The Advocate: SALT's Commentary for Easter 6
Easter 6 (Year A): John 14:15-21 and Acts 17:22-31
Big Picture:
1) This is the sixth of the seven weeks of Eastertide. Between now and Pentecost, we’ll continue exploring Jesus’ teachings on faith and intimacy with God. Next week is the Ascension; in that sense, then, this week Jesus is on the verge of departure.
2) As we saw last week, Jesus is in the midst of his so-called “farewell discourses” to the disciples (John 13-17), and they are understandably distraught. Seeking to console and encourage them, first Jesus assures them that his departure isn’t abandonment: so long as they keep going along the Way toward God they’ve been traveling, they’ll still be together, since Jesus is “the Way” (John 14:6). And second, in this week’s reading, Jesus assures them that God will soon send “another Advocate, to be with you forever” (John 14:16).
3) The broad choreography of Jesus’ mission in John is worth keeping in mind: Jesus, God’s Word made flesh, comes to dwell with humanity and to recruit the first apostles; Jesus then departs from them in the flesh, precisely so he can dwell with them in a deeper way, “abiding in” them as they abide in him; and in addition, Jesus assures them, God will send the Holy Spirit, who will guide and empower them as the movement grows into the church, a community who will go on to do even “greater works” than Jesus did (John 14:12).
4) The reading from Acts is a speech by Paul, the book’s only major address to a Gentile (so-called “pagan”) audience. Paul delivers it at the Areopagus, a prominent rocky outcropping near the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Consistent with his philosophy of being “all things to all people,” Paul frames his message in terms of a local shrine and poet (1 Cor 9:22). And since Paul is the “apostle to the Gentiles” par excellence, exactly how he makes his case here (both what he says and what he doesn’t say) is telling. Speaking to a relatively “foreign” audience, he’s boiling down the Gospel to its essence — thereby revealing what he thinks that essence is!
Scripture:
1) In the context of Jesus assuring his disciples that he is by no means abandoning them, his teaching about the coming “Spirit of truth” is a soothing word of solace. “I will not leave you orphaned” (John 14:18).
2) This “Spirit,” Jesus explains, will serve as an “Advocate” (Greek Parakletos, “Helper,” literally “called alongside,” as a lawyer comes alongside a defendant, or a teacher comes alongside a student). The Spirit will teach them “everything,” even beyond what Jesus has taught (see John 16:12-13), and at the same time “remind” them of what Jesus said (John 14:26). Thus the Spirit will help them “have my commandments and keep them” — especially the new commandment to “love one another as I have loved you” — and thereby maintain their intimate, symbiotic communion with Jesus: “because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).
3) Speaking of symbiosis, perhaps the most famous line in Paul’s speech to the Athenians is this one: “In God we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). It’s not clear whether the line is original to Paul or is instead a quotation (since his remark, “as even some of your own poets have said” might only refer to “For we too are his offspring,” a quote from the ancient Greek poet, Aratus). But in any case, this “live, move, and have our being” line is a striking, head-spinning idea.
4) There’s a lot of talk, then and now, about God “up there” or “out there” or otherwise remote from us and the world, dropping in for an occasional visit or dwelling in special “sacred places”; as well as some talk about God being “within us” or “inside our hearts” or “present” in particular moments of love or wonder (potentially implying God’s absence in more ordinary, humdrum moments). But here Paul turns all that on its head: God isn’t remote, but rather is actually, intimately present everywhere, such that it’s we who are “inside” God, saturated with God through and through — and at the same time utterly dependent on God, not just for daily bread, but also for our ongoing life and movement and being itself. In short, for Paul, we are creatures in symbiotic communion with God. As Jesus puts it in John, “because I live, you also will live,” and “I am the vine, you are the branches,” and “Abide in me, as I abide in you” (John 14:19; 15:4-5).
5) The author of Luke also wrote Acts, and so Paul’s speech to the Athenians confirms that the climax of Luke’s Gospel is not Jesus’ death, but rather his resurrection. Indeed, Jesus’ death features in Paul’s proclamation here only insofar as death makes resurrection possible. For in “raising him from the dead,” Paul declares, God “has given assurance to all” that in the end, Jesus — the strong and tender shepherd, the challenging and merciful teacher, the one who said, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” and whose “new commandment” is “to love one another as I have loved you” — this one, this Jesus of Nazareth, will “judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31; Luke 23:34; John 13:34). In short: resurrection is a reassuring signal that love will have the final word.
Takeaways:
1) Jesus is saying, in effect, Don’t worry, the best is yet to come. I’m leaving, but I’m not abandoning you. We’ll still be together — and what’s more, God will send you another Advocate as well, the Spirit of truth. In other words, what’s coming isn’t distance but rather a radical closeness, a companionship so intimate as to blur any sharp distinction between companions.
2) Reading this passage from John together with the passage from Acts, what emerges is a series of nested spheres: the Spirit indwelling us (the Spirit “will be in you”); us indwelling Jesus (“abide in me”); Jesus indwelling God the Creator (“I am in my Father”); and all of creation, too, indwelling God, the One in whom “we live, and move, and have our being” (John 14:17; 15:4; 14:20; Acts 17:28). God is indeed “out there” — and also “in here,” within and without, as far away as the farthest star and as near as — nearer than! — our own breath. As Paul puts it, God “is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).
3) A human relationship with God, then, isn’t about relating to a far-off presence. Nor is it about relating to a merely “interior” one. Nor is it a matter of luring God to “come closer.” If we take Paul’s speech at the Areopagus seriously, God is already there, already here; it’s we who need to become more “present” and attentive. The divine life is swirling in and through and around all things, all the time, all the way out to the edges of creation and beyond. A prayer, for example, to borrow C.S. Lewis’ classic image, isn’t a telegram sent to a faraway deity but rather a “stepping in” to the ongoing divine dance: praying with God the Child, through God the Spirit, and to God the Father, Mother of us all. We can’t enhance the degree to which we “have our being” in God; the very fact that “we are” in any given moment we owe to God’s ongoing generosity. But we can enhance the degree to which we’re aware of this symbiosis, the degree to which we’re thankful for it, and the degree to which we live and act accordingly.
4) And speaking of action: in this passage in John, Jesus makes clear that “keeping my commandments” is important — but it’s not the most important thing. The most important thing, he says, is mutual indwelling, this intimate life together with God; “keeping commandments” will follow, as the night the day, from that symbiosis. Jesus doesn’t say, Keep my commandments, and then I’ll let you abide in me. Rather, he says, Abide in me, as I abide in you; love me as I have loved you; come close to me and live in me in love, and you will, by virtue of that closeness, keep my commandments. Love’s symbiosis comes first, and everything else flows from that wellspring. Our good works, then, don’t earn our way into God’s love; rather, they’re expressions of truly living with and in the God of Love. And the Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper “called alongside” us, is here to help us do just that — precisely so we might, in turn, come alongside a broken, beloved world.