These two verses are now among the favorite verses of my older brother. My older brother, who has had to bear the burden of having not only one brother who is a preacher, but both of his brothers as preachers, and his father and his sister-in-law as preachers, as well. He has been the lone attorney in our family system. Which means he has borne more than his share of attorney jokes in the family. We gang up on him this way. He has been a good sport about sitting through dinner conversations of church stories and church politics. In the reading of this verse, he says, “You guys tell me all the time that Jesus was a preacher when he was here with us on earth. But this verse is evidence that when the resurrected Jesus came back to us as a spirit, he came back as an attorney!” Because Jesus says, I will send the Spirit to you, who will be the Advocate, the Counselor, and he will testify and he will cause you to testify as well.

 

It’s a new thought for me. But he is on pretty sound textual grounds, which is an unusual thing for my older brother, and I can't figure out a way to refute him. I think maybe he’s right. Jesus said, when the Spirit comes, the Father and I will send the Spirit to you. The Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify.

 

We are commissioned here out of this verse by Jesus to testify. To testify to the truth of what God has done in Jesus Christ. It’s the proclamation of the Gospel, I think, however we do it, whether we do it from the pulpit or with a witness, a testimony of our own lives. I think it’s a lifting up of the notion of attorney. Of counselor. Of advocate. In its best sense, in the honorable sense in which it serves so many people in the human community. The sense of the attorney as counselor. As wise coach. As encourager. As advocate acting on one’s behalf. When Jesus says that the Spirit will come. The Advocate will come from the Father and will testify to us. And not only will the Spirit testify to us, but as we hear and experience the Spirit testifying to us, we also will testify.

 

It makes me think of my ninth grade earth science teacher. I remember him still, standing in front of the class and holding a tuning fork in his hand, and another tuning fork in the other hand. He hit one on the table and it began to vibrate. Then, without hitting the second one, he drew the vibrating one close to the second, and the second began to vibrate as well, without their ever touching. The movement through the air, I take it, of the vibrations of the one, caused the other to vibrate as well. Jesus said, The Spirit will come upon you and will testify to you. And you also then will testify.

 

The Spirit moves amongst us. You also will testify, he says. What? You didn’t know you were going to be called to be an attorney? It wasn’t a part of your vocational image for yourself? No? That’s what the scripture says… you are going to bear witness. You also will be one who will be speaking the truth. You will see the presence of Jesus Christ again and again, not only throughout your life, but particularly throughout this summer, and you will bear witness to it. You will, through your words and through your actions and through your deeds, be an advocate in response to the advocate who will be speaking to you.

 

This is not something you had envisioned? Does it matter? The scripture says the Spirit of the Living God will come upon you and will prompt you to it. It will nudge you. It will push you. Like wind, it will blow you, filling the sail of your life to lead you into this work. You will see God in Jesus Christ and you will bear witness to it. You will see and you will believe. Bill has helped me to see that in the Gospel of John, when John remembers Jesus talking about seeing, he is always talking about us believing. In the Gospel of John, seeing is believing. You will see, you will believe, the Spirit of God moving. And it will bear witness to you of Jesus Christ, and you also will testify.

 

Most of the time when we do this Spirit testifying work, which you will do and which you have done, most of the time when we do this work, when we are nudged this way, when the sails of our lives are filled with the Spirit this way, we have a certain name that we use to refer to it. The certain word that you use, again and again I hear you use it, you call this nudging, pushing, instigating work of the Spirit “something.” That’s the word you use. You know what I’m talking about?

 

Well, for example, I think of a college counselor I saw at Montreat earlier this summer. She was talking about the small group she was working with, and she said to me, “Pastor, we were sitting there with the small group, a group of ninth graders, and I noticed this young man from Roanoke, Virginia, there, who had just had popped in with his group. He was listening, but he acted like something was troubling him. He didn’t speak. So when the group broke up and started to go their different ways, Something told me to hang back and talk to him.” Did you hear it?

 

“That wasn’t Something,” I said. “Sister, that was the Spirit! Something didn’t tell you to do that.

