AI Will Not Leave You Alone@ John 14: 15‑21

St. John=s - East Moline 04/27/08

Intro.: Sometimes in the toy department of a store you might come across a crying child, choking with emotion and expressing the deepest and most pitiful longing for his or her mother. The child may be surrounded by well meaning adults, people who really care, but the person who is their security and comfort is missing. Their cry is "I want my mommy! I want my daddy!"

We, as adults, may not cry when we are lost in a dept store (or then again we may). Yet, we all have the same fear of being alone without the One who is our security and comfort. Our cry is: AI want Jesus! I need my God!@

This is our cry when we are lost in grief over the death of someone we love. It is our cry when we are suffering times of emotional stress or spiritual doubt. In an effort to mask our distress we may fill our lives with other comforts and diversions, but even this is a cry of insecurity and a flimsy cover for our fear of being alone and abandoned.

In today=s Gospel, Jesus is reaching out to comfort His fearful disciples then and disciples like us, today. After all, their fears and ours are really the same. Like them we have fears and doubts about our faith. We have fears and doubts about our place in God’s plan for this world. And we have fears and doubts about our place in God's eternal kingdom.

We all need to hear what Jesus says to us today when He promises "I will not leave you alone! I will give you another comforter!@

I. We Fear That Christ Has Left Us Alone.

A. In the chapter preceding our Gospel Jesus told his disciples, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer.” And if you remember back to last week’s Gospel, Jesus went on to tell them, “I am going [to My Father’s house].” This news led the disciples to experience some real fears and doubts that resulted in their hearts being troubled. They were not comfortable at all with the idea of Jesus leaving them.

We know that all of the upcoming events in Jesus life that these disciples were to witness would only trouble them more. Jesus' arrest and trial, His crucifixion, death, and burial, all of this as well as their own personal persecution on account of the faith, would leave them feeling very alone, very unsure and very much abandoned. They were afraid that with the rest of the world they might “not see [Jesus] anymore.” (v.19)

Even after the resurrection and all that wonderful time spent with Jesus, looking at His risen body and glorified wounds and listening to Him explain everything that was being accomplished for them and their salvation, they were afraid of abandonment. Even after seeing His wonderful ascension and experiencing the power of Pentecost, they still feared being left alone. St. Peter could truly empathize with his fellow Christians when he urged them in our epistle, “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” (I Pet. 3:14b-15a)

B. Just as Jesus’ original followers were fearful and feeling abandoned because of all that was happening in their lives, we too can feel abandoned when things in our lives get tough and when we even suffer for doing the right thing! When we are sick and in pain, when someone close to us dies, when relationships and careers collapse we feel a hole in our lives and that emptiness leads us to doubt and fear. It can leave us feeling abandoned and alone. This is when we feel the most miserable because it is when we are most vulnerable. We are sure that no one else in the world can understand the way we feel and that no one has ever felt what we are feeling at the moment.

This kind of pain and isolation leaves us feeling as if we have nowhere to go, and no way of overcoming it all. We realize that the world in which we live, a world ruined by sin, and made only worse by the contribution of our own personal sin, is a rough place. The overwhelming problems we face here can make our lives seem futile, insignificant and without purpose. Some of us here today/tonight may feel that our hold on this life is quite tenuous and may even wonder where is God in all of this? Where is God when I need Him?

II. Jesus Comforts Us With The Promise To Never Leave Us Alone.

A. The good news is that God knows how difficult life can be for you! In the person of Jesus Christ, He has been there! Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, knows exactly how you feel! He is the One who was the MOST ABANDONED! Because on that cross He suffered the abandonment of God for all of us, and cried out: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" He assures us that He understands what it feels like to consider ourself forsaken and to imagine that we are alone against the world. He is a God who knows how much we need Him. Would He ever, then, leave us alone? No, Jesus assures us today, "I will not leave you as orphans!.. I will pray the Father and He will give you another counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him or knows Him; you know Him for He dwells within you and will be in you! …the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live."

Jesus has not abandoned us, never has and never will! He has sent us the Holy Spirit who is One with Him and His Father to come and dwell in us to fill that hole in our lives. That Spirit of Truth is the Counselor, who knows the very mind of God and intercedes for us with groans so deep that our word’s cannot begin to express them. He is the Comforter who helps us in our times of weakness and uplifts us when we are facing pain and trouble. Christ has not left us alone! He comes to us through the Holy Spirit. He comes to love us, to make His home with us, and to be in us even as He is in the Father.

B. The helplessness and hopelessness of life that afflict so many in this world are ultimate and overwhelming only when people are spiritually alone. It afflicts all who, despite their searching, do not and cannot know the Holy Spirit or see Jesus, their Savior.

But by God's Grace we are never without help and hope, because we are never alone. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus comes to us and shows himself to us. He first came to most of us when He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit in baptism. There through the water and the word our sin was washed away and we were saved by the putting on of Christ. Daily through repentance and faith we see Jesus coming to us and making His home in us as the Holy Spirit continues to kill the old sinful nature and to create for us a new life of love and obedience. We know that we are not alone because Jesus still comes to us, speaks to us, and pours out His Holy Spirit upon us through the Gospel. We see Jesus, here at His altar, feeding us with His body and blood in the sacrament and offering us forgiveness, life and salvation and we know that He is with us and lives in us. Jesus has kept His promise! He has not left us alone!

Because of this we are not the objects fate. We are not "spiritual nobodies going nowhere." We do not fear what the world fears, because the Holy Spirit has enabled us to set apart Jesus as Lord! When family fails and friends fall away, we are not alone! When lying atop a surgery table or sick in a hospital bed, we are not abandoned! When our jobs reach a dead end and our marriage is hanging by a thread, we are not forsaken! Even when the whole world seems to be against us or the valley of the shadow of death is cast over us, we will fear no evil because the Lord is with us! He will never leave us alone or without the comfort of the Holy Spirit!

C. And He will not leave us here for long. Soon, very soon, this same Jesus who rose to give us victory over death and ascended to the Father to prepare a place for us, will come again to take us to be with Him. Jesus promised His disciples then and promises all of us, now, "Because I live, you shall live also."

With these words Jesus promises us that He will not only be with us for the rest of our earthly life, but forever. While Christ’s daily presence among us and His gift of the Holy Spirit to help and comfort us makes us the most blessed people in the world. There is more, so much more! Jesus promises us that He will be with us and we will be with Him forever. Even in death our Lord will not abandon us to the grave. If we should suffer death before His return, we know that He will be there holding on to us, just as we have seen Him holding onto our loved ones who have gone before us. And then when our hour comes we will hear Him say, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise! I will not leave you alone!” And so we will be with Him!

But it gets even better because all of us who believe in Jesus as our Savior are promised that we will share in His resurrection to glory to live in the new heaven and new earth of God’s Holy presence. On the last day He will return with all those who have departed in the faith and we will all be raised with real flesh and blood bodies made perfect. Then we will here Him say to us, “Well done my good and faithful servant. Come and receive the inheritance prepared for you by my Father before the creation of the world.”

Concl.: What a wonderful comfort and awesome hope we have been given by our risen Lord, Jesus Christ, when He says to us! I will not leave you alone! Amen.