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From where or from whom do we seek comfort in distress, in times of need? What gives us hope and confidence amidst the uncertainty and strife of this world? What is the first thing you turn to — who is the first person you seek to talk to — when distress, need, peril, uncertainty, temptation, sin, and danger confront you?
We look for and seek out comfort and hope in all of the wrong places. We sinners turn inwardly very quickly, to ourselves. We put our trust and hope in our ability to fix problems — our reasoning, experience, and judgment — even though we are corrupted by our sinful flesh. It is so very easy when confronted by hard times and unforeseen problems to “go to ground”, “hole up”, “bunker in”, “circle the wagons”. Our culture tells us to look inward: “He who helps best helps himself.” You've got to “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”
This inward looking mentality in times of distress leads to selfish and self–gratifying behaviors. People shut out their family and friends — their fellow Christians even — and seek an escape in various sinful behaviors such as addictions to internet pornography, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, or even seeking comfort in material goods, accumulating more possessions in order to idolize them, spending more time at work, earning more money. Anything to feel better. Anything to make problems seem to go away.
Just look at the success of so many industries in this country who make their living on other people's desire to “help themselves” in times of need and distress. Oprah and Dr. Phil have made nice livings showing people how to help themselves feel better when things do not go their way. What one might call the “Dr. Phil mentality” leads so many to seek the first available psychologist or psychoanalyst whenever problems confront them. Family can't get along? Feeling blue? Behavior problems? Get out your wallet and find someone who'll help you fix your problems yourself. Or better: follow the current trend and demand the government fix your problem.
This is not to deny that some folks do become depressed or distressed or behaviorally deficient because of physical and mental problems. Doctors and other qualified people can certainly be used by God to help relieve such problems.
But our inability to get along with the neighbor, whether family or coworkers or others, is nearly always borne of our own outright sinful behavior. It comes from our falling into temptation. It leaps right out of our sinful flesh. And so, we try every human solution to what truly and ultimately demands a spiritual cure. We do not want to confront our sinfulness. The sinful flesh in us denies our need to repent of sin and seeks comfort and hope in every other idol god before we will seek comfort and hope in the true and living Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
At this point, it would be easy to go down the road of so many Christian preachers and teachers today and proclaim that Jesus or, even more likely, “God” is your answer, and, then, proceed to do no better than Dr. Phil and proscribe some Christianized six or ten step program, some “forty days to a more spiritual you” sort of way to give you some way to help you help yourself and make you think that God is behind it.
And of course, it is true that our Heavenly Father ultimately has the only answers to our problems. He alone is the source of true and lasting comfort and hope for all of us.
But we all know that — despite our most fervent prayers to God, despite (perhaps) our perfect attendance at Divine Services, despite our piety and devotion, despite even our true repentance and faith in Jesus Christ — we are still not immune to cross bearing in this life. We are not immune to temptation. We are not immune to the ravages of sin. The sinful flesh still gets its way too often. And the world presses its attack all the more.
Jesus gives a dire warning in today's Gospel: “These things I have spoken to you so that you might not be scandalized [or made to fall away from the faith]. From the synagogue, they will excommunicate you. And an hour is coming so that every one who kills you shall think a service is being offered to God. For they will do these things because they did not know the Father nor myself.” (John 16:1–3, my translation).
Peter, who heard these words and faced his own persecutions and eventually his own crucifixion, was not less realistic. He wrote, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” (1 Peter 4:12, English Standard Version)
Peter knew from experience. Jesus knew it, because He knows us. He also knows Satan and his power. Satan does not want us to put our faith and trust and hope in Jesus Christ. So, he attacks and uses any means necessary, including the seemingly pious and devout people of this world, to get us to fall away from the true faith, to “scandalize” us, even to kill us.
We ought not be surprised that fiery trials come on us to test us. Your baptism into Jesus Christ has put a target on you. It's a big crucifix shaped target, and it is drenched with the blood of Christ, and it has God's own Name written on it, but you are nevertheless a target. I hope you are not shocked or surprised as Peter says. Those who have rejected Christ are already on Satan's side of the ledger, so why would he target them?
