Later this summer, some of us from the chapel will be doing some backpacking in Montana. One of the essential pieces of equipment that you will need to bring along is a flashlight. We take electric lights for granted until we go camping in a place like the Beartooth Mountains and then we are dependent on something as simple as flashlight if we are to accomplish any number of tasks after the sun goes down. You should be wondering by now what a flashlight has to do with Pentecost. I'm getting there. The value of a flashlight is in how the flashlight functions. So also with the Holy Spirit who was given at Pentecost.
A flashlight is not very helpful if you hold it before your face and simply stare into the beam of light. In fact, to use a flashlight like that will not help you see at all; it instead is blinding. A flashlight functions not by drawing us to gaze at the light bulb, but by throwing light on the object which we need to see. A camper does not look into the light in order to see how to pitch a tent after dark. Instead one shines the light on the tent. So it is with the Holy Spirit. We do not gaze directly on the Holy Spirit but instead the Spirit causes His light to shine through His Word so that we see Jesus Christ.
That is why one theologian has called the Holy Spirit "the shy member of the Holy Trinity." Just as we do not focus our eyes on the flashlight but on the object which the flashlight sheds light on, so we do not focus on the Holy Spirit per se but on the Savior to whom the Spirit testifies.
Although it is not nearly as popular now as it was a few years ago, the Charismatic Movement or Pentecostalism made the point of saying that the Holy Spirit had been neglected and so sought to place emphasis on the person of the Spirit. Now that is the exact opposite of what the Holy Spirit wants to happen for you see the Holy Spirit does not call attention to Himself but the Son who was sent from the Father into our flesh to suffer, die, and rise again as our Savior.
Note that many of our Pentecost hymns make reference to the Holy Spirit using the imagery of light. For example, in the hymn which we sang prior to the sermon, we confessed these words: "Lord, by the brightness of your light, in holy faith your church unite," and again, "Come holy Light, guide divine, now cause the Word of life to shine, teach us to know our God aright and call him Father with delight" (LW 154). The work of the Holy Spirit is to shed light on Jesus Christ so that we know Him alone as "the way, the truth, and the life," the only way to the Father. And this work the Holy Spirit accomplishes through His Word, for His Word is a "lamp to our feet and a light to our path," to paraphrase Psalm 119.
God's Word and His Spirit come together. You can't have one without the other. That is why our Lutheran Confessions make the point that "In these matters, which concern the external, spoken Word, we must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word which comes before....Accordingly, we should and must maintain that God will not deal with us except through his external Word and sacraments. Whatever is attributed to the Spirit apart from such Word and sacraments is of the devil" (SA III:VIII, 3/9).
So in today's Holy Gospel when Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit, "the Helper" whom the Father will send in His name, He also speaks of how those who love Him will keep His Word. To keep Jesus' Word means to hang on to what Jesus' says. That, in fact, is how the Holy Spirit teaches us. He does not bubble up inside of us as a warm emotion. He does not give us some special, secret insight into the plans and purposes of God. No, the Spirit works by bringing "to your remembrance all things that I said to you." This He does in and through the Word.
To love Jesus is to keep His Word. To keep Jesus' Word is something different than obeying the rules and regulations which God has set in place. When people understand the Christian life primarily in terms of "playing by the rules" or obeying the Ten Commandments, they often end up accusing God when life does not turn out the way that they had anticipated. Such a person, in the face of some disappointment or tragedy, says, "Why is this happening to me? I went to church and gave my offerings. I said my prayers and acted decently toward my neighbors. I did what God told me to do." But the minute we utter such words the very law of God that we thought we were obeying slaps us across the lips with the harsh verdict: "You didn't do enough." We never, ever measure up to God's law. His law always finds our works incomplete. There is no comfort or consolation in the law. We will find no shelter in our own obedience to God. When it comes to the law, we always come up short. And the more we try to argue the case, the more the law condemns.
No, keeping Jesus' word is not about our obedience to the law. To keep Jesus' word is to hold on to the forgiveness of sins which He bestows on us in the Gospel. It is to rely exclusively on the fact that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners through the shedding of His blood. To keep Jesus' word is to let nothing in life or death, no affliction or suffering, no joy or pleasure, tear from your heart the promise that the crucified and risen Son of God is for you. That is the faith which the Spirit implants, cultivates, deepens, and strengthens as you hear Jesus' words.
That is the purpose of the Divine Service. The same Holy Spirit who breathed the gift of new birth into Stephanie Jean Welch in the waters of Holy Baptism this morning, comes to you. He comes to you in the preaching of Jesus' words. Where these words are received in faith, we have what they declare unto us. Listen again to what Jesus says, "If anyone loves Me, My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." How deeply God makes His home with us we know from the Sacrament of the Altar. For here He gives us His own body and blood to eat and to drink. The flesh born of Mary and nailed to the cross as the atonement for the world's sins is given us to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins. The blood that poured from the Savior's veins to blot out our sins is given us to drink in the cup of the New Testament.
The Spirit is not given once but over and over again wherever the Lord's words are going on. The gift of the Spirit is the gift of Jesus Himself, His peace. The Spirit does drop in once and awhile. He is not here today and gone tomorrow. He does not swoop down on us to give us a spiritual high which soon fades away leaving us empty. No, He comes constantly and surely in Jesus' words spoken to us in Absolution and sermon, in Baptism and with the Body and Blood. These are His gifts and with these gifts we have peace. Not as the world gives, but the peace bought with the blood of Christ. Peace that the world cannot take away. "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting.