking more in terms of asking how things work, who God is and what is He doing, what is the new thing today.
We are always learning, things are always changing. At the start of the week, Pluto was a planet, now it has been demoted to a dwarf planet and Ceres and Xena have been upgraded to the same status. Makes you wonder how the astrologers can sleep at night, when the astronomers play havoc with their charts like that. But the sun will still come up tomorrow, even if there are now only 8 planets in the solar system.
In terms of being in relationship with God, we need to keep this relationship alive and fresh on a daily basis. How we do that will change over time, I live my Christianity differently now to when I was at uni.
D. The revelation of the Father
Read (John 16: 25-33)
25 "I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father.
26 On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf;
27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
28 ¶ I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father."
29 His disciples said, "Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech!
30 Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God."
31 Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe?
32 The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.
33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!"
V 25 Jesus uses figures of speech and metaphors because the disciples lack the spiritual maturity to understand what he is saying. There are some things that cannot be understood before the Resurrection.
V26-27 Jesus won’t need to ask on behalf of the disciples because they will be able to ask for themselves.
V28-30 You can almost hear the sighs of relief. Finally, the disciples feel they have got it. Jesus confirms their growing belief that Jesus has come from God.
V31-32 Jesus responds sadly to the over-enthusiastic disciples. In stark contrast to their enthusiasm, he warns them again that dark days are on their way, and Jesus articulates his knowledge that he will be left alone, alone in human terms
V 33 Jesus finishes this teaching with an explanation. While the immediate effect has been to distress his disciples, in the medium term his words would bring comfort and peace, especially in the dark days after his death.
Summary and conclusion
Theologically the sixteenth chapter of John is important for how we understand the Trinity and the Holy Spirit.
The Greek term, paraclete, is a legal one but the task of the Holy Spirit is more than that. In a way, John describes the Holy Spirit using two different models; the Holy Spirit is both a power and a person, in the same way that Jesus is both the Son of God and the Son of Man. The Holy Spirit comes from God when Jesus goes away, and the Holy Spirit is sent from both God and Jesus. There were plenty of arguments later in church history about the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity.
The Holy Spirit is one with Jesus and God, and reveals their nature and their truth. But he is also their agent among the world.
In a way, the Holy Spirit is the truth and on the other hand he does nothing on his own authority but reveals the truth of Jesus and God.
Finally, Chapter 16 sees Jesus preparing his disciples for their future life of ministry and witness.
What seems to be important?
1. The reality and presence and work of the Holy Spirit
2. The change in status of the disciples, i.e. a new closer access to God the Father
3. The reality of Jesus who comes from the Father
God rules. Amen.
So, have you got it?
Great, but don’t feel too smug, it is probably not going to last.
Confused? Don’t panic, even when things turn to custard, we need to stay connected, with God and with each other. We are going to celebrate communion, it is one of those things where there is much more going on than it seems on the surface and we have to trust that the Holy Spirit is here and doing what needs to be done, and it is good that we are here, whether we know what we are doing or not.