The key question is: When the fiery trial comes, to whom or to what do we turn? Will we look inwardly to ourselves and our idol gods? Will we fail to repent of our sins, and will we, perhaps, even deny that we have a problem? Will we seek every solution but the cure that only Christ and His Church can give?
Or will we turn in faith to our Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him to help and comfort us in our time of need? Will we trust that our Lord has borne our crosses and defeated them? Will we trust that, in following Him by faith through cross and grave, He is leading us through them unto everlasting life, unto the new heavens and the new earth that He promises He is preparing for each of His children? To paraphrase the Creed: Will we seek our help and comfort and put our trust in the Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Life Everlasting?
In His Gospel today, Jesus has promised us a very special gift. He knows that we cannot by our own reason or strength as sinners turn in faith and total trust to Christ, that we cannot by ourselves find in Him and His Church our comfort and hope. So, the Father and the Son give us the Source of comfort and hope and help and faith as a gift as well. It is the Holy Spirit. He is the Comforter, the Helper.
“When the comforter [helper] shall come,” Jesus says, “whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, the one who from the Father comes forth, that one will testify concerning me.” (John 15;26, my translation).
The Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, and keeps the whole Christian Church on earth with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. He is the one who teaches us the way of the Lord and keeps us on it. He is the one who answers when we cry aloud for help. He is the one that brings us into the Communion of Saints, gives us the Forgiveness of Sins, brings us to Life Everlasting.
But the Spirit of Truth is not a voice from out of nowhere. It is not a spiritual whisper that we have to hope to somehow hear. It is not some special revelation that we will hear if we are pious and devout enough.
No. The Spirit of Truth comes from the Father and the Son, and He testifies loudly and clearly, with certainty and with no doubt or wavering of Jesus Christ crucified, resurrected, and ascended for the salvation of you, me, the whole world. His is a sure and certain witness. He comes to comfort and help us in the Living Word of Christ, the preaching and teaching and hearing of the inspired and God–breathed every last Word that comes forth from the mouth of the Living Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3b).
The Spirit of Truth comes to comfort and help us in the waters of Holy Baptism. There, He drowns our sinful old Adam and daily brings forth the new man in Christ until, at last, He will complete us in death and, at last, totally free us from our sinful flesh.
The Spirit of Truth comes to give us true and lasting peace with God in the forgiveness of sins. He speaks and bestows Christ's forgiveness through the mouths of pastors. He has been giving out absolution for sins on account of Christ through the Office of the Holy Ministry since that first Easter evening when Jesus breathed on His apostles and gave them the Holy Spirit in the Gospel to carry out that special task on His behalf.
The Spirit of Truth comes in our Lord's Words: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” Everyone who believes these words of our Lord has exactly what they say in His Holy Body and Blood. Forgiveness of sins. Peace with God. The comfort and hope and joy of eternal life in Jesus Christ.
Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things shall be added unto you: true comfort, true hope, true peace, true life. Do not seek these things in yourself or in your own efforts or in all of the false hopes of fixing your problems yourself that are offered by this world. Trust the Word of our Lord that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18b) in resurrection and eternal life with Him.
When the crosses and trials of this life come, trust and depend on comfort from the Comforter, on help from the Helper. Repent of sin and believe the Gospel. Repent of sin and look in faith to the salvation and promise of eternal life given you in your baptism. Repent of sin and earnestly seek to hear your Lord Jesus' Holy Absolution as often as you can. Repent of sin and humbly receive your Lord Jesus' Body and Blood given and shed for you for your forgiveness, the medicine that heals you for eternity.
The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper — he is the one who testifies about Jesus, who leads you to the world's redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is your light and salvation, the stronghold of your life. In Him, you have no one and no thing that you need fear or be afraid of. Do your enemies take your life, your goods, fame, child, wife? Let them all be gone — they yet have nothing won.
On account of Jesus Christ's innocent life, suffering, death, and resurrection, by the gifts of His Holy Spirit in Gospel, Font, Absolution and Altar, the Kingdom belongs to you in the One, Holy, Christian, and Apostolic Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Life Everlasting. By the Spirit's power and grace, may we ever hold fast to these great gifts until our Lord returns in His Glory. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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