When I was in college, there was a hymn we would often sing during chapel services called “The Comforter Has Come.” Written well over a hundred years ago, its message was that Christ had already arrived in the form of his Holy Spirit to accompany us and comfort us amidst the worst of life’s trials and tribulations:

O spread the tidings ‘round,
wherever man is found,
Wherever human hearts
and human woes abound;
Let ev’ry Christian tongue
proclaim the joyful sound:
The Comforter has come!

Then would come the refrain:

The Comforter has come,
the Comforter has come!
The Holy Ghost from Heav’n,
the Father’s promise giv’n;
O spread the tidings ‘round,
wherever man is found-
The Comforter has come!

Ask someone why he goes to church and quite often the person will say he experiences a calming presence and a peace of mind in that pew rarely found anywhere else. Or maybe he’ll say that when life becomes fearful and chaotic, it’s reassuring to know that someone greater is always there to help him through. Yes, we derive great comfort in knowing that there is a God who cares about us and comes to our aid when we desperately need him. As you have often heard me say, the Bible offers us just one promise, ONLY one: “I, the Lord your God, love you with an everlasting love and nothing, no NOTHING will ever separate you from either my presence or my love.” What can be more COMFORTING than THAT!

When I was a child, my parents took my brother and me to Miami, Florida during Easter vacation. One night, while asleep in our motel room, a savage storm suddenly arose, and if you’ve ever been to Florida, you know how loud and violent those storms down there can become. Well it started thundering and lightening with an intensity I had never experienced before and I was instantly awakened from out of my sweet dreams to the sound of giant cymbals clashing all around me. In my fear, I started to cry and called out to my mother for help. She immediately rose from her bed to scoop me in her arms and reassure me that everything was going to be all right, that it was just a passing rain storm that would soon end. 

Although that incident happened well over fifty years ago, I never forgot it nor the comfort derived from knowing that my parents were always near in the event I ever needed them. Well we find that SAME sense of security in knowing that our HEAVENLY Father is always near AS WELL. But take that deep note of comfort from out of the Church’s message and you will have removed what is the very heart and soul of our faith. However, if we only limit the gospel to what God can do for US, for the ways he ministers to US in our weakness and times of trouble, then sadly, we have missed what it REALLY means to be a Christian.

Our text this morning is part of John’s “Farewell Discourse” which is comprised of chapters fourteen through sixteen of his gospel. As Jesus’s Passion draws near, his anxious followers are forewarned that he must soon leave them. Therefore, to calm their troubled hearts and prepare them for what they can expect once he is gone, he offers them this assurance. According to the King James translation, Jesus says to his disciples, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever...” The idea that Christ will never abandon them but will remain with them in and through a “Comforter”--his personal presence in the form of the Holy Spirit--actually comes from a MISTRANSLATION of v. 16 in this morning’s New Testament lesson. The Revised Standard Version provides us with a more ACCURATE translation when it says, “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever…” 

Please note that Christ did not promise them another “Comforter” but rather a “COUNSELOR” – the PROPER translation of the Greek word “paraclete.” This was a whole new name for the Spirit of God, one that had never been applied to a Divine Agent before, and Jesus uses it four times here in his parting words. A “paraclete” is a “counselor” or an “advocate”- one who stands beside us and pleads our cause. It was often the custom in ancient law courts to have defendants appear with one or more of their most influential friends, who in Greek were called paracletus and in Latin, advocatus. These representatives advised them what to do, what to say, spoke for them, and acted on their behalf. They made the cause of their friends THEIR cause, standing BY them and FOR them in the trials, difficulties, and dangers of their situation. Elsewhere, John writes “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” that is, there is one in heaven before God who appears there on their behalf, supporting their cause, urging their plea, and making intercession for them- one who would stand WITH them and SUPPORT them in the moments of their greatest trials. Thus, when Jesus promises “ANOTHER” paraclete, he is assuring them that not only was his OWN PERSONAL PRESENCE something they could depend on, but they would receive a SECOND advocate or supporter and that would be the HOLY SPIRIT. The Judge would be God the Father, but if they had the Son and the Spirit in their corner, there would NEVER be any reason to be concerned.

