B, Easter 6 - John 15:9-12, 1 John 5:1-6 "Joy-Full"
God’s love flows down the vine through his Son, Jesus
Christ, to us, the branches. The Holy
Spirit flows through Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, and he works in us
through God’s holy written word and holy sacraments. The promise of God is that if we abide in
this flowing love, if we do not cut ourselves off from the conduits of Christ’s
commandments, his joy will be in you and your joy will be full.
Yet as we travel along the road through parched places, it
seems there’s not much occasion for joy!
The joy of being known by Jesus Christ, shimmers like a mirage on the
horizon. But weariness wears us down as
we work getting to that mysterious place of joy.
Like seeking the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, we
peer into the future, driving hard to get to the place of joy, getting to where
we think it is, only to find it’s moved away from us, to somewhere else.
There’s a real temptation to think remaining in God’s love
is like a donkey walking while working to eat that proverbial carrot from the
end of the string. Is God dangling a
carrot in front of us, leading us through life, without us ever receiving the
carrot of joy?
But we know that God temps no one to think this way. In Luke’s Gospel Jesus tells us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 ESV) So what’s going on with the joy, always
seeming to be as elusive as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or thinking joy is just a vain expectation in
an oasis mirage, seen only to move with the horizon on our weary walk?
The Apostle John adds yet another dimension to what he
teaches us here in chapter fifteen of his Gospel with what he says in his
epistle…
“Everyone who
believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves
the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and
obey his commandments. For this is the
love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God
overcomes the world. And this is the
victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that
Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who
came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water
and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is
the truth.” (1 John 5:1–6 ESV)
The love that flows through Jesus from our Father, does so
because Jesus is born of God. Jesus is
eternally begotten of our Father. That
is, he is eternally being born of God through God’s being of love. The Holy Spirit is the great and holy proxy
in this work of creating the love of God within us. He helps us on our way, by helping move our
works out of the way, so he can help us in Jesus’ way through the wilderness.
As John tells us in his epistle, this victory is not
burdensome. Which tells us immediately,
where the task of loving others is a burden, then we are toiling for the wrong
victory. A burdensome faith is something
other than the one true faith! A
burdensome faith is not one that overcomes the world but is a faith in the
world that creates a world of burdens, within us, within itself.
However, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, he carries
out the true work of Jesus within, creating faith, helping us to believe in
God’s word and sacraments, with God’s word and sacraments, to remain and abide
in the only Saviour in this world, Jesus Christ! Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to remove the
burden so we can delight in God’s word of law and gospel!
Here the Holy Spirit helps you get back on the horse, as it
were! We’ve been donkeys running in the
midday sun, like the mad Englishmen who sought to survey and explore the
Australian wilderness in our early colonial days. But even worse than these madmen, we’ve
sought to run by our own effort when the horse has been following us with the
water wagon of God’s word in tow!
The joy has been right there with us the whole time. It’s been under our noses! We’ve chased the mirage of water, while the
refreshment walks with us. Indeed, God
works to refresh us and seeks to carry us in love towards the final goal. The oasis of a heavenly paradise.
It’s sinful fear that tempts us to get off the horse in the
first place and then run with delirious anxiety in the wilderness. The call to remain in the shade of God’s love
seems unreasonable to us. Perhaps it’s
impatience! Perhaps it’s contempt for
what’s familiar! Perhaps it’s just plain
old donkey stubbornness! Which does
reveal a foolish irony, in that, we stubbornly got off the wagon of free food
and transport, only to need a carrot dangled in front of us to make us walk in
our stubbornness towards a mirage of freedom from the true joyful freedom we’ve
just abandoned!
Loving God and his commandments is remaining in him,
trusting him, believing in his word, with the means of transport he has given
us through the wilderness. We trust his
way, his work, and his help.
Throughout this sermon, a picture has been painted of
moving through a parched place towards an oasis, a paradise. Most likely you have formed a picture of
trekking in the wilderness by yourself.
And rightly so if you picture loving God as a toilsome and burdensome
task.
But climbing back on the transport God provides to bring us
to him and his kingdom, the Holy Spirit driven church, we realise when Jesus
says, “I have loved you! You, abide in
my love! If you keep my commandments you
will abide! My joy is in you! And, your joy may be full!” The “you or your” is not singular! It’s not just me on the journey but it’s a
community on the move. The “you” is the
gathering of the Holy Spirit. It’s not
just me in which the Holy Spirit works one faith. Rather one faith is worked in we who are the
body of Jesus Christ.
Joy, therefore, is not an individual thing, strived for now
or in the future! If it is, it’s a
fruitless futile joy. It’s a transient
happiness in oneself, that exhausts itself, and dies in the expectations
coveted and idolised in the wilderness of this world.
However, true joy, is unhidden joy! It’s the joy of God’s holiness! It’s the joy of faith in knowing God’s
kingdom has come, and God is doing his will, here, right now, in our midst,
while we wait patiently in hope for it to be unhidden after death! True joy is the “yes yes”, “truly truly”, and
“verily verily”! The amen amen!
Before he went to the cross, Jesus openly said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep
and lament, but the world will rejoice.
You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” (John 16:20 ESV)
True joy is trusting Jesus finished your journey, when he
said on the cross, “it is finished!”
You are not alone!
Not only does the Holy Spirit call you through Jesus, to Jesus, to
enlighten you with his gifts, setting you apart as holy, and faithfully keeping
you as a baptised holy believer, he does it with the whole hidden church,
gathering it around Jesus, inside and outside of time!
“Therefore, since we
are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every
weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race
that is set before us, looking to Jesus,
the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the
throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV)
Jesus is no mirage! You are the pot of eternal gold, like him, already in his possession! So, may the Holy Spirit grant you a restful race in the fullness of Jesus’ joy, enduring in the peace of God, which wins out over all our understanding and transient happiness, so your hearts and minds are kept in the joy of your baptismal eternal journey. Amen.
