22 May 2022
Text: John 16:23-33
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Most of the time, people didn’t call our Lord by His name, “Jesus.” Nor did they call Him by His title: “Christ.” Most of the time, they didn’t even call Him “Lord.” He was typically addressed as “Teacher.”
And good teachers are master wordsmiths. They bring us to understanding by means of language, by argument, by explanation, by carefully chosen words. Of course, our Lord’s challenge is to take the profound things of the kingdom of God, and make them understandable to us poor, miserable sinners – even though our own minds are clouded by sin, corrupted by our rebellious will, and limited by our fallen human faculties. And so, like all great teachers, our Lord, the greatest teacher who has ever walked the earth, uses “figures of speech” to convey meaning to us. He speaks in parables and leads His hearers through questions and answers in what is today called “the Socratic method.” He uses stories to teach us about the kingdom.
Even the devil knows the importance of story to change hearts and minds, and this is why Satan has such influence over movies and TV shows and pop music and the arts. This is how our culture has been able to shift away from the good, the true, and the beautiful so quickly. Most people consume content for their eyes and ears and hearts and minds, for hours and hours a day, consisting of the bad, the lie, and the ugly – wrapped up in Luciferian storylines streamed in on Disney or Netflix or video games. Satan rarely speaks plainly, but typically uses the “figurative language” of flashing images to corrupt us. Even the commercials present potent pictures and stories seeking to normalize that which is not normal or God-pleasing, teaching us to question reality itself.
Of course, Satan cannot invent anything new. He can only counterfeit that which God has created. Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches truth to everyone from kings to peasants, friends and foes, the condemned and the redeemed alike – in many and various ways. And the devil teaches lies to all who will listen.
On this particular occasion, our Lord promises that there will come a time when He “will no longer speak to [us] in figures of speech.” For when we are ready, He will speak to us “plainly about the Father.” The word translated as “plainly” can be understood as “bluntly” or “frankly.” And Jesus gives His disciples a little taste of this bluntness. “Ah,” they say, “now You are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech!” It is as if a lightbulb has gone off, and the disciples now understand something that was not clear to them before. “Now we know that You know all things” they say, and “this is why we believe that you came from God.”
In some cases, illustrations and metaphors and parables and stories bring about understanding. In other cases, it is straight, blunt talk that does the trick. Sometimes people are offended by our Lord’s at-times shocking bluntness. And when they are offended, our Lord, the Teacher, never apologizes. In fact, again and again, He doubles down. When Jesus is speaking plainly, it is a good time to listen, dear friends, and to lay aside your defensiveness. If you hear Jesus preaching the Law, it means you need to hear the Law. If your first reaction to Jesus is anger, that is a good thing. Stay with Jesus. Hear Him out. He is getting to the source of your infection, and then you will be on the road to healing and recovery.
Our Lord tells the disciples some hard things – realities that they will deny and protest against. He tells them that soon they will all scatter, and “will leave [Him] alone.” When Jesus speaks plainly in this way to Peter, Peter cannot believe it. He won’t believe it until the rooster crows. When Jesus speaks plainly that He will be arrested, crucified, put to death, and on the third day rise again, the disciples still do not understand, nor will they until Easter, until the Road to Emmaus, until Jesus breathes the Spirit on them at their ordinations, and until the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost.
Jesus preaches for three years using “figures of speech,” stories, parables, and analogies to teach about the kingdom. And in some cases, His enemies know exactly what these parables mean, and they determine to kill Him. Others are so immersed in the world and its works and ways that they don’t understand the kingdom at all, and they wander away with hearts unmoved.
But the disciples hang on His every word, whether they understand right away or not. For faith is putting trust in a promise, in a word spoken now as a down-payment on the future. And for us, dear friends, our Lord’s parables are made clear by Jesus’ “speaking plainly,” saying such things as: “I forgive you all your sins” and “Take, eat, this is My body… this cup is the New Testament in My blood.”
Our response to these blunt declarations spoken by Jesus through His ministers ought to be that of the disciples: “Ah, now You are speaking plainly and not using figurative language.”
How sad that some Christians take the plain, blunt words of our Lord speaking plainly, “This is My body,” and treat it as if He were still “using figurative speech.” For Jesus tells us what the Eucharist is, and what it is for (“for the forgiveness of sins”). And if the forgiveness is literal, so too is His declaration that this “is” His body and this “is” His blood. As the great writer Flannery O’Connor said concerning the Lord’s Supper: “If it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.”
Dear friends, we kneel here, we reverently bow and fold our hands and cross ourselves. We offer a verbal “Amen” to our Lord’s plain assertion that this is “the body of Christ” and “the blood of Christ.” And during the Service of the Word, when you hear the plain and blunt language “This is the Word of the Lord,” you respond with gratitude: “Thanks be to God.” For these words are no mere symbols either. As St. Peter confessed, these are “the words of eternal life.” For if the words of Scripture are only symbols, if the resurrection is only a symbol, if Jesus is only a symbol, if forgiveness, life, and salvation are only symbols – then to hell with it, with all of it. But if these words are true, then to hell with anything that would come between us and these life-giving words and precious sacraments!
Why are we here, dear friends? We are here because we believe the Lord’s words – His plainly spoken words that we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that our sins are forgiven in that same sacred baptismal, Triune Name – the name that is above every name. We confess plainly that He is present here in His body and blood “for the forgiveness of sins.” And while our Lord uses “figurative speech” in order to teach us about the kingdom, when He decides to speak bluntly and plainly, we had better listen.
For our Lord’s “speaking plainly” isn’t only the Law, dear friends. Our Lord speaks bluntly to those seeking His help. He tells people plainly that their sins are forgiven, that their faith has made them well, that they will rise from the dead, that they will be with Him in paradise, that He will be with them always until the end of the age, that He is coming again in glory to create a new heaven and a new earth.
His crucifixion was not a symbol, but rather the plain reality of His love for us, His atonement for all of our sins, and the free gift of His righteousness won for you at the cross, proclaimed to you in the Word, and shared bodily with you in the sacraments.
Jesus speaks plainly so that “in [Him] you may have peace.” Our Lord promises true peace, dear brothers and sisters, and not some figurative or symbolic peace. Our Teacher tells us plainly that “in the world, you will have tribulation,” but just as plainly He promises and asserts bluntly: “Take heart; I have overcome the world.”
“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