 

Or like when one of the choir members said to me, “You know, I was looking out from the choir, and there I noticed Mary Lou. I know it’s been a hard three years for Mary Lou. I know that she’s been through some hard times, and as I was looking at her, I remembered that my brother needed a receptionist at his office. I thought about her as a candidate for that. And Something told me to call her that afternoon and encourage her to call him.”

 

That wasn’t Something. That was the Spirit. That is the Spirit testifying to your spirit, and you also then will bear witness.

 

You will see the presence of Jesus Christ through the Spirit again and again and again in your life. You may call it different things, but you will bear witness to it.

 

You will see it in the beauty of creation. You will experience it in the support of relationships. You will taste it in the fellowship of summer gatherings. You will know it in the intimacy of meals. In the power of music to inspire your spirit in the experience of prayer.

 

In the unity of purpose, it will be the Spirit of Jesus Christ you are experiencing in that unity. You will experience it in the life of a Christian mind, as you engage with a difficult issue, and bring the Christian faith to bear on it.

 

You will find it in the work of your hands, and so the psalmist says,” O the work or our hands, O Lord, the work of our hands established thou it.”

 

You will feel the Spirit in the urge of compassion. You will know the Spirit of Jesus Christ at work, and you’ll find it in the sharing of laughter. You will also know it as you find the Spirit prompting you to speak at times. To testify on the Spirit’s behalf.

 

We know from the witness of scripture and from your own past experience that the Spirit will move amongst you. Sometimes it just seems like Jesus is showing up all over the place. And Jesus tells them it’s going to be like this. When I meet you, he says, I will have the Father send the Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who will testify amongst you. You also, you also will testify.

 

You know, there are a variety of ways to make this testimony. The promise from Jesus. I will come my Spirit will be amongst you and testify, and I promise I will testify. And when I do, you also then will be commissioned to testify. There is a variety of different ways in which people do this. You’ve heard me talk before about the woodcarving that I love, that is hanging in the United Nations building. Within this particular carving, in the lower bottom corner of it, there is a carving of a fisherman who, with one hand is pulling in a big fish out of the sea. With the other hand, he is handing this fish to a grocer. The grocer is wrapping up the fish with one hand, and with the other is handing a package to a pharmacist who is taking it into his laboratory, and with his other hand is handing medication to a parent who is holding then, with her other hand, a child. The child is stepping in the wood carving, while he is holding his mother’s hand, into a room where there is a teacher, and the teacher is pointing with one hand to a blackboard, and with the other hand is holding the hand of an ironworker, who is breaking the chains of a slave in yet another scene. Underneath the woodcarving it says, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all for the glory of God.”

 

That’s like you, you see. Whatever you do—teaching, commerce, parenting, liberating the oppressed, holding the hand of a child—is a form where the Spirit moves through you, testifying. I will go, says Jesus. I will have the Father send you the Spirit of truth, and the Spirit will testify. My spirit testifying to your spirit. And you also will testify.

 

Notice I put kind of a predestined spin on it there. He doesn’t say Maybe you will testify. What he says is You will testify. You will.

 

You are particularly called to make this testimony with the community around you. But the community around you seems so large to me. I’m sure you’re called to make that testimony in your actions, in your words, in your lives. To this group of people, to the people in your own homes, in your own neighborhoods. But you, you are such travelers. Why before the end of the summer, you will have been to the ends of the world and back. You will go many different places, and you will be at many different intersections. And it would be a wonderful thing to see a map of all the different places where you go, and all of the different places where you will bear testimony over the course of just this summer.

 

The Spirit will go with you, and testify to your spirit. Like the vibrations of the tuning fork, your spirit will feel it, and it also, then, will testify. God’s Spirit is moving amongst the people of God, and like the Pentecost winds, the Spirit of God is saying, “Come out! Come out! Be the church for me. Be the church to all the ends of the earth, all of the corners where I will send you. I will call you out, and you will testify, so Jesus promises. We are God’s witnesses.

 

What a great time it is to be commissioned and sent out this way. The world needs this Gospel, your testimony, just as greatly now as it has at any other time in human history. In fact, arguably, it needs it now. It is more relevant now than it ever has been before.