Therefore, what Jesus is promising his disciples here with his promise of the “Paraclete” is an “ADVOCATE” or a “COUNSELOR” and NOT a “comforter” AFTER ALL. He is NOT saying that when things get bad and they are eventually delivered up before magistrates and tribunals just as HE shall be, then the Holy Spirit, as God’s personal agent, would be there to hug them and hold their trembling hand and reassure them that everything was going to be all right as my mother had done to me many years ago. NO, he’s using an entirely DIFFERENT image. He’s NOT promising them “comfort” here but instead, he’s promising them POWER! If they intend to follow him all the way, then they can expect, not pampered softness but hardship and sacrifice as their lot. Two chapters later in John, he tells them, “I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”(John 16:1-2) Thus he warned them early on as to the demands of being a disciple of his- that it may cost them their families, their friends, and even their very LIVES. They must be prepared for a struggle on the highest order, in a service that demands their ultimate commitment. The past three and a half years were not a game- it was boot camp training for a spiritual assault on the forces of this world. With the Kingdom of Heaven preparing to invade, God’s D-Day was about to arrive. If they were at all half-hearted or unsure of their commitment, then it would be far better for them to return to their homes and pick up their former occupations then to get out there in the battlefield only to turn their backs and desert when the going got tough. 

By assuring his disciples of his personal presence through the Holy Spirit, he is promising to provide them with an advocate or counselor to stand with them and plead their cause on their behalf. If that was SO, then when the day of testing DID arrive—and believe me, arrive it WOULD for them---they’d be able to courageously take a stand on the side of Jesus Christ and his righteousness and speak truth to power without fear of the consequences. If there was to be any comfort AT ALL, it would only come from the promise that Christ himself, through his Holy Spirit, would be with them and even speak God’s word of truth through them. Beyond THAT, they could expect nothing more. Earlier on in his ministry, he had told them that “when they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”(Matt. 10:19-20) And another time, he said to them, “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”(Luke 12:11-12) Thus, with this promise of the Paraclete, the Advocate or Counselor, he is merely reminding them of what he had promised them earlier- that God would be WITH them and even IN them so that wherever they went and regardless of whatever might happen to them, they had no reason to fear for GOD HIMSELF would ACCOMPANY them and REPRESENT them as their personal advocate.

When John first wrote his gospel and subsequently the book of Revelation, it was at a time when the Church of Jesus Christ was experiencing intense persecution. Christians were being crucified, some sewn up in animal skins and thrown to the dogs and lions, while others were covered in pitch, nailed to wooden posts, and then burned as torches. If there ever was a group of people who needed courage in the face of great opposition, who required someone to speak as their “counselor” and “advocate” before high tribunals, it was them. And yet they were assured that in speaking truth to power, what they lacked in eloquence would be MORE than made up by the presence of the “Paraclete” in their lives- the presence of GOD HIMSELF speaking through them. As Paul told the church in Rome who were THEMSELVES facing intense persecution, “If God be for you, then WHO can possibly be against you!”

Several years back, my wife and I were honored to host in our home the Rev. Mano Rumalshah- the Bishop of the United Church of Pakistan. I had invited him to address my congregation in Iowa where he made it perfectly clear that to be a Christian in his country is to virtually have a bounty upon one’s head. Christians in that country remain a persecuted minority in the middle of one of the largest Muslim nations on earth. In 2001, three weeks after 9/11, terrorists attacked a group of Christians during a church service killing seventeen congregants- thirteen of whom belonged to the same family. Since then, armed guards are now required at every church service in order to protect worshipers from terrorist attacks which continue to grow with greater frequency. And yet what’s MOST amazing is how the Christians there possess a devotion and a love and a fearlessness that I dare say FEW OF US could ever hope to have. 

