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“Not Left Alone”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: John 14:18-31
“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will
see me; because I live, you also will live.”
The Passover was a part of Israel’s religion where they celebrated
Moses leading their people out of slavery in Egypt.
By the time of Jesus’ life, it was celebrated as communal,
family oriented, private table fellowship.
It was very much, in terms of fellowship, like the dinners we
have at thanksgivings, Christmas, and maybe even Easter Sunday with our
family and friends.
Jesus has his 12 disciples, probably his mother, and maybe other close
friends with him on this night, the night of his arrest.
As they are gathered together, the first thing Jesus did, on the
night that he knew he was offering his life for them, he got down on his
knees and washed their feet. There
are many churches on this night that, very well, follow his example.
Could this be something our worship committee may want to
contemplate over the next year?
From the passage we are reading in John’s gospel, the disciples have
already experienced their feet being washed by Christ, they have
experienced for the first time what the church has come to celebrate as
the Lord’s Supper, and Judas Iscariot, the man who is led by the
presence of Satan has gone out to betray Jesus.
The Pharisees and police type soldiers of the local government
will be coming in a few hours to take Jesus into captivity.
Jesus knows all of this.
This is the context in which Jesus shares the words we are reading this
evening. Jesus is being betrayed.
His life is going to be sacrificed.
And He is at table fellowship with the people whom he loves and
who love him the most in his personal life.
Jesus, as the Son of God, loves you and me and each and every one of us
in this same way; and here, Jesus as the Son of Man, is spending his
last hours with the people who were the most important in his life.
This was his family and his church.
Here is what He is telling them: “I
will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will
see me; because I live, you also will live.
On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me,
and I in you.”
No matter what we are going through in our lives, we are never left
alone. The very reason God
came to world in Jesus Christ was because God will not be God without
you and me. God is with us.
That is God’s ultimate choice, God’s greatest desire, God’s
eternal decree which God accomplished in the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ.
God is with you and me, and God is for you and me.
And these words that Jesus is speaking to his closest loved ones,
right before his death, are some of the most important words that he
ever spoke. When we are coming close to death we do our best to share our
deepest love with our loved ones. That
is what Jesus was doing then. That
is what Jesus is doing right now.
Here, tonight, I pray, that by power the real presence of the Holy
Spirit we will hear the Word of God speaking to us, in our hearts,
telling us that we are not left alone.
Regardless of how painful it might be at times, in what we are
going through, we are not alone, God is with us and God is for us.
And we are not of this world. We
are Christians. We have
been baptized in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. We have been born
again in Jesus Christ. We have been justified by the faith of Jesus Christ.
And we are being converted, regenerated, made new day by day, in
our lives as God is actually revealing to us who God has made us to be.
And, as Christians, as Jesus’ disciples, we are among the
people in this world who, graced by God, will see Christ in our lives.
You and I are not left alone, and we are not of this world; therefore,
by Christ’s promise, we will see him, and when we see him, not with
our physical eyes, but with the eyes of our hearts, we will also know
that we are truly connected to God.
That is the ultimate promise Jesus made to his most loved one’s the
night before his death.
I am not a prophet, in the sense that I cannot tell you or me exactly
how, when, and where we will see Christ in our lives.
But, I may point to the very words Jesus is speaking.
Believe they are true. Hear
Christ speaking to you.
You are going to see the savior of this world, in your lives here, and
in your lives to come. And
you are going to know in your souls that God is with you and you are
with God, in God’s love.
That is what we are being given right now as we share in the Lord’s
Supper with his most loved ones. You
are one of Jesus’ most loved one.
You are not alone.
Let us pray…
Amen
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