Easter 5C

5th Sunday of Easter, Year C

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Once again, we have some very powerful and theologically rich texts today. I want to focus in one just verse from the Gospel lesson - verse 13: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

For the last several years, as I look at the world around me, I find it increasingly difficult to know what’s true and what’s not. In fact, even the very word “truth” no longer means what it used to mean. I went and got out my hard-cover dictionary from college (printed in 1991). Here’s the definition of truth:

Conformity to fact or actuality

Fidelity to an original or standard

Reality; actuality

A statement proven to be or accepted as true

Sincerity; integrity

God

Intriguing that even in the secular dictionary, God is one of the definitions of truth. But more to the point, the definitions point to an ideal that is above opinion. It is accepted as true. It is fact… it is reality.

In 2018, Oprah Winfrey accepted a lifetime achievement award, and in her speech, she took the opportunity to address the then-growing #metoo movement, drawing attention to sexual harassment in Hollywood. In her statement, she said, “What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.” Did you catch that? *Your truth*. As though a truth that I would speak would be different from a truth that you would speak? Critics responded with “There is no such thing as ‘your truth.’ There is the truth and your opinion.” I certainly agree with that critic.

Sadly, the damage was done, and a new trend caught on. “Truth” according to the world is a subjective thing. And you will hear this phrase still in use 4 years later: “your truth.” These 2 little words began to erode the very concept of truth, and it’s become a poison to our society and our way of life. We see it everywhere…and so much so that I think and I fear that we’re almost numb to it.

I tried to think of what examples I could use…but there are so many! Let’s look just at Jessie Smollett - an African American actor who was in a fairly popular television series. In January 2019, he reported to the Chicago Police Department that he had been approached by 2 men wearing “MAGA” hats who started yelling racial and homophobic slurs at him, poured bleach on him and placed a noose around his neck. If these things had actually happened in malice, this would have indeed been a heinous and reprehensible act. The police spent much time, money, and resources investigating the act, only to find out that the whole thing was staged by the actor and the 2 men he hired to set this scene. Why did he do it? Was it to cause political damage to the Republican party and its constituents? Was it to get himself some time in the spotlight? We don’t really know. What we *do* know is that it was all a lie.

There is no shortage of lies, deceit, and dishonesty in the public sphere that I could offer to you. I’m sure everyone here has a list of things that came to mind as soon as I started talking about this. Our politicians are largely untrustworthy - they make campaign promises to get elected, and then they get in office and soon they’re doing the opposite of what they promised. News outlets - both liberal and conservative - are no longer merely reporting facts and data. They are presented with opinion and commentary, slanted significantly in favor of their own side of the political aisle. We simply do not have an unbiased option for news. And when an opinion is wrong … or even when caught in a lie, they are not held accountable. There’s no punishment, no repercussion. It simply continues, and we just look at it all and think “well, what can *I* do about it?”

In our Mission Region Convocation this weekend, Pr. David Wendel made this statement (this is a paraphrase): “I think we’re too soft on holding to the Scriptures. We let people push us and convince us that we need to listen to the world around us and all those things that disagree with God’s Word, until we compromise and find ourselves in a place where Jesus is little more than a good character in a story. He’s become a myth.” That’s hard to hear, but look at where we are in society: our government just appointed a supreme court justice who can’t define what a woman is, because it’s too sensitive of an issue, and she claims she doesn’t have the education to make such a definition. We have progressives telling everyone that gender is nothing more than a social construct, and that the idea of only 2 genders is false, that there are, in fact more than 20... no, 50... no, 81 different genders, and everyone is allowed to claim their own pronouns, and everyone else must use the pronouns demanded by that person.

Do you remember when I shared “Live not by lies” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? He suggests: “...a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me! … Let us at least refuse to say what we do not think!” [https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies] Simply don’t participate in them. Don’t accept what you KNOW is not true. Ok, so it might be “simple”, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy.

