The Biggest Secret About Following Christ
New Testament — John 15:26–27, 16:4b–15
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa
May 27, 2012

Gary Larson, in his comic strip “The Far Side,” has painted perhaps the perfect picture to describe the scene in the scripture today. One comic shows a classroom full of kids listening to a teacher who has been teaching. All of a sudden, one of the students raises his hand, “Mr. Jones? May I be excused, my brain is full!” I can almost see the scene around the Passover Table the night Jesus was betrayed. Jesus holds this very moving ceremony, washing the disciples feet, Judas leaves to set in motion the betrayal that would take Jesus to the cross, and the disciples ask some confused and troubled questions. In the middle of Jesus’ very patient answers them, I can just see one of the disciples raising his hand and saying to Him, “Teacher, may I be excused? My brain is full!”

“When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.

“Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Sermon

What is different about someone who knows Jesus? One of the major differences is that people who give their hearts to Jesus and try to live their lives in his love is that they have a sense of having someone on their side, someone who will never go away. According to Jesus our passage today, that sense comes from the Spirit of truth that guides us into all truth. But what is truth? In Jesus’ time, if you asked that question—what is truth?—people would have thought of two different kinds of truth. Today I want to tell you a story that talks about both.

A man was driving home one evening, on a two-lane country road. Work, in this small Midwestern community, was almost as slow as his beat-up Pontiac. But he never quit looking. It was a lonely road. Not very many people had a reason to be on it, unless they were leaving. Most of his friends had already left. But he stayed on. He was born here and knew the country.

It was starting to get dark and light snow flurries were coming down. He almost didn’t see the old lady, stranded on the side of the road. But even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. He didn’t look safe, he looked poor and hungry. He could see she was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He could imagine how she felt.

He said, “I’m here to help you ma’am. Why don’t you wait in the car where it’s warm? By the way, my name is Joe.” Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for her that was bad enough. Joe crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time or two. By the time he was done changing the tire, he was dirty and his hands hurt. As he tightened up the lug nuts, she rolled down her window.

She told him she was on her way home to St. Louis. She couldn’t thank him enough for coming to her aid. Joe just smiled as he closed her trunk. She asked him how much she owed him—any amount would have been all right with her. She had already imagined all the awful things that could have happened had he not stopped.

Joe never thought twice about the money. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need, and he knew there were plenty who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to act any other way. “If you really want to pay me back, why don’t you give the next person who needs it all the help they need…and think of me.” He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home, disappearing into the twilight.

A few miles down the road the lady saw a small, dingy cafe. She went in to grab a bite to eat, and take the chill off before she started for home.

Her waitress came over and brought a clean towel to wipe her wet hair. She had a sweet smile, one that even being on her feet for the whole day couldn’t erase. The lady noticed that the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant, but she never let the strain and aches change her attitude. The old lady wondered how someone who obviously had so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she remembered Joe.

After the lady finished her meal, and the waitress went to get her change from a hundred dollar bill, the lady slipped right out the door. She was gone by the time the waitress came back. She wondered where the lady could be, then she noticed something written on a napkin. There were tears in her eyes, when she read what the lady wrote. It said, “You don’t owe me a thing; I’ve been there too. Someone once helped me out, the way I’m helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here’s what you do. Don’t let the chain of love end with you.”

Our lives are full of times to bless and be blessed. This story shows us both kinds of truth that Jesus has in mind here: one the way Greeks understood it, and the other how Hebrews would have understood it. First, the Greek way of knowing truth is just knowing what is right, how to make sense of the world, and how to do things. In our story, Joe knows the truth about changing tires, using a jack and tightening bolts. And the Spirit opens his eyes to seeing the woman in need, reminds him of the truth: the right thing to do is stop and help her. The old lady knows the truth: how to drive, how to get home, that all sorts of things could have happened to her on the road that night, and that good needs to be rewarded. The waitress knows the truth: how to serve someone, to make coffee, and that things are tight at home. All these are truths we learn and learn to do better. The Spirit is at work in us too, to help us remember what we have learned, to see the opportunities to bless others, and to do them well. If we don’t know how to do something, we can pray for guidance in doing it and how to do it the way God wants it done.

The second kind of truth is how a Hebrew-speaker would have understood it, that truth is something you can count on like getting warm when the sun shines, like falling when you jump out of a tree, like people hurting when a bomb goes off, like laughing and joking when people are happy. Jesus is somebody we can count on, that one Person who will never leave us no matter how our lives get torn up or how messed up we feel or how we are put back together again. Truth is based on steadfast and faithful relationship. In our story, Joe and the old lady both know the truth that trusting each other and being blessings to each other are the only decent ways to live. For those who follow Christ, we are helped to see what is real and lasting—founding our lives on the love of God in Jesus shown for us by dying on a cross. We can trust that wherever we walk, Jesus walks with us, that when we live in the Way of Christ, love will be shown, and by its light change the world around us. The Spirit is at work in us to show us where that Way is (and when we step from it), and to help us trust God with more and more of ourselves.

Remember the waitress in our story? Well, there were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill, and people to serve, but the waitress made it through another day. That night when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the lady had written, How could she have known how much she and her husband needed it? With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard. She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered soft and low, “Everything’s gonna be all right, I love you, Joe.”

Today as we remember those who offered their lives for our freedom, we are reminded that the way forward is sometimes down lonely roads, into dark places, with challenging and exciting times. And every step down that road, Jesus walks with us, and the Spirit will guide us in keeping the chain of love alive. The best kept secret of following Jesus Christ is that we not only find that Jesus is real, but we receive the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit to become more than we imagined. By God’s grace and truth, everything will be better than alright.