John 16:12-15
Trinity Sunday
June 15, 2025
William G. Carter
Jesus says, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear
them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth;
for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will
declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will
take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For
this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
Of all the
Bible texts I’ve read, this one has kept my curiosity the longest. For Jesus
says, “I still have many things to say to you.” It is one of the most astounding
declarations of scripture, that the Bible says what it says, but there is more
yet to be said. Christ keeps speaking. The life in Christ is an unfolding
revelation. We didn’t get it all the first time. And if we did, it would have
been too much to take in.
I am reminded of a story from the jazz world. One day a lady in pearls stepped up to ask Louis Armstrong a question. According to the legend, she asked the great trumpeter, “Mr. Armstrong, what is going on in your head when you make jazz?” He smiled a big smile and said, “Lady, if I could tell you, your head would explode.” In other words, it was more than she could manage.
That’s how it is with music. How much more, then, to understand God? Kathleen Norris tells a similar story. She said an Orthodox Church theologian gave a lecture at Yale Divinity School, she said. When he finished, some wisecracker in the back row shot up his hand to ask a question. “Father So-and-So, what should I do if I don’t believe everything that we say in the church’s creeds.” The priest said, “Say it anyway. With a little effort, you can learn it by heart.”
The smart student was taken aback, even insulted, and asked, “How can you say that?” The theologian said, “They aren’t your creeds. They are the creeds of the entire Christian church.” The student pushed again. The theologian listened and waited him out. Then he said, “Eventually it may come to you. For some it takes longer than for others.”
Kathleen said there was a chuckle in the room, and then some outrage. A few of the cultured intellectuals wanted to adjudicate the church’s historic beliefs through their own imperial opinions. “But you know,” she said, “the lecturer said made sense to her.” She had slipped away from the church of her grandmothers, and it took a while to find her way back. It happened as the ancient vocabulary was repeated and repeated.
She said, “I began to appreciate religious belief as a relationship, like a deep friendship, something that I could plunge into, not knowing exactly what I was doing or what would be demanded of me in the long run.”[1] Understanding takes time. True wisdom does not pour out of a faucet. Truth must be sifted from falsehood.
Jesus said, “I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now.”
When he said those words, the setting was the Last Supper. He was speaking to Peter, Thomas, James, and John, and all the others. Well, not Judas. Judas had already slipped out into the dark. I guess he couldn’t bear to stay with Jesus any longer.
As for the
others, their toes were still wet from the foot washing, and Jesus told them
they wouldn’t understand that either, not for a while.[2] Then he tells them he’s
leaving. They can’t come. Then He tells them he will return to “take them to
himself,” but he doesn’t say when or how. Then he promises they will not be “cut
off” from him yet doesn’t explain how they will stay connected.
There’s so much Jesus does not say. It’s because they can’t bear
it. They are not able to hear it. He understands they don’t understand. Can’t
understand. Not yet.
Now, we do like to master our information. My friend Tom tells
about the great 20th century preacher, George Buttrick. Buttrick was
flying on an airplane. And as he sat there, he had a legal pad in front of
him on which he was furiously scribbling some notes for Sunday’s sermon. The
man sitting in the seat next to Buttrick noticed this and inquired, “Say, what
are you working on there, sir.” Buttrick answered, “My sermon for Sunday
– I’m a Christian preacher.”
“Oh,” the man replied. “Well, I don’t like to get caught
up in the complexities of religion. I like to keep it simple. You know, ‘Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ The Golden Rule; that’s my
religion.”
“I see,” said Buttrick, “and may I ask what do you do
for a living?” And the man responded, “Why, I’m an astronomer. I teach
astrophysics at a university.”
“Ah, yes, astronomy,” Buttrick shot back. “Well, I don’t
like to get too caught up in the complexities of science, myself. ‘Twinkle,
twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.’ That’s my astronomy.
Who would ever need any more than that, eh?”[3]
We are tempted to just boil it down, aren’t we? There’s so much to
understand. There was so much for the followers of Jesus to understand. How
about the resurrection? He predicted it. They couldn’t comprehend. Or what about the crucifixion?
A brutal way to die, yet the Gospel of John see the cross as a moment of great
glory. That’s hard to comprehend. It takes some work.
Our text is
from John, and the whole Gospel of John is full of misunderstanding. Jesus comes
from the Father, where is the Father? Who is the Father? In chapter six, Jesus feeds
a huge crowd in the wilderness. They want to make him king; he says no. In
fact, as his fame increases, he goes into hiding; explain that! When Jesus
approaches the Holy City for the last time, he does not mount a horse like a
warrior; rather, he chooses to ride a humble donkey. It’s inexplicable.
