Our Friend At Court
Preached at Hope Church, Sunday, April 27
Dr. Chris Hauer
Isaiah 41:17:20, Psalm 66:1, 8-9, 16-20, 1 Peter3:13-22, John 14:15-21
There are two notable themes in our lessons for this morning that merit some special recognition. One is the so-called descent into hell reflected in 1 Peter 3 :19. The other is Jesus= promise of he gift of the Advocate, the Paraclete, in John 14. (And in 15 and 16, too.)
The sixth clause of the Apostles= Creed in ihe old fashioned English translation says A He descended into hell.@ The original Greek text reads A hades,@ the Greek counterpart of the Hebrew sheol, the place of the departed. So the modern translation A he descended to the dead@ is really more accurate. The text has no necessary implications of the fire and brimstone and other features of hell so dear to medieval monks and fundamentalist preachers. Way back in the 16th century John Calvin argued for something like the modern translation. The gist is, Jesus really died. He didn= t just seem to be dead.. So I guess we have to say that the graphic metaphor of 1 Peter 3:19, of Jesus preaching to souls in prison, and Ephesians 4:7-10 of Jesus descending and ascending, must be regarded as minor traditions. But honesty compels me to mention that there was a minority version of this minor tradition which got into a few apocryphal documents. It portrays Jesus cruising into hell like a mean cowboy breaking into a west Texas saloon.. He totally wrecked the joint and (if we can use such language) beat the hell out of the Devil, reducing him to total submission. Sounds like fun. Eat your heart out, Jackie Chan.
` But even though the graphic metaphorical descent of 1 Peter and Ephesians is a minor tradition, it does have something important to teach us. Because it witnesses to the fact in its own way that the saving mercy of God revealed in Messiah Jesus is not limited by time and space. Jesus can be thought of as bringing God= s redemption to people of ages past before his own historical time as well as into an infinite future.
The second notable theme is Jesus= promise of the gift of the Paraclete in John 14:16 (and 14:26 And 15:26 and 16:7). The identity of the Paraclete is no mystery. If our lesson extended on into 14:25-26, we would read that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. And maybe we should briefly review the Church= s teaching about the Spirit. One theologian referred to the Spirit as A the third, or neglected, Person of the Trinity@ . I really don= t think that= s correct. The problem is not that the Spirit is neglected, though if you look in the index of the Hymnal you might think so. Notice how few hymns appear under the heading, A Holy Spirit.@ .But I think the problem is that the question is so complicated that it= s hard to get a handle on it. Just for starters, look at the question of the work of the Spirit. Church teaching identifies three major areas of the Spirit= s work.
First, the Spirit works in the world at large. The Spirit reflects and represents the influence of God in all sorts of human activities and natural events whether God= s hand is recognized or not.
Second, the Spirit works in the Church.
Finally, the Spirit works in the heart of the individual believer. The Spirit inspired the prophets, empowered great leaders like Moses and David, led people to understanding and illumination.
So the question really is what did Jesus mean when he used this term, or the Hebrew or Aramaic word John translated as Paraclet?. I have a Hebrew New Testament in which a German scholar (Delitzsch) tried to translate backwards from the Greek text to a more original Hebrew. So I went eagerly to look up the Paraclete passages in John. Bummer! He had simply transliterated the Greek word into Hebrew characters. Paraclete! But a number of commentators have suggested that nacham, the Hebrew word for comfort, may underlie it. And of course there are the Hebrew terms that literally mean Holy Spirit, and Shekinah which denotes God= s spiritual presence. One commentator suggested a technical Rabbinic term which I translated A character witness.@ And some early Church people believed that the spiritual presence of Jesus himself was meant.
. Jesus is very clear that the Paraclete is sent by the Father ((14:15) or by Jesus himself (16:7) or by both. He is the Spirit of truth who will teach the faithful and remind them of Jesus= teaching. He will testify to Jesus and prove the world wrong in many of its judgements. Some times the Spirit= s work is so subtle that only in retrospect do we recognize that God has been at work .Here we encounter the very intimate and personal aspect of the Spirit= s work because he is both with and in the faithful, experienced more as peace than as any traumatic charismatic experience. It might be helpful to reflect on some of the words that have been used to translate Paraclete. The King James Version reads A comforter.@ The Goodspeed translation reads A helper.@ The RSV says A counselor@ and the NRSV A advocate.@ May I suggest they are all correct? Each one of them connotes some aspect of the personal ministry of the Spirit. In its basic Greek meaning a paraclete is someone who is called to advise another especially in legal matters, hence the title A Our Friend At. Court.@ Think of a person who sits down with you to advise, to explain, to help.
We preachers are very concerned about this aspect of the Spirit= s work (or we= d better be) to advise us and guide us to speak those words, to portray those truths, that God wants his people to know. That is why working on a sermon can be so excruciating. You feel like you= ve got to get it right. But you can= t be certain you have. Sometimes by the work of the Spirit a really bad sermon may convey precisely the word that somebody, maybe everybody, needs to hear. But a preacher who takes their call seriously can= t in good conscience burden the Spirit with slipshod preaching. Do your best and pray that the Spirit will make the best of it.
Then from the people= s standpoint you need to be open to the Spirit= s inspiration to hear God= s word speak out of the Scripture that is read, and even to hear it in our faltering efforts which Paul boldly describes as A the foolishness of preaching@ (1 Cor i:21, KJV).