Not Orphans – John 14:15-21

A text – John 14:15-21

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keepmy commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be inyou.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. ¹⁹ In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

A reflection:

The Gospel of John starts out “In the beginning was the Word,” you remember. The author is making the claim that Jesus was there at Creation, as God spoke the universe into being. Jesus was the words Gods spoke. Then Jesus became a human, born on the earth. A few verses later, the author asserts that “all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” So Jesus, who was and is the Word of God, is also creating the family of God, linking us by our faith to God the Creator.

Jesus’s relationship to the Father, the Creator, is woven all through this Gospel. That’s why it feels natural for Jesus to say to his disciples, “I will not leave you orphaned.” When he leaves his life on earth with those good people, there will still be a parent, a force tying them to their Heavenly Father. That force, the Holy Spirit, will keep the faith alive and flowing through them. The Holy Spirit will also be the conduit for the Words to flow through them, and even the power to heal and do signs. The Holy Spirit helps them to see and understand that Jesus and the Heavenly Father or Creator are one being, and that we, their children, are in them, too.

In verse 17, Jesus says, “This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him or knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you” (just as Jesus has been and remains with them, almost near enough to touch). These words, this passage, which John places during the Last Supper, are meant to comfort the disciples as they go through the days of Jesus’s death, awaiting his resurrection. They are meant for us, too, especially as we go through the traumatic parts of our lives. We are not orphaned. We are in the father. We have been given the power to become children of God.

If you are feeling assailed this week, misunderstood, or even attacked and cut loose from your moorings, remember that you are not orphaned and apart from your Lord. You are a beloved child of God and, just as Jesus is in the Father, so are you. And I. And all those humans, whom God loves so much.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for Jesus, who did not leave us orphaned but instead connects us to you. Help us always to remember we are connected to you and have you a whisper away from us, no matter what we are going through. Amen.