4/19/62

Scripture: John 14: 15-31.

The third statement in the last paragraph of the Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ affirms that God promises to all who trust him, “his presence in trial and rejoicing.” As we have thought on other statements of that paragraph on Passion Sunday and on Palm Sunday, now I want to think of this statement briefly tonight.

Jesus brought to his followers in Palestine, and to all of us who have tried to follow him since, the reassurance that God forgives sins --- not in some easy way that removes responsibility from us, but in genuineness and sincerity. And we may have His fullness of grace. He taught, by word and example, that the Father offers his children courage in the struggle for justice and peace. The struggle continues -- and we need courage for it.

But, whether life brings its trials or its rejoicing -- and often it brings both -- we have assurance of His presence. Jesus was acutely aware of the presence of God -- all along his way from childhood through youth, in his baptism, in his testing and temptation, in his ministry of mercy and healing, in his teaching, in his decision to go to Jerusalem, in his encounter with hearers and opponents, in his certainty that his disciples were not yet strong enough to stand with him in the ultimate danger and the facing of cruel death. But how he strove to assure them of the divine presence!

Patiently and persistently he teaches them that whoever of them has seen him has seen the Father --- for he tried to show forth the spirit of God within himself and toward all people. He reminds them that those who love him will keep his commandments. He assures them that God’s Holy Spirit will be in them. They shall not be left desolate.

With patient and persistent love, he teaches them that they are branches of a vine which is himself, through which they shall receive and share necessary nourishing strength. He arranged to have a final supper with them in a room privately arranged, a little before the usual time for the Passover. He instituted a manner of receiving food at the table there by which they should remind themselves of the gift of his entire self for them. He washed their feet in example of service and attitude.

And then he went out with them to the Mount of Olives, just outside the city. Supposedly it would be to spend the night in safety from his enemies. Truly they did sleep. But he spent his time in prayer until the betrayer led enemy forces out to the garden to take him. His own trust in the presence of the father was complete. There was no slightest doubt that this was the right thing for him to do. It was for him the will of God.

How he was taken, tried, condemned, crucified and buried, is the theme of our meditation late tonight and on Good Friday -- the day of crucifixion. But just now, we can find assurance, in the remembrance of his last Supper with his disciples, and in seeing the approaching passion, that he completely trusted in the presence of God in trial just as surely as in the rejoicing of Palm Sunday.

There may have been agony in his soul as he prayed in the Garden. But he was praying to his present Father --- the same Father to whom we can turn and pray, to whom we can unburden all that can not be borne alone. There is no place, no circumstance, no occasion where we need feel apart from the presence that knows, that sustains, that understands, and that can supply our sufficiency.

We do not learn this lesson easily. His disciples of that day did not learn it easily. The presence in rejoicing they understood well enough. The presence in trial, particularly when everything appeared to go stark wrong, they did not yet understand. Later, they were to scatter like frightened sheep. It took a resurrection, it took the coming of the Holy Spirit, it took a will to work and serve and to be spent, to repair their lives into the stuff of prophets and martyrs and servants of God; children of the King! But that came!

The entry of members into the church; the confirmation of a class of youth; the dedication of one’s life in baptism or other mark of the Christian; is not a graduation from something so much as an entrance into life -- a beginning on the way. If we are proper Christians, we are constant seekers, continual learners, being developed by the Holy Spirit of God. Meanwhile, we can be assured of His presence in trial and rejoicing.

That gift, that assurance, is for us as surely as it was for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 19, 1962 (Maundy Thursday Communion).