Many people imagine God as a distant heavenly being watching from afar. But as Christians, we believe in a God who refuses to stay distant. God insists on coming into the world. God wants to be involved in our lives. God is personal and knowable, hearing and answering our prayers. As Jesus promises in today’s reading, even though he himself is no longer physically walking around in our world, we have not been left orphaned. The Holy Spirit is God present with us, God’s breath blowing through the world.
Today’s Scripture readings are Acts 17:22-31, Psalm 66:13-20, and John 14:15-21. This sermon is mostly an adaption of my pandemic-era online-only sermon from May 17, 2020.
Here’s the livestream and sermon podcast audio from Christ the King:
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Grace to you and peace from the One in whom we live and move and have our being, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Today’s Gospel reading takes place at the last supper. I know that doesn’t make much sense since we’re currently six weeks into the Easter season, but think of this story as preparation for Pentecost in two weeks. So, we’re back on Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday. Jesus is about to be betrayed, arrested, and killed.
Here we are. Gathered around the table with his disciples, sharing the Passover meal together, Jesus is teaching his disciples, telling them he is about to leave them. We heard some of this story last week, that wonderful passage where Jesus says, “I’m going to leave you, but don’t worry, I’m going to prepare a place for you, and you know the way to the place where I am going,” and it turns out his disciples don’t understand what he’s talking about.
He’s trying to explain something about heaven to them, to give them hope of living forever in his Father’s house where there’s a place prepared for everyone, but all the disciples hear is that their teacher Jesus is leaving.
And of course, they don’t know this is the “Last Supper”—they don’t fully understand what’s coming—but there’s a definite sense of urgency. Things are coming to a head; the disciples are worried about the future.
What’s going to happen to them? Is Jesus really leaving? What happened to him being the Messiah, the savior? Isn’t he supposed to make everything right? Things are definitely not right…how can he leave?
So in today’s Gospel, Jesus comforts his friends. He’s not going to be present with them in the same way, but they will not be left alone. God their heavenly Father will not abandon them. God—I love this image—God will not leave them orphaned, but will give them a comforter, a caretaker, an advocate, whom we know as the Holy Spirit.
That promise is true for you and me too. No matter what you might be going through, the end of a relationship, a bad diagnosis, fear about an uncertain future, God will not abandon you. God will not leave you alone.
Have you ever heard of Derek Redmond? He’s not a household name, but maybe you’ve seen his famous moment in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Take a look:
That particular video was posted in 2019 as a Father’s Day ad for the 2020 Olympics, so ignore that line at the end about “the magic continues in 2020”—those Olympics were postponed.
And maybe it’s a little odd to show a video about a father today on Mother’s Day. But I think it works because when we talk about God as our Father, we really mean our heavenly parent. Gender’s not part of it. God is not male or female.
I know for people who’ve had not-so-great earthly fathers, that language of “Father” that gets used for God can be off-putting. I know Mother’s Day is complicated.
But God is our heavenly parent, and I think this video gives a great illustration of what Jesus means when he refers to God as “Father.”
Jim Redmond, Derek’s father, coming out of the stands, off the sidelines to help his son across the finish line is a pretty good picture of a Creator God who refuses to leave us alone when we fall down, who refuses to leave us orphaned, who loves us too much to let us stumble through life on our own, who personally comes down to us and says, as Jim said to his son, “We’re going to finish this together.” It’s the opposite of being orphaned or abandoned.
Do you know about deism? Deism is a theological concept that says there is a God who created the world, but then left it alone. God is the creator, but that’s all. Deism says God just sits back and watches the world to see what happens.
The classic deism image is of God as a watchmaker who designs the world and its intricate governing mechanisms like physics and chemistry, winds it up like an old-fashioned clock, and then leaves it alone to run.
Deism says there must have been a designer who got the universe started, but the way we know about this initial cosmic force—this “god”—is by filling mathematical equations. Our only knowledge of this supreme being comes from studying nature.
That’s very different than the God we believe in as Christians. In the city of Athens, the apostle Paul comes across an altar labeled “To an unknown god,” and he says, “Look, God the Creator doesn’t have to be unknown! What you worship as unknown, I proclaim to you.
There is a God who created the world. But that God didn’t just set up the world and leave it alone. No, the same God who made the world and everything in it continues to be the Lord of heaven and earth. God is personal, and loving, and active in the world. It is in God that we live and move and have our being. Our very life is bound up in God.”
It’s a bit of an anachronism to call these first-century Athenians deists, but Paul’s arguments apply to the more modern philosophical ideas of deism as well.
God is not unknown, or just vaguely out there somewhere, sort of a nice idea, but not anyone we have to pay attention to. I bet you know people who think of God that way.
But as Christians, we know who God is. We know God is active in the world around us, even through us, claiming us. God is not some abstract idea, or amorphous philosophical concept, just an answer filling in the gaps of a scientific equation.
When we sing, “Come, thou almighty King” we know who we’re praising: Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Redeemer, the Son of God. Again from that hymn, we can pray for the Holy Comforter to attend to our prayers, and know through the Holy Spirit, God hears our prayers.
God has not left us abandoned; God has come to live with us in the person of Jesus Christ, God made flesh. Science—studying creation—can teach us about the Creator, and that’s good and important, but our true understanding of God comes from knowing Jesus. The true nature of God is revealed in Jesus.
Jesus reveals to us that we don’t have to perform for God, or try to live the best lives we can according to some set of mysterious rules so that we can make it to a higher plane of existence—some might call that heaven. God didn’t leave some set of parameters for us to meet, conditions for self-improvement where if we follow the right formula, we’ll meet the requirements of the world and we’ll be good.
Exactly the opposite—God loved us first, setting us free to love God back, setting us free not to wander around hoping we’ll stumble on some unknown deity, but to follow God’s law, to live the abundant life God has always intended for us.
And when we fail, God doesn’t just sit back and watch, or sit back and poke at us to see what happens; God intervenes. God’s not in the bleachers watching your life unfold from a distance; God steps in, again and again, calling us back, forgiving us, giving us new life, new freedom, new opportunities, carrying us to the finish.
Even after the Son Jesus is no longer with us in person, God is still present with us. God is still knowable. Jesus promises another Advocate, another Helper, whom we know as the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, Jesus says, will abide with you, will be in you, will fill you and nudge you and draw you back again and again and again to God. The God we believe in is personal. God’s love for you is personal. Whether or not you know God, God knows you and God loves you and God wants to be known and loved by you. God has not and will not leave you alone.
May you know the love of your redeemer, your savior, your Heavenly Parent. May you know the one in whom you live and move and have your being. And may the peace of God keep your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Amen.