The Parting Gift

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us” [John 14:8, NIV].

Generally, on Pentecost Sunday, one is drawn to the traditional first lesson offered by the Lectionary committee: Acts 2:1-21. After all, a significant portion of the contemporary church marks the Day of Pentecost as the moment of the church’s birth, with its rushing, powerful wind, its tongues of fire, not to mention the wonderfully strange phenomenon of the disciples’ sermons and presentations being uttered in their own native Galilean tongue yet heard and understood by “devout Jews from every nation under heaven” [Acts 2:5] in their own native languages.

As important as the Acts 2 text is for Pentecost Sunday, there are other readings from which we might choose. There’s the popular, at least on other occasions, Genesis 11:1-9 pericope, which relates the “Tower of Babel” story. Some NT scholars have seen the Acts 2 Pentecost story as a reversal of the scene at Babel. That’s a meditation topic for another day.

This year, however, I’m drawn to Sunday’s Gospel lesson [John 14:8-17, 25-27]. There’s no earth, wind, and fire here. Instead, we’re drawn into and within the final discourse between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus, knowing his days—no, his hours—are numbered, wants to offer his beloved ones some last bits of assurance, some final words of encouragement, some parting comments to ease their way into what He knows will be a frightening time. He knows the challenges will continue for many of them for years.

And so, earlier in the chapter that we number 14, He’s told them not to be troubled, that His Father’s house has many rooms, that He is going to prepare a place for them, that He will return and take them with him so that where He is, there they shall also be [John 14:1-3, NIV]. Those are soothing promises—promises that still speak to us today.

Sunday’s Gospel lesson begins with Philip’s response to Jesus’ effort to reassure his disciples. In spite of all that has been said and done, Philip counters, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us” [John 14:8].

One can almost hear the frustration and bewilderment in the voice of Jesus when He replies to his disciple, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?”

I wonder if Jesus was not in fact deeply hurt by the question. He continues, “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” [John 14:10].

Noted preacher and NT scholar, Will Willimon, commenting on this text, has allowed that it’s as if Jesus looked with both love and frustration at Philip and said, “Here it is, the night before the final exam, and you’re still clueless.”

To be sure, I think part of Jesus’ frustration is that He’s been “showing” the disciples what Yahweh looks like for three years. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Remember the one about the devoted father who, when he saw his prodigal son returning, pulled up his robe, ran down the pathway, and threw his arms around the lad with nothing but forgiveness in his heart?”

Or Jesus might be adding, “Remember the one about the farmer who’s out plowing in the field, and he uncoveres the treasure of immense value, and so he goes to the owner and gives up everything so that he can buy the field? God is like that farmer, for you are the treasure.”

Or Jesus might have told Philip, “Remember the one about the Good Shepherd, although no one in Palestinian society would call him a particularly good shepherd, since he risked the ninety-nine to go after the one stray sheep who was lost? Philip, have you ever felt lost?”

Our Lord might have reminded Philip that the God is like the woman baking bread; she trusts that just a little leaven will flavor the entire loaf. Yahweh is the type of God who did not condemn the woman at the well, or the woman caught in adultery (again, was the man not caught as well?), yet prompted them both to turn away from the choices they had earlier made.

It is as if Jesus, knowing that it is exceedingly difficult to describe the completely unfathomable Yahweh to the disciples—to us—instead seeks to have that conversation in multiple ways, using different means, knowing that some of his statements, healings, and parables will fall on rocky soil, some would fall among thorns, or along the busy pathway, but that some also would fall among good soil, where the fruit and the harvest will be overflowing. And so, in many actions and conversations spread out over almost three years with his disciples, Jesus didn’t so much describe Yahweh to His disciples; He showed Yahweh to them. He showed them that when they were with Jesus, they were equally with the Almighty. Therefore, here, on Maundy Thursday, on the night before the Cross, Jesus tells Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” [John 14:9].

And then, just when Philip might have been thinking that his Lord was angry with him for being so obtuse with his question, Jesus makes quite a remarkable statement. To this man who, like his fellow disciples, will soon either betray Jesus, deny Jesus, or, upon the Lord’s arrest, scatter like dandelions before the wind, Jesus says that if they believe in Him, after He returns to His Father, the works they do will be even greater than those done by Him [John 14:12].

Jesus, knowing what will soon happen in the Garden, cognizant of what lies ahead when he is brought before Pontius Pilate, when he travels along the Via Dolorosa, and when he is nailed to a cross on Golgotha, tells Philip and the others—a group who still don’t really understand who He is—that He is going to the Father and when He’s there, He will empower them by doing whatever they ask of Him in His name [14:13]. So that they clearly understand His sincerity, He even repeats himself:

You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it [John 14:14].

When Jesus returns to the Father, his work in the world is completed. His death, his resurrection, and his ascension all show the fullness of His love for the Father and the fullness of the Father’s love for the world. The disciples’ works, done after the selfless acts of Jesus Christ, are therefore greater because they will reveal the completed story of the Word made flesh [John 1]. Nothing intrinsic in the disciples makes their works greater; their’s are greater because they belong to a new eschatological age that is brought into being through the life-giving acts of Jesus. In that sense, the post-resurrection works of the disciples in Christ are really the continuing works of Christ and not their own.

And yet, there’s a question that is still likely on the lips of Philip and the others. How is all this going to be done in the absence of Jesus? Ah, but Jesus already has the answer. That’s when Jesus tells them/us the truly wonderful part of the story. He turns to them and says, “Well, beloved ones, I have one more gift.”

In verses 15-17, and then again in 25-27, Jesus reminds the disciples that while He has served as their first Advocate—their first Paraclete—after He has gone back to the Father, the Father will send them another Advocate. We know this Advocate as the Third Person in the Holy Trinity: the Holy Spirit. And what will this other Advocate—the Holy Spirit—do? Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit will “teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” [John 14:26].

Here, my friends, is the beautiful mystery. Our Lord’s promise of the Holy Spirit was not given to a wonderfully faithful, erudite, courageous, or clear-headed group of people, but rather to a group who almost to the end had difficulty “seeing” who Jesus actually was. It is remarkable, is it not, that Jesus made the promise of the Holy Spirit, emerging as it does from the union of God the Father and God the Son, at the very moment that such a level of Grace seemed beyond the disciples’ grasp. Jesus knew that the disciples were ill-equipped to continue His ministry on their own. He knew that they would need help—serious help.

He knows all too well that today, we also lack the ability to continue His works and Word on our own. That’s, of course, the truly majestic part of His “parting gift” of the Holy Spirit. It’s Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is here to teach us all things and to remind us of everything that Jesus has said. As we have seen Jesus, so we have also seen the Father, through the glorious gift of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God!