The danger and even barbarism confronting Christians at the hands of Muslim extremists is growing with each passing day. Just last week, twenty-eight people were killed in Egypt after ten gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians in what officials called a terror attack. In Syria a year and a half ago, ISIS executed twelve persons--including a 12-year-old boy--after they refused to abandon their faith and convert to Islam. The women were raped and then beheaded while the men were beaten, tortured, and then crucified if their heads weren’t cut off. Villagers said that some were praying in the name of Jesus, others recited the Lord’s Prayer, and STILL others lifted their heads to commend their spirits to Christ shortly before their execution. 

Around that same time in Libya, twenty-one Coptic Christians from Egypt were lined up on a beach and then beheaded. They were all given a choice to deny Jesus or die. They steadfastly REFUSED to deny him, KNOWING it would cost them their lives. One of them was a man from Chad who had NOT been a Christian but became a believer ON THE SPOT by watching the dedication of those Christians executed before him. When it was HIS turn, all he had to say was “I don’t believe in Jesus” or “Jesus is not the son of God” and he could have walked away free and returned to his family. Instead, he defiantly refused, in effect saying, “Go ahead and behead me. Your god is not my God- THEIR God is my God!”

Now where do you think such faith and courage came from- the SAME faith and courage that the followers of Jesus Christ have been demonstrating for the past two thousand years? It is nothing less than the Spirit of God alive and at work in and through their lives! In fact, the example they demonstrate shames us all as to how easy we have it here in our OWN country, where very little demands seem to be made on our very “comfortable” Christian existence. Some have made the case that the REAL problem with Christianity in America is not that the culture has grown far too secular, but that we have turned our religion into one of order and safety and niceness, that the salt has lost much of its savor. As Dorothy Sayers, that well-known British author and Christian of the last century once wrote:

We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him “meek and mild,” and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies. To those who knew him, however, he in no way suggests a milk-and-water person; they objected to him as a dangerous firebrand.

Or as another has put it more recently:

What are we to make of this New Testament picture of God in our own lives? For one, we can stop pretending God is nice, as if it’s his job to make our lives well-adjusted or religious or even spiritual. Jesus did not say he came to give us happiness, only blessedness. He did not promise an easy life, only an abundant one. He doesn’t call us to be religious or spiritual, but to love God and love others.

Thus, on this Pentecost Sunday, we are reminded that, like those saints of old, we TOO have received the same promise of the Holy Spirit; we TOO have received the “Paraclete”- the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Truth, the infallible Spirit of God who will always be “with” and even “within” us. As the representatives of Christ to the world, we bear his words in our heart and his Spirit in our soul. Hence, we have been given a power unlike any other so that regardless of how hard our lives may become, no matter what difficulties life may throw our way, with the Spirit’s help, we can certainly overcome them. However, the HARDEST thing about faith is not believing that there IS a God but believing that the God we ALREADY profess actually inhabits us with his personal presence and makes our heart his home as he SAYS he does. THAT is the hardest thing for ANY Christian to believe- that there truly IS a living Spirit of God resident deep within us. Regardless of whether you are young or old, male or female, black or white, your body is the “temple of the Holy Spirit” and your heart becomes his pillow. He is with you in your coming and in your going, in your waking and in your sleeping, in your successes and in your failures. And if you TRULY believe that in your heart of hearts, then YOUR life will be filled with a tremendous new conviction, and the song that will swell from YOUR lips will sound very much like the one that used to come from MINE so many years ago:

O boundless love divine!
How shall this tongue of mine
To wond’ring mortals tell
the matchless grace divine-
That I, a child of hell,
should in His image shine!
The Comforter has come!

Let us pray...

Gracious God, fill us this morning with this one conviction: that we may we never doubt either your presence in us or your love for us. Day by day, may the evidence of your care and commitment become increasingly evident to those around us in and through our OWN presence and love towards others. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.