 

I lift up to you three articles I read. It’s secular. I say it again, not preacher magazines, but secular magazines this month that all spoke to the immediacy of the world’s need for your witness. One article that I am quoting directly here was talking about foreign policy in the Middle East, and it said, “What foreign policy today needs is thinkers like the Christian theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr.” I didn’t write this, remember. This is in a secular publication. It said, “We need more thinkers like Reinhold Niebuhr, the Christian theologian of the 1950s, especially who was such an influence on American statesmen and on governing officials. We need thinkers who, like Reinhold Niebuhr, can bear testimony to the effectiveness of a faith-shaped morality which guided at that time, leaders away from nuclear holocaust, especially during the Cold War.” Now that’s the secular magazine’s testimony about the world’s need for your witness.

 

And then the second article I ran across was talking about leadership. It was writing particularly in respect to the Enron scandal and the aftermath of that. It said, “In the face of this scandal of corporate greed, we now need people who can model for us the example and the kind of leadership which is shaped by humility. The kind of leadership that we saw in Jesus of Nazareth.” I almost dropped the magazine on the airplane! You know, that’s my talk. And there they were saying it in the secular world. We need leaders who can model and point to the kind of leadership, in humility, that was lifted up by Jesus of Nazareth.

 

Or this one, in an article about the terrible tragedy of the Congo that ran earlier this month. It said, “Nearly four million people have been killed in the Congo since 1998. Four million people. Now the International Refugee Committee of the United Nations, and Doctors Without Borders are saying, ‘Change must come, but it is only going to come here through the work of direct affiliation and change in hearts and minds, which will produce mercy and thus redirect affiliation.’”

 

That’s gospel work! I know gospel work when I hear it being called for. Hearts and minds moved in reconciliation to mercy. Leading to other mercy. The world needs your witness. You will testify. We need the witness you will make, both here in this community and in all the places you will be. And Jesus said, When I leave, when I go back to the Father, I will send the Spirit in my place. The Spirit of truth. And he will come and bear witness. He will testify. He will speak the truth to you, and you also will testify. The Spirit will guide you.

 

I take Jesus’ promise to being that God is not giving up on the world. That God is not giving up on the Church in the world yet. That God is promising that through the Spirit, God will move in the world, particularly through your testimony. The testimony of your lives and your words and your deeds. That Spirit sometimes will nudge you. That Spirit sometimes will feel like the wind filling the sail of your life. That Spirit sometimes will be a word, and sometimes it will sound like a song. Sometimes it will sound like a song. One of the songs that the Spirit shows up in my life often is this song we are going to sing as we prepare for prayer in a moment. The song, ‘Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.”

 

I had somebody I had to go and see in the community. Somebody who I was at a hard place with. I didn’t want to see him. So I dealt creatively with it by avoiding it. I just didn’t go and see him. I needed to, but I didn’t go. So the Spirit kept nudging me to that work that I was so effectively denying. In the middle of the day, Bill came by and said, “You know, I was thinking of all the people that we need to see, and I wonder if you had seen So-and-so yet.” I thought, “Get away from me, Spirit!” Later that day, my capable administrative aide, Diane King, put up on my door a sticky note that said, “Just a reminder that you want to be sure to see So-and-so this week.” I thought, “Get away from me, Spirit.” I just went home and ignored it. The next morning as I was leaving for work, Emalee (whom the Lord always uses as the speaker of the Spirit of truth to me), as I was going out the door, said, “Have a good day. And you know what? I don’t think you’ve seen So-and-so yet, have you?” I thought I can’t avoid it any longer. So I got in my car and I drove to that office building. You don’t need to know who…. I’m hoping you think maybe it was you. I went into the office building. It was work to drive there, to get myself in the foyer of that building, and stand at the elevator and push that button on the elevator.

 

I got inside and the Spirit started singing, “Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me….” Sometimes I forget the words, and when I do, the Spirit just makes them up. “Get off this elevator…. Walk over to that office door…. Knock on it…. Don’t turn around and run back down the stairs….Go sit down in the seat in front of that desk…. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.”

 

And I have more testimony. Jesus said, I will send the Spirit from the Father to you, the Spirit of truth. The Spirit will testify to you that you also, you also will testify.

 

 

©John T. DeBevoise 2006