Last week, we left Jesus saying goodbye to his disciples and telling them not to worry about what lies ahead for them in the Father’s house. Jesus also promised his disciples that they would do even greater things than they had seen Jesus do. As Jesus’ farewell discourse continues in what we read today, Jesus makes a promise of help for his disciples. The disciples will not do their greater works alone but will have another Advocate.

Now this term advocate may not be all that familiar to us. I rarely hear it used in everyday language except in the phrase "Devil’s Advocate." This phrase refers to someone who stirs up trouble. But what is this Advocate that Jesus is talking about and what is it going to do for the disciples?

If you look at this verse in different translations, this word Advocate is translated using a variety of terms: Helper, Comforter, Counselor, Intercessor, to name a few. But if we look at the root meaning of this word in Greek, we realize that it was not part of the everyday language of the people then either. It comes from the language used in the practice of law. It would be used to refer to one who was called in to help defend you in your case – perhaps the equivalent of our defense attorney.

A most direct definition of this word would be "one called to work alongside." So this Advocate, this Spirit of truth, is one who will work alongside the disciples as they do the things Christ has commanded them to do. Similar to the way that a defense attorney works alongside you to work for your cause, the Advocate will work alongside the disciples in order to work with them for God’s cause.

But if you look at Jesus’ words when he promises to send the Advocate, he doesn’t promise that it will be an Advocate but another Advocate. The disciples have already seen one Advocate in the person of Jesus. As they have followed Jesus throughout his ministry, he has been the one who has worked alongside them. He has been their Advocate.

Now, since Christ will soon be leaving them, they will not be left orphaned. This word translated "orphaned" not only refers to children left without a parent but disciples without a teacher. With Jesus’ promise, when Jesus leaves his disciples and ascends into heaven, they will not be like sheep without a shepherd or students without a teacher. The Spirit of truth will be their guide, their teacher, and their partner. The Spirit will work alongside the disciples in all they do.

As Jesus described the relationship he will have with the disciples in the time to come, the image of Russian nesting dolls came into my head. My parents had a set that I would take apart and put back together again as a child. Christ talks about the Spirit living within us and us living within Christ and Christ living within God.

[Bring out set of 4 nesting dolls and separate them.] [Smallest doll.] So we have the Spirit of truth – this Advocate – that Christ has promised to his disciples and one who will work alongside them. Christ says that the Spirit of truth will also abide with them and in them. So we each have within us a bit of this Spirit that works alongside us as we do the greater works that Christ promised his disciples they would do.

[Place smallest doll inside next doll.] One of the major limitations of the English language is that, unless you live in the South, there is no difference grammatically between you [point finger to individual] and you [point finger to include whole congregation]. Now here in the South, we talk about you and y’all. But in Greek and indeed most of the other languages that I have had some contact with have different words for you and y’all.

In this passage, Jesus is using the plural form of you. He’s saying y’all. So the promises he makes to his disciples are not to the individual disciple but to the group of disciples. So we could hear verse 20 a little differently with this knowledge. "On that day y’all will know that I am in my Father, and y’all [are] in me, and I [am] in y’all." So it is in the group that we know Christ. It is within the group that Christ dwells.

So the Spirit dwells within us both as an individual and as a part of the community – what we would call the church. We cannot be the church on our own. The church is not one person sitting alone studying his or her Bible. The church, by its very definition, is a community. It is people living in community and working to discern the will of God. And in Christ’s promise, he addresses not the individual but the community.

The Holy Spirit, as we will hear more about in a couple of weeks, came to the disciples and its power swept through the house where the disciples were staying and it spread out into the street and affected any and all who were near. The Holy Spirit will not be contained within one person or even within one house, but sweeps through the community.

[Place dolls in next doll.] And then the whole of the faithful community and indeed everything that is, dwells within God. [Place dolls in the largest doll.] In the passage that we read from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul preaches from the Areopagus in Athens and he tells the gathered crowd that "In [God] we live and move and have our being." All of our being – all that we are and aspire to be – rests within God.

But there is still one more piece to the equation. Love. Earlier in this farewell speech to his disciples, Jesus gave them a new commandment – Love one another. In this passage Jesus talks a bit more about the role of love. "They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

So perhaps we could look at love as the glue that binds everything together. It all goes back to the beginning of the gospel: For God so loved the world. That is the glue that holds John’s whole gospel together – love. Jesus’ ministry began with love and here as his ministry comes to a close, Jesus is ending it with love as well.

Now let’s look a little at the big picture of Jesus’ situation. Jesus is well aware that he doesn’t have much longer among his disciples. He knows that one of the ones he has loved and trusted will turn him over to the authorities who will give him a trial where he is presumed guilty. Then, they will kill him using a terribly painful method of execution.

But here Jesus is in the midst of knowing what is about to happed to him and he is not spouting out hate to those who are going to kill him. He isn’t looking to stir up the disciples to get ready for a riot. Instead of planning an insurrection, Jesus speaks words of comfort to his disciples, tenderly telling them that they will not be left alone. Christ in the midst of ensuing pain, speaks of love.

Christ promises to reveal himself to those who have love. It is in the community gathered together and bound by the love of God that Christ is revealed. There is a familiar hymn which says, "They will know we are Christians by our love." When we have that Spirit of truth inside us, which gathers us together into the community that is the church, truly love is the only thing that can bind us together in community. It is in the midst of love that Christ will reveal himself.

Perhaps in the midst of all the things which rightly trouble our hearts we need to love. It would have been easy for Christ on the eve of his arrest to spout words of hatred but instead he spoke of love. It would have been easy for Dr. King to call for hatred in the speech he delivered on the night before he was assassinated but instead he spoke of love. It would have been easy but instead of hate, love was proclaimed.

At pivotal moments in our history and in our individual lives there comes a time when it would be easier to call for hate than to pursue love. But within those times, during those pivotal moments, we are not alone. We have not been left without an Advocate. We have one who will work alongside us, lifting us up and binding us together in community and revealing God to us through love.

It will not be easy. Many times hate is easier than love in the moment. I heard hate defined recently as "drinking poison and hoping that someone else will suffer the consequences." Christ repeatedly talked to his disciples about the difficulty of the journey they were on. I have a news flash for you: Being a Christian is not easy. Loving when the world calls for hate. Being in community when the world calls for rugged individualism. This is not easy but we do not walk the road alone. God’s hand continues to guide us through the person of Christ and through God’s love revealed in the Holy Spirit – abiding with and in us – working alongside us in all that we do.