John 14:23-29

A few days after my mother died following a prolonged illness, I felt very lonely. My father had died eleven years earlier. I realized I was now an orphan, a person without parents. I first heard the word orphan in Spanish, huerfano, when I was a young child. I did not understand the word, but it sounded scary. Later I heard the word again, and I asked my mother what the word meant. She explained to me that the word orphan meant a child who had lost father and mother, a child who had no parents. The word huerfano then really scared me.

When I was ten years old, I had a nightmare about the world ending. The worst part of the nightmare was that I was going to lose my parents. In my dream, the world was falling apart, torn by earthquakes, volcanoes, and meteors. I dreamed that children were separated from their parents in the violent turmoil. I started losing contact with my parents. I wept and screamed for help. Just then, God sent an angel on an asteroid and rescued my parents, my two brothers, and me. Although I was very scared, I felt relieved that God’s angel kept our family together. It was a horrific dream that I still remember, many years later.

Now that my mother and father were both dead, I felt like an orphan. I was not scared, but I felt very lonely. As in other difficult moments in my life, I turned to Holy Scripture. I read a passage I had preached from many times during funerals, chapter 14 of the Gospel of John.

In this particular passage, the Lord Jesus Christ prepares his disciples for his departure. He is leaving them and they will feel alone— “orphaned”—having lost their Master, their Lord. Jesus is acutely aware of their pending experience of grief, loss, and sense of abandonment. It is then that the Lord Jesus Christ offers them assurance that God will not forget them and will bless them, by telling them, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit . . . will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (14:26-27).

One of the great promises from God to humans is that God will be with us. When God calls Abram and Sarai to go forth from their home, God tells them he will be with them. When God calls Jacob, the promise is repeated. God assures Moses that the divine will be with him as he confronts the Egyptian pharaoh. The Lord Jesus Christ makes the same promise to his followers. God will not forget them or abandon them. God’s Holy Spirit will come to advocate, comfort, enlighten, guide, inspire, and keep them united as a faith community. God makes the same promise to us as we respond to Jesus Christ.

I felt greatly comforted as I read the words from John 14. The sharp sense of feeling alone diminished. I felt peace in my heart. As I kept praying and reading these two verses, I experienced the Holy Spirit gently soothing my spirit. It was more than a wonderful feeling; I experienced the Holy Spirit flowing into my being like fresh, soothing water.

Then I remembered my family, my wife and my two daughters. I remembered how much comfort and happiness they brought to me. I remembered my friends. I thought of one friend in particular. He had a powerful transforming conversion experience. He left a life of potential crime as a gang member, became a Christian, answered the call to ordained ministry, and became a fine pastor. He always said that fellow clergy were his brothers and sisters, that we were his family. Slowly, I realized I was no longer an orphan but, rather, blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life and by belonging to the family of Jesus Christ.

Through the church connection, I have met people who have lost everyone in their immediate families, sometimes in very tragic circumstances, sometimes over time. I find myself amazed as I listen to their stories of how God through the Advocate comforted them in very difficult, sad moments at a time of loss of loved ones. A truly wonderful blessing of faith community is that God surrounds these hurting people with persons who love them, sustain them, encourage them, and become their new families. God moves through faith communities to love and touch people in need. There are times when a faith community fails to share God’s love. God then uses other avenues, other people, other means to love and bless those in need. In those instances God uses a stranger’s smile, a kind word, a courtesy, or an approving look to touch a hurting person. God does not forget, but constantly blesses God’s people.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that in God’s kingdom there are no orphans, no lonely people, no abandoned children, no forgotten elderly, and no rejected individuals. In God’s kingdom, we have a caring Parent who never forgets us and never abandons us. Praise be to God!