"Spiritual Truths" - John 15:26-27; 16:12-13 (5-31-09)

The truth is that my shaver still works and that is not why I have grown a beard since last week. That’s the truth. I just want to see what a beard would look like on me at this point in the year. But today is Pentecost and the Holy Spirit leads us into all the truth. We are Pentecost people so look at someone and tell them they are Pentecostal. Ah, what does that mean? It seems that those people don’t seek truth but only an emotional experience of faith.
Yet truth is what we are being led into as Pentecostal Lutheran Christians. We keep search for truth. We want to know the truth. I’d like you to raise you right hand and place your hand on a Bible. Are you here to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Well I recently stumbled upon some truth. How many planets are there in our solar system? Eight you might say but I still say nine. In the past years, Pluto has been downgraded to just a moon! Well I still think of it as a planet! The truth is, we thought the earth was flat at one point and the earth was the center of the universe and found out otherwise and the faith community persecuted scientific exploration. We are emerging from one generation to another with more insight and knowledge on our quest for truth.
We know that the opposite of truth is called a lie. We don’t like to be deceived or receive false information. There is even a commandment that deals with truth telling, “You shall not bear false witness against another.” We hear in John 8 that the evil one is called the “father of lies”. So I don’t want to be a liar and still say that there are nine planets or the earth is flat. Pastor Steve Young’s fundamentalist pastor back in the early 1960’s still believed Revelation 7:7 where it says that the four angels of God stood at the four corners of the earth. He still thought the earth was flat and the NASA program was a hoax.
Truth can be discovered three main ways. We first find truth through experience. Unfortunately we learn more from the school of hard knocks. Experience teaches us that there are many things we learn by experimentation. The stove is hot but it’s not until you get burned that you have experienced that truth. This form of truth relates to those things that happen and are verifiable through experimentation. When we experiment and test something to be true, this can lead to a form of idolatry where experience rules.
But we also discover truth through reason. Luther said unless he could be convinced by scripture and reason, he wouldn’t recant what he had said about the truth of the gospel. It is reasonable to give a sixteen year old drivers license? Yet reason is the presupposition of faith and faith is the “fulfillment of reason as the mind understands the finitude of our abilities to experience of understand the immeasurability of God”. (Tillich). Reason can point to faith as making sense because we reason that we are finite.
But beyond reason we discover revelation. Revelation is the experience in which the unveiling of the infinite or ultimate concern grasps us and breaks into our finite lives and we find peace. The word for truth is aletheia, which is the Greek that means the “unhiddenness” or revelation of a mystery! We discovered God’s unhiddenness in the absolute truth found in Jesus Christ. John the Baptist came to testify to the truth that is Jesus Christ.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus said that the “Spirit of truth” would come upon them. The spirit of truth is mentioned also in John 14:16-17 where Jesus said it will live in the disciples and the world cannot receive this truth because it is hostile to the truth about our nature; about laws and about grace!
The “Spirit of Truth” would also testify about Jesus, which means it would bear witness to who Jesus was by reminding them and teaching them. The Greek word for “witness” is martereo (or martyr) which was a legal term from Roman law; to testify about something, in this case the ultimate concern has broken into our finite world and they should tell everyone. The reality is we have been brought here because we recognize a few truths first of all about ourselves. The “Spirit of truth” leads us to see the truth about ourselves and the reality that we do break the truths of God’s commands. The “Spirit of Truth” will testify to us and through us not only about us but also about grace revealed in Christ. It is that same “Spirit of Truth” that leads us to be graceful toward others. We must beware of “excessive certainty" that prevents us from connecting with people who don’t believe in objective truth. We hear the lie that there are no absolute truths, which is an absolute statement of belief.
The last thing the “Spirit of truth” will do will to “guide them into all the truth.” This expresses the reality that there is a “constraint in time” with the disciples, for they only have three years with Jesus. It acknowledges that the revelation of God will continue in different ways in the future and the Holy Spirit will guide them. Our desire to learn and develop is a God given presence. We want to learn more and we do discover knew knowledge that shapes our faith. We actually learn more about God when we study world religions, medicine, biology, sociology, math, psychology, anthropology, math, music, art, etc. Students who are seeking and asking questions should be encouraged to do so and be guided with an open mind and heart.
The Holy Spirit is leading us into all the truth. When we confess our faith in God through the words of the Apostle’s Creed, we believe say that we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church. That means we discover truth not in a vacuum but it is revealed to us also in the context of community that is catholic, universal. We believe in the “communion of saints”, that in the sorrow of loss we know the truth that not even death separates us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus. When we confess that we believe “in the forgiveness of sins”, we know that we make mistakes in our journey toward all the truth. And until that day when the “life everlasting” is fully revealed, we discover more and more of the truth about ourselves and God.
Let us pray: Gracious God, send your Holy Spirit to lead us, call us and gather us in community where your spirit stirs. Come Holy Spirit, intercede for us with sighs too deep for words to express because we don’t even know how we aught to pray. Come Holy Spirit; breathe on us again, we pray in Jesus name, Amen!