A sermon on John 14:23-29 by Nathan Nettleton

“Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid,” says Jesus. If that were a commandment, then surely it would be the most broken of them all! Most of us have somewhat troubled hearts an awful lot of the time. We are assailed by worries and anxieties and uncertainties; by self-doubts and self-consciousness and self-incriminations. We are frequently afraid; afraid that we’ll never make it, that we’ll never be good enough, that the odds are stacked against us. When Jesus says “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid,” many of us will simply take that as another indicator of our failure to live as he would have us live, and we’ll add it to our list of heart-troubling fears.

The context may only make it worse too. What we heard read tonight was another extract from the lengthy account of Jesus’ parting words to his disciples on the night he was betrayed and taken away from them to be executed. In tonight’s extract, he began by saying, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” So there’s another thing to set us worrying. Every one of us knows there are plenty of occasions when we do not keep the words of Jesus. Sometimes we deliberately disobey, but mostly we just fail to measure up because we are ignorant or confused or screwed up. Does that show that we don’t really love Jesus and that we will not be loved by the Father or accepted by the Son? Being told not to let our hearts be troubled may not be a lot of help in the face of such fears. It is as though there is a voice inside our heads constantly accusing us, sowing the seeds of doubt and fear, undermining us and cutting us down.

Well, this passage may have contributed some further fears, but it also offers us a promise of hope. The trouble is, the promise may be a bit hidden in a difficult-to-translate word. This promise is not only here in this passage we heard tonight, but several times in Jesus’ parting speech as recorded in John’s gospel. It is a promise that has caused biblical scholars and preachers no end of headaches, though, so you’ll have to bear with me here. Jesus is promising to send the Holy Spirit, but he uses a surprising description. The Greek word is “paraclete”, and some English versions of the Bible have been so perplexed by this that rather than attempt to find an English word to translate it, they have simply put it in English letters and used it as is. And so Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another paraclete to be with you forever.” And a few verses later, in our extract tonight, “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave you, my peace I give, but not as the world gives.”

Now, in fact, this word “paraclete” is not hard to translate into English. The problem is not that we weren’t sure what the word meant; it is that what it means so surprised us that we thought there must have been some other meaning that we were unfamiliar with. At the time of Jesus, the word “paraclete” was in common use in the law courts and it was the normal name for the leading defence counsel, the barrister for the defence. In a court case, then as now, the main two lawyers, other than the judge, are the prosecutor and the defence counsel. Back then, the defence counsel was called the paraclete, and we have not managed to find any other meaning for the word. But, with all due respect to any lawyers among us, the idea that the Holy Spirit might be a lawyer was such a shock, that the biblical scholars mostly assumed that it must be some kind of metaphor trying to evoke an image of something that might be good about such lawyers. And so paraclete, when it has been translated at all has mostly been translated as “comforter”, or “counsellor”, or “advocate”. “Advocate” is closest to the normal meaning, but it is still an attempt to generalise a bit more than “defence lawyer”.

I am finding myself quite persuaded by some scholars who have suggested that we should stop trying to find wriggle room here and just explore the basic meaning. The Holy Spirit is our defence lawyer. And one of the reasons I’m persuaded is that the literal meaning of the word “satan” is the accuser, or the prosecutor. So in the paraclete and the satan, we have the two opposing lawyers, one putting the case for the defence, and the other trying to make accusations stick for the prosecution.

And isn’t that exactly what seems to be going on inside our hearts and heads at times: a court case, a dispute between the accuser and the defence? Isn’t it true that many of those self-doubts and self-condemnations sound like they are being argued by a skilled prosecutor who can cleverly expose every weakness in our explanations and who is bent on proving that we are guilty for every evil we have done, and culpable for every good we have left undone, and, beyond all reasonable doubt, deserving of the the harshest punishments? I know it is true for a good many of us, because I am a pastor and many of you have trusted me enough to allow me to peek into the courtroom of your minds and see into the battles that are troubling your hearts.

