Easter 6—Exaudi
Dear friends in Christ. This past Thursday was the day the Church remembered our Lord’s bodily ascension into heaven. It is a day of great triumph because on it we see the definite completion of the work for our salvation. Because Jesus finished what He came to do for us men and for our salvation He ascended into heaven in great joy and triumph: mission accomplished.
What a comforting, glorious message! Here it was 40 days after Jesus rose from the dead. During those 40 days He showed Himself alive to His apostles and others. He taught them. And now with His ascension, He was making very clear to them that they should not expect any more post-resurrection appearances. Now Jesus—true God and true man—ascends into heaven. That means what? That now also true man is in heaven. The kingdom of heaven has been opened to all believers. This is the blessing and fruit of Good Friday and Easter and a prelude of what will happen to all our Lord’s dear Christians come the Last Day. When a Christian dies, his/her soul is right away in heaven with our Lord, His holy angels and all the saints. But remember Easter! Death has been destroyed/ undone. So at Christ’s command on the Last Day, He will raise all the dead from their graves—wherever or whatever they may be; all the dead, both the righteous and the wicked and He will reunite the soul of all with their body because death has been undone for all; none can stay dead. For the Christian, we will receive our same body that we have now—but it will be a perfect body free from any and all defects of sin; it will be a body fit for the eternal glories of heaven before the holy and glorious throne of God. Jesus’ ascension points us ahead to this.
The Christian confesses: because Jesus rose from the dead, I too, with all people, will be raised. Because Jesus ascended into heaven, I too, with all Christians, will on the Last Day be in heaven both body and soul—the way God made us and intended us to be. Jesus told the crowds [John 6.40]: And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up on the last day.
Also, we must remember what Jesus’ ascension is not. It does not mean that Jesus is “locked up” somewhere in heaven, no longer with or present with His Church. Rather, it means that Jesus ascended into heaven precisely so that He could be with His Church wherever she may be. Jesus can do that because He is true God. God is everywhere; Jesus is true God; therefore Jesus is everywhere. What makes the ascension so vital and comforting is that Jesus is with us, His Church, also now as man. That’s because Jesus is one person—both God and man. Where He is as God, there He is as man. This is described as we confess it in the Creed: Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
St. Mark [16.19-20] helps us understand this as he writes: So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And [the apostles] went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Did you catch that? Jesus sat down at the right hand of God and yet wherever the apostles went, He was with them, working in and through them. Because Jesus ascended into heaven, He, the God-man, can now be with His Church, us; He is not confined to one place and one time like He was during His earthly ministry—the upper room, the wedding at Cana, the boat on the Sea of Galilee—but as the right hand of God is a position of power and authority and is everywhere, and so Jesus, both God and man, is with us and with His Church everywhere.
1. Today we place ourselves with the disciples that first Sunday after His Thursday ascension. Jesus had told them to stay put in Jerusalem and to wait for the Holy Spirit that He promised to send them. After Jesus ascended, the disciples weren’t full of sorrow or fear. Rather as St. Luke [24.52-53] reports: [The apostles] returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God, because of Jesus’ promise to them a few verses after our text [16.7]: It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. The disciples were full of longing and expectation that first Sunday between the Ascension and Pentecost. Jesus promised them the Holy Spirit, the Helper. As we examine our text today, we will learn of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, whose coming to the Church we will celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost.
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” Here we see that the Holy Spirit is not just some “force” or “power” for good in the world. He is a distinct Person. Just from our text we see that the Holy Spirit comes; He is sent by Jesus; He proceeds; He will bear witness about Jesus. Elsewhere [John 14.26] Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will teach the apostles all things and bring to their remembrance all things Jesus had said. These are not things some impersonal “force” or “power” does. These are things only a distinct Person does. The Holy Spirit is a divine Person, a Being with existence, reason and will. Don’t let anyone try to tell you that the Holy Spirit is just a force or power. Instead, He is, as we confess in the Creeds of the Church: true God, the Third Person of the Blessed and Holy Trinity.