Even then, the
crowds started waving palm branches. Palm branches, the sign of an insurrection
against the empire! That’s what they meant in the recent history of Israel. But
Jesus ignored what the crowds were demanding. As he said to Pontius Pilate, the
point guard for Rome, “My kingship doesn’t originate from around here.” Pilate
said, “Oh, are you a king?” He didn’t understand any better than anybody else.
So, here at
the Last Supper, Jesus addresses all of us, “I still have many things to say to
you, but you can’t bear to hear them.” There’s too much else on your minds. Too
many other distractions in your hearts. Too much nonsense cluttering your eyes.
Too much noise clamoring in your ears. And we wouldn’t understand it even if he
said it clearly – which he usually doesn’t do.
Yet there
comes a point at which we really want to know. Jesus, what is life? And
he says, “My words are spirit and life.” (6:63). We ask, “Jesus, what is the
Father like?” And he says, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
(14:9). And we want to know, “Jesus, how do we make our way through a world
like this?” And he says, “Love one another,” and we know that’s difficult.
So, he adds, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love
them, and we will come to them and make our home in them.” (14:23)
It just got
bigger, and that begs the question: how will you and the Father make your
home in us? And Jesus says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide
you into all the truth.” But what is truth? Is he referring to the truth about
us – which is not so good? Or is he referring to the truth about himself? To
which he says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will take what is mine and
declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine.” (16:13, 15).
Listen, it’s OK
if all of this makes your head explode. There’s so much to take in, so much to
comprehend, so much for us to grow into. It’s no wonder why the church keeps
teaching, or why the church has always built schools. One of the signs that a
church is alive is that it keeps reading, studying, and learning, because the
honest people inside affirm we don’t know everything. Even if we’ve heard so
much, we have not changed sufficiently to live what we have heard.
The Gospel is enormous.
The creativity of God initiates everything. The truth embodied in Christ
exposes everything as true or false. The power of the Holy Spirit reaches into
every relationship – individual, communal, economic, scientific, political –
nothing lies outside the influence of God’s infusing Spirit. My goodness: God
is up to a lot of goodness, often despite our imperfect goodness – or our
long-established resistance to goodness.
And Jesus, “I
still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear to hear them.”
The point is that
the Spirit of Christ keeps speaking. The Spirit of Christ is the ancient Jesus,
still speaking because the Father – the Creator – makes a world by speaking. In
the old Hebrew texts, the Holy One works by putting words into the air. God speaks,
and it is so. Jesus says, “Peace, be still,” and all wildness keeps silent. The
Holy Spirit speaks – as God speaks, as Jesus speaks – and life is restored,
renewed, reanimated. The silence is broken. All things continue. All things are
invited to flourish. And it’s all to God’s glory.
Officially
speaking, what we’re talking about is the inner life of the Trinity, but I don’t
expect you to remember that when you’re ordering omelets for brunch. No, what I
hope you remember is that the Voice, the One and Only Voice, the Voice that
said “Let there be you” - that Voice is still speaking, is still creating, is still
healing. That Voice is still building life-giving relationships is a world
preoccupied with its own destruction. The Only Voice that ever said, “Let there
be” is the One Voice that will lead us out of the dark into God’s glorious
light.
One of our church’s
creeds is the Theological Declaration of Barmen. It was composed ninety years
ago when racist Nazis threatened to reduce the abundance and diversity of God’s
world into a sham idol of their own construction. The Barmen Declaration says, “Jesus
Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God
which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.”[4] And Jesus keeps speaking.
There is no
other Voice that tells the truth about the sin of the world, no other Voice
that confronts the sin with the redeeming grace of God. There is no other Voice
that challenges our apathy and judges our selfishness. There is no other Voice
that breathes goodness and beauty back into the world. It all comes from Jesus.
He reveals the will of the Father. He keeps speaking in the Voice of his Holy
Spirit. He is the One who keeps nudging us into the future, God’s future.
You know,
there’s a lot more to say about this, but you can’t bear to hear it now. So, music
must take over when the words fizzle out. Let’s sing a hymn.
[1] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace:
A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1999) 64-66.
[2] John 13:7.
[3] Thanks to Tom Long.
[4] Theological Declaration of
Barmen, 8.11-12. Online at https://www.ekd.de/en/The-Barmen-Declaration-303.htm
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