Why is it then that the defence often seems so weak? The prosecutor is loud and confident and commanding, and every charge is laid out with thunderous authority and overwhelming gravity, but in the face of it all, the defence frequently seems timid and uncertain and seriously under-prepared. Incompetent even. And certainly not the least bit persuasive. Why is that? Why?

Well, let me tell you the most frequent reason that I see. It is because far too many of you are trying to conduct your own defence. You’ve turned down the defence counsel who was available to you, and decided to try to do it alone. In courtrooms, this is usually an option, but it is one that is generally regarded as a foolish risk. People are usually advised to put their defence in the hands of a specialist, a professional who knows the system and knows how to go about these things. This issue is often played out in courtroom scenes in novels and movies and TV shows, but the one that springs to mind for me is from one of the Harry Potter stories where Harry is facing the Wizarding Court charged with unauthorised and underage use of magic in the presence of a muggle. He knows that he did what he is accused of, but he also knows that there were mitigating circumstances that made it legally justifiable. And isn’t that often our situation? We know we did what the accusing voice says we did, but we want to argue that there was a reason, and that if understood properly, it will not be held against us. But Harry is alone and facing a prosecutor who is determined to bring about his downfall. The prosecutor strenuously sticks to the question of what Harry did, and cuts him off every time he attempts to point out why he did it. Just the facts. And Harry, unsure of his rights and out of his depth and intimidated by all that surrounds him is nearly undone. He is only saved by the last-minute arrival of Albus Dumbledore to take charge of his defence. Within a short space of time, the masterful Dumbledore has turned the whole case around, swung the minds of the majority of the bench, and Harry is cleared of all charges.

You can’t do it on your own. The prosecutor is too experienced and too malicious, and there is a mountain of “facts” for him to use against you. You need a specialist defence counsel to take up the fight for you. Well, thanks be to God, there is a defence counsel available who is more than up to the job. The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who Jesus asks the Father to send to us when he himself departs.

This name, “Paraclete”, refers first to Jesus, because in his later letter John directly describes Jesus as our paraclete before the Father, and here in John’s gospel Jesus says, “when I go I will ask the Father to send you another paraclete.” And it fits Jesus well doesn’t it? There are numerous stories in the gospels that depict Jesus standing up for those who have been accused and condemned and cast out. Probably the most obvious, because it is the most clearly a legal dispute is the story of the woman caught in adultery who was brought to Jesus to see whether he would uphold the law by endorsing their intention to stone her to death. “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” And then, when the crowd drift off, he asks, “Woman, where are your accusers?” Where are your satans? “Is there none to condemn you?” “None, Lord,” she replies. That’t the kind of paraclete you need when the satan voices inside would condemn you to despair and impotence and even death.

“And so”, says Jesus, “when I go I will ask the Father to send you another paraclete.” And “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. … Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. … And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.”

In a sense then, we have two paracletes, one representing us before the Judge in heaven, and one representing us here on earth. And when the voice of the satan is raised against you — the voice within that accuses, that condemns, that argues that you deserve all you are suffering and should just shut up and submit to it — you do not have to deal with it alone. You do not have to defend yourself at all. Specialist help is available to you, and it has already been paid for. All you have to do is shut up and entrust you case to the paraclete, the defence counsel.

“Holy Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, I know that there is enough truth in the charges being levelled against me to destroy me. I put my fate in your hands. I want to do what is right and live for justice and love from now on, but in order to have that chance, I need to be pardoned and set free. My only chance of that happening rests with you.”

For most of us, the hardest thing is to let go and trust the paraclete to do it. We have great trouble getting out of the way and not interfering. You see it in courtrooms too; the accused often try to interrupt what their defence counsel is doing, and usually just make things worse. But if we will just shut up and put our trust in the paraclete completely, what a difference it will make. Then we will hear a voice of strength and conviction and authority raised, not against us, but for us, clearly laying out an unshakable case for our pardon and release, not only before the Father, but in the courts of our own hearts and minds. And when we begin to listen regularly to that voice, and hear described to us and for us what we are capable of and what potential will be brought to fulfilment when we are set free, we will begin to discover who we truly are and what we can truly become. And it is on the basis of that, my friends, that Jesus says to you, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”