John 14:15-21

This passage from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse begins and ends with love. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” says Jesus. “What commandments?” you might ask? In John’s gospel, Jesus gives only a single commandment, and it occurs in the chapter just before this one: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:14-35). He repeats this in the chapter that follows this one: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:12-13). 

“Love, love, love,” as Lennon and McCartney wrote; “All you need is love.” What does this love look like?  Jesus shows us: It looks like serving others humbly without concern for status or station (John 13:1-17). It looks like healing the sick (John 4:43-54, 5:1-14), giving sight to the blind (John 9:1-41), raising the dead (John 11:1-43), conversing with outcasts in a way that grants them dignity as God’s children (John 4:1-28), standing up for what is right in the face of power (John 2:13-19), feeding the hungry (John 6:1-14), and laying down his life for those he loves.     

Love one another.  If Jesus is our model, that’s a tall order. No one can hope to love others as Jesus did without help, and so Jesus promises that help. He will not leave his disciples orphaned (John 14:18). He will send the Spirit.  John uses the Greek word parakletos, or, in English, Paraclete. The word literally means one who comes along side you. It has been translated as comforter, helper, counselor, and encourager; the New Revised Standard Version translates it as “advocate,” the one who pleads your case, who takes your side, who intercedes for you, and who stands up for you. Note that Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit not as “the Paraclete,” but as “Another Paraclete.” Jesus was the first, which explains why this Paraclete will come only after Jesus himself departs. 

There have been Christian traditions that interpreted the Spirit’s advocacy role as interceding for us before God like a lawyer in a courtroom before a judge. In this interpretation, the Spirit is one who pleads our case that, though we have sinned, because of Jesus and his sacrifice we deserve to be forgiven. The picture of God that this implies – God as needing to be persuaded to love and forgive us – doesn’t fit with John’s confession that “God so loved the world that God gave the only Son…” (John 3:16).  David Lose writes, “So perhaps it’s actually the other way around. Perhaps it is the Spirit who intercedes on God’s behalf before us. That is, perhaps the Spirit is the one who comes to remind us of our identity as children of God, as sheep who recognize the voice of our shepherd, those for whom the good shepherd lays down his life. Because, Lord knows, that can be a hard identity to hold onto, a hard identity to believe is really ours, especially when we are stressed or frightened, unsure about our future and it feels like everything has been turned upside down.”

It is that very advocacy, that comfort, that encouragement that we need in order to keep Jesus’ commandments – in order to love one another. “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  Jaime Clark-Soles writes, “What appeared to be bad news to the disciples, namely Jesus’ departure from them, turned out to be the best of news for both them and us. While Jesus walked the earth, his ministry was limited to one locale and one person, himself. Upon his departure, his disciples are given the Spirit and moved from apprentices to full, mature revealers of God’s love. And this happens not just to the first disciples, but all those who would come later, those who never saw the historical Jesus. You see, the evangelist [that is, the author of the Gospel of John] insists that present believers have no disadvantage in comparison to the first believers. Everything they were taught and they experienced is available to the same degree and with equally rich texture to us.”

Available to the same degree.  This is stunning, when you think about it. Jesus says, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:18-19). Wrap your head around that: Jesus is in God, and we are in him, and he is in us. We are included in him and in his ministry. Clark-Soles coined the word “Quattrinity” to describe John’s view of Christ’s believers: “In John, Jesus insists that the intimate relationship that exists between him, God, and the Spirit also includes believers. The believer does not stand close by admiring the majesty of the Trinity; rather, she is an equal part of it. John tries to push at this by grabbing hold of a number of terms and repeating them: abide, love, the language of being “in” (14:17 and 20), and later in the Discourse, an emphasis on “one-ness” (cf. 17:21-23). Johannine believers don’t ‘imitate’ Jesus; they participate in him wholly.”

In a couple of weeks, on Pentecost Sunday, the Church celebrates the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, our Helper, the one who helps us love by assuring us that we are fully loved.  In the Book of Acts, the Spirit comes after Jesus has ascended to God (Acts 2).  In John’s Gospel, the disciples receive the Holy Spirit directly from Jesus that first Easter night (John 20:21).  What matters is not how or when but our experience that the power of God’s love for us in turn empowers us to love.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:

David Lose, https://www.davidlose.net/2020/05/easter-6-a-spirit-work/   

Jaime Clark-Soles, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter/commentary-on-john-1415-21-2