John 14:8-17, (25-27)

Note:  This passage is the Gospel reading for Pentecost Sunday, year C.  My sense is that most people prefer to -- and frankly should -- preach on the Pentecost story.  But a few tidbits here for sermonizing.

Tidbits for preaching:

παράκλητον ("paraclete", 14:16; 14:25)  This word is a tough one to translate.  As the NET Bible offers, "No single English word has exactly the same range of meaning as the Greek word."  

Thayer (via Accordance) defines it as this:

• Generally:  summoned, called to one’s side, especially called to one’s aid; hence,
• 1. one who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, counsel for defense, legal assistant; an advocate
• 2. universally, one who pleads another’s cause with one, an intercessor (including on behalf of sins)
• 3. in the widest sense, a helper, succorer, aider, assistant;...

Which is really interesting because you can move quickly into a legal metaphor- where the Holy Spirit becomes your lawyer before God the judge.  Sometimes this understanding of God's work, especially in regards to justification, is called "forensic."

However, in the Gospel of John, that is not the way in which the Spirit functions.  The Spirit never intervenes to tell God that we are not needing to be punished and that God should love us instead.  In fact, the only time the Spirit shows up in regard to judgment in the Gospel of John (chapter 16), it is doing the opposite -- it is judging the world!  Look at these two other uses of the word παράκλητον in John's Gospel

• John 14:26 But the παράκλητον, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
• John 15:26   “But when the παράκλητον comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, the will bear witness about me.

In short, the Spirit in the Gospel of John is NOT pointing God back to Jesus to remind God to be merciful, but the Spirit is pointing the disciples back to Jesus to remind us of who Jesus is!

(The NET Bible, which translates παράκλητον as advocate, goes through all the possibilities, indicates the short comings, acknowledges that this shortcoming, but wants to emphasize the power of the Spirit in the proclamation of Jesus)

κόσμος (literally cosmos, "world," 14:27)  This is an easy word to learn in Greek!  What I want to emphasize here is that the world, which God loves, is not an easy place.  Furthermore, in the Gospel of John the world consistently is hostile to God and the disciples.  The world is not loved because it deserves to be loved, the world is loved because God chooses to love it.