I've told you over these last several weeks of the Easter season, that Jesus' words are spoken to prepare His church for the days when He would not be visible to their eyes. Jesus has talked about His death and resurrection, He has talked about the sending of the Spirit, and He has given us the gift of prayer, calling upon the Father in His Name. Today, again, we hear about the Holy Spirit. He will be given next week at Pentecost. But here in John's Gospel, Jesus tells us what the Holy Spirit is all about and why He will come and what He will do. Jesus calls the Spirit the “Helper” or “Comforter.” That's because the Spirit's job is to give us comfort against sin and death and our enemies from hell and this world. Pay close attention to what Jesus is saying here today, brothers and sisters, because it will keep you from despair when the world seeks to destroy you for being a Christian. These words of Jesus, teaching us about the Spirit's work, will preserve us from all false belief and wrong notions about God and the Spirit. These words of Jesus teach us that the Holy Spirit brings us true and eternal comfort by keeping us in Christ over and against what the devil, the world and our sinful nature throw at us.


How does the Holy Spirit comfort us? Jesus says that when He comes, He will “bear witness OF ME.” These words, “OF ME” tell us that the Spirit's one and only job is to talk about Christ. Where Christ is faithfully preached, there is the Holy Spirit, where religion and faith and God are taught or talked about apart from Jesus there is no Holy Spirit. When the Spirit comes, He will bear witness OF ME, of Jesus. Just as Jesus also says His apostles will bear witness to Him. In fact, these two go together: the preaching of the Apostles and the Holy Spirit and His work. They bear witness of Jesus. They preach about Jesus. They talk about Jesus. They tell what Jesus has done for us. They teach us repentance and the forgiveness of sins in JESUS' name. Everything they are about is Jesus. Because only Jesus is our Savior. Only Jesus is the Son who became man to die for our sins. Only Jesus is perfect and holy and yet baptized as if He were a sinner. Only Jesus faithfully loves the Father above all things and loves His neighbor as Himself. Only Jesus carries our sins to the cross and sheds holy blood that can take them away. It is only Jesus who can face the Devil and Hell and the Judgment of God against all the sins of the world and overcome all of these. It is Jesus who can declare “it is finished” and mean it, that all for our salvation is done. Only Jesus rises again and ascends to the Father to rule all things. In short, it is Jesus who is the One who reveals the heart of the Father to us, who accomplishes our salvation and who is King of Kings. So the Holy Spirit, if He has any comfort or help for us at all, brings us only that Jesus. Preaches and teaches only that Jesus. Gives us only that Jesus. Anything else is no God but a fake one.


So beware, Christians, because there are many people out there who want to talk about God, worship God, have something to do with God APART from Jesus. That is not the witness of the Holy Spirit. That's not the faithful witness of the Apostles. The only God who is there apart from and outside of Jesus is the God who judges and condemns, the God who punishes and destroys. The God to whom we owe more than we could ever pay. That God is a God who is unknown. One day you may win the lottery, the next you may die in a horrible accident! What do you learn about a God like that? The only thing the world concludes is that it has to figure out some plan, some way of getting on that God's good side before He smites them! So every religion under the sun is concocted to try to figure that God out, to understand what He wants and what we have to do to please Him. And with that God you will never be certain. Never be sure. But the Holy Spirit doesn't lead us to that God. He proceeds from the Father and through the preaching of the Gospel bears witness of Jesus who has come to take God's wrath upon Himself. The Spirit points us to and delivers Christ in Whom we have forgiveness and life and in Whom the Father SMILES upon us and no longer counts our sins against us.



But realize, brothers and sisters, that such a Jesus doesn't flatter us. Such a Gospel and such a Spirit don't teach us that WE have the power to save ourselves. Such a Gospel teaches us to put all of our hope and trust in Christ alone. Such preaching that the Holy Spirit and the Apostles do tells people to go looking for Jesus nowhere else than in the Word and Water and Body and Blood. The Spirit teaches us that we will find Jesus nowhere else. And if there is no Jesus, there is no forgiveness, or salvation or heavenly Father. That's why Jesus tells the disciples that they will suffer for His sake. People will throw them out and kill them and think they are doing God's work! When you've got God all figured out apart from Jesus, that's what you do: you take down those whose only hope and trust is in Jesus. Its why Christians are killed every day all over the world: because religions who deny that Christ is God can't stand to hear that they cannot save themselves. But we don't have to travel far away to see this sort of thing in action. Jesus says when they put them out of synagogues, they'll think they're doing God's work too. We only have to tour our little Synod to see that faithful pastors are constantly being thrown out of their parishes because they will only teach Jesus and His means of grace. They preach faithfully that there is no looking for God apart from Jesus and the Spirit is not at work apart from his word. So their congregations or the synod find some reason to stop supporting them and their families and finally to throw them out. Why? Because people who are so sure they have God figured out in their hearts don't want to hear the Spirit's witness that God is only there for us in Jesus Christ.


Against such persecution, against such trouble, against such suffering, the Helper comes to Comfort us. And the comfort comes to us not be taking away the suffering but by bearing witness to Jesus. By turning us to what is true in our Baptism: sins forgiven and the hope of eternal life. What is true in the Absolution: what sins the Lord will hold against the world on the Last Day have been removed from you. What's true in the Supper: Christ died for you that you might live and be free from sin and death. The Spirit and your pastor bear witness of Jesus: they testify from the font, from the pulpit and altar, that God smiles upon you in Christ and has forgiven all your sins. They tell you that through the suffering of this life, the Lord will guard you and keep you and comfort you until one day you pass through death and away from this world and its evils to the eternal kingdom and paradise the Lord Himself has prepared for you. Our temptation in this life is to find some security, some comfort in the things of this world. If I just have enough money, if I only have enough “stuff,” if I can just stay healthy or have enough friends surrounding me, then I'll be comfortable, then I'll be safe. Such security and comfort don't last! Don't run to the things of this world. Run to Christ. Run to your Baptism and to His Supper. Cling to His Word. For in those gifts, as the Spirit testifies, you have all that you ever need in Christ. Because you have not only Christ but the Father and all things as well. No matter what someone may do to you in this life, no matter what suffering you may undergo, it is all passing away while the world is storing up judgment for itself as it seeks comfort in something other than God or a God who is somehow apart from Jesus. You, Christian, rejoice! Rejoice to hear the testimony, the witness of the Holy Spirit. He only preaches one thing: Jesus who was crucified and risen for you. That's all the hope and comfort and help you'll ever need.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I want to make clear to you today, that if you suppose that church or religion or faith or God or piety or anything like that is about anything than Jesus who rescues you from sin and death, then repent. If you suppose life in the church and as a Christian is anything other than trusting in Christ, living in your Baptism, hearing and learning His Word, eating and drinking His body and blood and learning to do good works for your neighbor, then repent. The world and those in it who think they love God and can do such a service to Him as kill Christians or get rid of them are just fooling themselves. They have shut their ears to the testimony of the Holy Spirit. They don't want Christ and His gifts. But you, you have the witness of the Spirit, the testimony of the Apostles, the Word and Gifts, which promise you Jesus. And having Jesus, you have far more than the world can ever give. Praise God for such a faithful and comforting Helper as the Holy Spirit who gives us that only and true comfort, Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.