Notice what the Blessed Apostle writes [2 Cor. 13.14]: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. The Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son. It’s not that there are “levels” within the Trinity as if the Father is first, the Son second and the Holy Spirit third in importance or divinity. Each of the 3 persons is equally and fully God—and yet there is only one God. Exactly like we confess in the Creed about the Holy Spirit that He is The Lord, that is the true God, and Giver of Life, something only God can do. Also in the Creed we confess that the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified. Because He is true God, He gets the same honor and worship. That’s reflected in our liturgy, for example in the Gloria: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit…
From our text we see that the Holy Spirit, who came upon the NT Church in full measure on Pentecost, is not a created being like we or the angels are. Instead, He is an uncreated, eternal divine Person—true God. We confess in the Creed, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, who sends Him. As the Son is true God because He is begotten from the Father in all eternity, so also is the Holy Spirit true, eternal God because from eternity He proceeds from the Father and the Son. What this “proceeding” really is and what is happening we don’t know—Scripture doesn’t tell us. It is a mysterious, inexpressible occurrence in God—like the eternal begetting of the Son. From eternity on, now and without ceasing the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Through this eternal “proceeding” the Holy Spirit has from the Father and Son the divine essence with all divine qualities—He is eternal, almighty, all knowing, all present, etc. just like His divine works clearly proclaim.
So who is the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to send to His apostles/ Church? He is the true God—one divine being with the Father and Son but a distinct Person.
2. Why did Jesus send the Holy Spirit? The Helper… whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. The work of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to/ testify about Jesus. That is the most necessary work! After all, what good would Jesus’ life, suffering and death for the salvation of the world do, if no one would know about it and put their trust/ confidence in Jesus and His saving work? That people know about Jesus’ work and that they come to faith in Him—that’s the work of the Holy Spirit. Left to ourselves and our own devices, we would not know anything about Jesus and His work to bring us forgiveness of sin and eternal life. And even if we did, left to ourselves and our own devices we would reject it. That’s because as we are born and come into this world, we are enemies of God and willing slaves to sin and devil. We would be like the rest of the world and hate the message of salvation and the Church that proclaims that message; all of us would be like those Jesus warned the apostles about: 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. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. Without the work of the Holy Spirit, we could not and would not know the Father or Jesus, the Son.
But thanks be to Christ that He did send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning! See the work of the Holy Spirit? –He testifies to/ bears witness about Christ, and only about Christ. If something is claimed as coming from the Holy Spirit and yet it is not about Christ and His salvation then it’s not the Holy Spirit who’s speaking. Any teaching of salvation, heaven and hell, etc. not centering on the person, word and work of Christ is not truth but only delusion. And why? The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. Only the preaching of Christ, of salvation by grace through faith in Christ, preaching which proclaims Christ and gives the blessings of His work—the forgiveness of sin and eternal life—only that is of the Holy Spirit, only that is divine truth.
That’s why the Spirit of truth… proceeds from the Father—so that He may give us the gifts and blessings that Jesus, the Son, won and obtained by His holy life and innocent suffering and death. The Holy Spirit, the 3rd Person of the blessed and Holy Trinity, proceeds from the Father through the Son and gives us every spiritual and heavenly blessing of Christ. But notice what Christ tells His apostles: when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. The Holy Spirit and the Apostles are fellow testifiers of Christ. The Spirit’s testimony is none other than the testimony of the apostles; the apostles’ testimony is none other than the Holy Spirit’s. That’s because the apostles had been with Christ during His entire public ministry beginning with His baptism by John to His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. They had seen the miracles; they had heard His preaching. And now with the Holy Spirit coming, He would lead them into all truth; He would cause them to remember correctly all that Jesus had said; the apostles would learn of Christ as never before as the Spirit would call to mind and give meaning to all Jesus had done; He would lead some to write the NT books and give them the very words to write. In short, by the Holy Spirit’s coming to the apostles, He would make them the infallible teachers of the Church and establish the NT Church through them. Through the word of Scripture that the Holy Spirit had the apostles write—and before them the prophets—He is testifying of Christ.
We can be sure and certain of who Jesus is—the Son of God and the Savior of the world because in the word of holy Scripture the Holy Spirit, true God, testifies of Christ and gives the blessings of Christ— through the very word He had the apostles proclaim and write—and through which He continues to work to bring us to faith in Christ and keep us in the faith and strengthen and comfort us. What blessed work of the Holy Spirit! INJ