“CANTATE 2023”
Saint John 16: 16-23
Cantate: 7 May Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
The Lord Jesus is always going His way. The Lord God is the actor the subject. All else is His creation. All man belongs to Him. All His Saints are cared for by Him. You are the objects—the objects of God, Who is love.
“But now I go My way to Him that sent me.” Christ is letting all His Disciples know once again the mystery, but the comforting truth of The Holy Trinity. Your God is no immobile, passive, absent monad. Oh, yes, God is One, but His One-ness is manifested in His Triune-ness. There is an inner movement, community, activity of love between The Holy Persons of The Trinity. The loving Father, the beloved Son, and The Spirit—the communication of said Love as being, as action.
Most Christians do not understand this. Okay. Many Christians think that by being smart and by studying and memorizing they will understand this. Not okay. Worship The Lord! Do not seek to “master” The Lord. Many Christians are not even Trinitarian. They are either Arians—the absolute worse heresy there can be, or, they are Modalists thinking (and speaking) constantly about Father God.
Jesus is clear. Sinful man because of sinful limitations sees, and hears, only through a glass—darkly. Jesus The One Who ascends (we celebrate The Feast of The Ascension Thursday May 18th) is He Who first “descended” into the womb of The Blessed Virgin—INCARNATION. Mysteries abound. And this, is how you “sing unto The Lord a new song.” He, on the night in which He was betrayed instituted the New Testament. An actual physical and solid testament—a “delivery” of all His wealth and possessions to you.
Yes, the sinner would rather have The Lord amongst them and theirs in the way Christ traveled with His Disciples. You would rather have things your way. The “12” did not want Jesus to “go away.” And by “go away” what Jesus meant was that His visual and “local” presence would be no more so that even greater gifts could be given by Him to His own. The “12” were filled with sorrow. You are filled with doubt, weak faith, and by your actions most of the time (during the week) indifference and lack of even thinking/contemplating Christ for you!
Jesus speaks to you. He gospels good news to you. “I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away…The Comforter (The Holy Ghost/Spirit) will come to you, I will send Him unto you.”
This is how Jesus is always going His way, how The Lord Christ always comes to you and for you—by The Holy Spirit. You have already confessed The Faith this morning; your belief in The Holy Spirit as The Lord and Giver of Life—Who with The Father and The + Son is worshipped and glorified. The Comforter is God, The Third Person. And while in the inter-Trinitarian mysteries beyond human understanding and before creation has the unbegotten Father, the begotten Son, and The Comforter Proceeding from both of them; but then also, in time, at a place, Christ Jesus sends The Holy Ghost to be the Paraclete, the Defender and Evangelist to all of you. He breathes on the Disciples The Holy Spirit on Easter evening. He sends The Paraclete to the “12” on the day of Pentecost. He sends The Paraclete to all of you in your Holy + Baptisms (the Dove lights on you in those waters of regeneration the way The Paraclete lighted on He Who is Light of Light in the Jordan River).
If you want Jesus in your life, in your blackened heart. There is only one way to have Him. Not your way. Not by memory or works or will-power; not by emotionalism or charismatic nonsense. The Lord Jesus is The Word. The Word only comes by His own designated means—His delivery systems—His instruments. Period. Christ comes only by and in The Words of Holy Scripture and in The Words attached to The Blessed Sacraments. The Holy Ghost has you daily remember and thank God for your Baptism. The Spirit guides you into Holy Confession and Absolution. The Paraclete leads you to the Altar of He Who sacrificed His Body and Blood for you on a different altar 2,000 years ago but now delivers the fruit of that sacrifice, really and truly. The Lord and Giver of Life stands in the pulpit of your pastor’s larynx and mouth and tongue to speak Jesus’ peace and loosing into your ears, and thus, your souls. The Spirit has you listen intently to both sermon and to daily encounters with The Scriptures in singing, praying (The Psalter) and meditating (reading intently and devotionally).
The Holy Ghost is the “Spirit of Truth” as Christ calls Him. Yes. The Sanctified, set-apart, Pneuma—wind, breath, animating Life of Truth. Jesus is Truth.
You are given The Word. The Word is in you. You are in The Word. The Comforter gives you comfort. You are glorified.
Still weary? Yes. Still sinful? Sadly yes. Still aching and suffering and fretting and worrying and slipping farther down the lonely and difficult path of life in a dying world? I am afraid so.
No emotion. No pep-talk. No sudden “electrical infusion” of giddy energy. Nope. Only the Comforter bringing you the real Peace which Passeth Understanding in The Word of The Lord which endures forever!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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