Ethicist George Forell says that “All social organization is based upon a certain amount of trust, so that society is in danger when this basic minimum of human honesty evaporates.” [George Forell, Ethics of Decision (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1955), pg 142]. Given the deterioration of truth and integrity in the last few years, I think we can see that very danger all around us. Have you lost any friends in the last several years, because of your political beliefs? Because of your position on masks or vaccines? Because of your position on abortion? Because of your support of a particular political candidate?

We were told in seminary that the fastest growing religious group in the country is a group called the “nones” - as in, when asked what religious preference they held, their response was “none of the above”. I do not believe it’s coincidence that this problem we now have with truth comes at a time when fewer and fewer people are coming to church, and that a growing number of people do not know who Jesus Christ even is, or what he has done for all of humanity. In particular, that Jesus himself is, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Through the pandemic, the Christian Church found itself largely unable to gather together for extended periods. In some locations, there are churches who still may not gather in their church building, but only in parking lots or online. Many churches did not survive the pandemic. Even more have seen a drastic decline in their weekly attendance, even now that they are allowed to meet in person. All churches have been negatively affected in some way as a result of the lockdowns and restrictions.

In all of this uncertainty, with no clear path to truth in the world around us, Jesus’ message couldn’t be more timely: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” If we can’t find truth in earthly sources, then we can rest assured that we *will* find truth in heavenly sources. The Holy Spirit especially.

In this passage, Jesus is telling his closest friends that they simply aren’t ready to hear all the truth of what is in their future…not yet anyway. They haven’t fully accepted or even understood that their teacher is about to be arrested and executed in the most terrible way, and they’re going to witness it. It will horrify them. And even more scary, most of them will face a similar fate. They’re not ready for this yet. So he’s sparing them for the moment.

At the right time, the Holy Spirit is going to come and enlighten them. He will guide them, and He will share with them “the things that are to come.” And when He chooses to do this, it will be at a time when the disciples “will be able to bear all that he has to communicate to them.” [R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 1090.] The Spirit will lead them to the truth, and He will do it when the time is right.

Does the Spirit lead us also into truth? Yes, of course He does! He is at work throughout the Body of Christ, moving Christians to do kingdom work and to share the Gospel with the “nones” and others who don’t know Christ. Sometimes even with those who claim they don’t *want* to know Christ. The SON network, for instance, has people working in both Ukraine AND Russia. Just let that sink in for a moment.

The outside world probably doesn’t understand that. It doesn’t make sense to the world because the world insists that you take sides. The Holy Spirit isn’t like that, though. Luther describes the work of the Spirit this way:

“...the Holy Spirit occupies Himself with other matters: how to rescue men from sin and death by making them children of God, righteous, and heirs of eternal life; how to build the kingdom of God and destroy the kingdom of hell; how to fight against the devil and overcome him; how to give comfort, strength, and support to a believing conscience. The Holy Spirit does this in order that man may remain alive in the midst of death and may be able to keep a good conscience and God’s grace even though he is aware of his sins.

For we are opposed by an enemy who is not interested in the temporal trivia which we possess here. No, he struggles and strives to hold our consciences bound in sin and to plague us with the eternal terrors of hell and with despair, in brief, to drag us down with him from the kingdom of God and from all communion with Him into eternal damnation and the fire of hell. Such battles cannot be fought and such victories cannot be won without the Holy Spirit.

Therefore let us cling to this truth which the Holy Spirit teaches: how we can retain faith in Christ; tread the devil, sin, and death underfoot; bear and overcome the world’s wrath and raging; build God’s kingdom and gain eternal life...”

[Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 24: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 14-16, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 24 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 360–361.]

Or, if that’s too much, let’s cling to this truth, which also was shared with me this weekend, from church historian Jaroslav Pelikan: “if Christ is risen, nothing else matters. If Christ is not risen, nothing else matters.”

We have the witness accounts that tell us the truth. We have the centuries of Christian teaching that tell us the truth. Most importantly, we have the Word of God in Christ Himself - who tells us the truth. We believe, teach, and confess that it is true. And because it is, none of this other stuff matters.

Christ *is* risen. He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!