Pentecost Vespers
Pastor Christopher Esget
Thursday after Pentecost
John 14:15-31
June 4, 2014
“Rise, let us go from here.” It’s a strange spot to end a Bible reading. But there it is. Jesus says, “Rise, let us go from here.” Go where? He is going toward His cross. Jesus is determined to obey the will of the Father.
Now we go away from school for the summer. Some, including our eighth graders, are going away for good - at least going away from school.
But wherever you go, you will be confronted by the Zeitgeist - the Age-Spirit. This age is an age of outrage. If you get swept up in this spirit, it will destroy you. The Age-Spirit is a hurricane, blowing down everything in its path.
Jesus promises a different Spirit: The Helper, the Holy Spirit. Earlier in John 14 He calls this Spirit the Spirit of Truth.
The Zeitgeist, the spirit of this age, hates the Truth. It feeds the lie that there are multiple, malleable truths, equally valid, ultimately meaningless.
This lie tells you you are on your own; there is no god, no heaven, no hell, no creator, no male or female, no morality. And thus, there is no purpose to your life. People without a devotion to the Truth will kneel on the necks of others, for the only thing that matters is the will to power. And people without a devotion to the Truth will burn a city down, for the only thing that matters is the will to power.
But that’s not who you are. You are a disciple of Jesus. To you has been given the Spirit of Truth. From this we never graduate. A disciple of Jesus gets no summer break. A disciple of Jesus is always, whether at work or play, listening to the Words of Jesus.
To you has been given “the Spirit of truth.” That’s more than the truth about how numbers are multiplied or divided. It’s more than the truth about how a Latin verb is conjugated. To you has been given the truth about God, man, and the world. Follow the truth, demand the truth. Trace it through science, history, literature, and music. It all leads back to God, the God of Adam, Abel, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Hannah, David, Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, and then Jesus, the God-man, whose disciple you are.
Science reveals a designer, a creator; literature tells the story of sacrifice, death and new birth; music reveals the harmony and beauty of the cosmos; and history tells us the most important thing of all, that God entered our human history, became man, was crucified for us and raised again. All so we could receive “the Spirit of adoption as sons.”
As the school year comes to its close, Jesus says to us, “Rise, let us go from here.” It’s a call to go out into the world, where there is no peace, and be a man of peace, a woman of peace. Riots may cease for a time. Policeman who abuse their office may be brought to justice. But in this world you will face war, you will face death, you will be confronted with the Lie.
But you have the Truth. The Truth that the cross of Jesus is where justice was done. The resurrection of Jesus is where life was won. The words of Jesus are the peace the world cannot give.
Rise, let us go from here, confident that Jesus is King, He will set all things to rights, and in Him is forgiveness and the things that make for peace.
You little girls, rise, go from here a woman of peace. You little boys, rise, go from here a man of peace. You are servants of the truth. You are disciples of Jesus. Be not blown about by the spirit of the age. To you has been given the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit. +INJ+