Exaudi 2025
Exaudi
John 15:26—16:4
June 1, 2025
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Last Thursday was the Ascension, next Sunday is Pentecost. This means the theme is shifting away from Christ’s resurrection to the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. Jesus today says He will send the Holy Spirit to the Church from the Father: “When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father … He will testify of Me.” “Helper” is the NKJ translation of παράκλητος (or, Paraclete). Besides “helper,” it’s sometimes rendered advocate, counselor, or comforter. Advocate and counselor are often used because a Paraclete can be a legal advisor. You can see that legal aspect coming out with the word testify, “He will testify of Me.”
Jesus is teaching His Apostles about the Trinity: “When the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.” The Spirit proceeds from the Father, but who sends the Spirit? Jesus. The Nicene Creed summarizes this elegantly, telling us the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.”
Now why do we need the Paraclete? What sort of helper, what kind of counsel and comfort do we need?
The world is filled with lies. Demons sow doubt, disorder, and confusion. Jesus calls the Paraclete the Spirit of truth. Earlier in this discourse, Jesus told the Apostles that the Spirit would help their memory:
The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. [Jn 14:26f]
Jesus is telling us about what will become the New Testament. The NT is the words of Jesus, and His deeds, written by the Apostles with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is why we call them inspired - you hear the word spirit there? The Scriptures are “in-spirited,” or as St. Paul says, “God-breathed.” In other words, the Spirit inspires the Apostles to tell the truth about Jesus to the world, and they wrote that Truth down in the documents that became our New Testament.
What does this mean for you? If you want to know the Truth, you stay close to the Scriptures. Now some churches will tell you that you are too ignorant to understand the Bible; the Bible is an unclear book that can only be understood by popes and priests, theologians and mystics. This is nothing less than an insult to the Holy Spirit, who is apparently unable to write a clear sentence.
“Not men illumine Scripture, but Scripture illumines men.”
The technical term for the clarity of Scripture is “perspicuity.” I’ve always thought it funny that the word for clarity is a hard word to remember and spell, but there it is. One of our great teachers, Franz Pieper, wrote about this in His magnum opus Christian Dogmatics:
According to the Roman doctrine, Scripture becomes clear through the light emanating from the “Church,” that is, from the Pope. According to the doctrine of the “enthusiasts” of all ages, it is illumined by the “inner light,” which is communicated immediately. According to the view of modern theology, the Bible is “divine-human” in the sense that Scripture presents a mixture of truth and error, and it is the business of “the self-consciousness of the theologizing subject” to shed light upon this confusion—by means of his “experience” he separates the truth from the error and thus clarifies Scripture. All these views regarding the “perspicuity” of Scripture have one common feature: It is man who must illumine Holy Scripture. According to the teaching of Scripture, however, exactly the opposite relation obtains. Not men illumine Scripture, but Scripture illumines men. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Ps. 119:105). [I:319-320]
That’s the key thought here: “Not men illumine Scripture, but Scripture illumines men.” Scripture illumines us. To tell the truth, then, is to start by saying what Scripture says about us. The boys and girls who will be receiving their first communion today, one of the things we did in every session was work on the Catechism’s “Christian Questions with their Answers.” The first question is simply, “Do you believe that you are a sinner?” Answer: “Yes, I believe it. I am a sinner.” “How do you know this? From the Ten Commandments, which I have not kept.”
These are not hard-to-understand concepts. The Bible is very clear. You shall have no other gods. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath Day. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not covet.
Not hard to understand. Hard to do. Even harder to confess, “Yes, I am a sinner, I have not kept the Ten Commandments.” Everyone wants to say, “I am a good person.” The truth is, you are not.
So the Truth the Holy Spirit testifies to is at once easy and hard. Easy to understand, hard to confess. Our nature wants to glorify self. We don’t need a savior, we don’t want a savior, we want a therapist, a trainer, someone who can help give us a boost toward self-improvement, self-actualization, mindfulness. This truth is difficult to confess. But from the Scriptures this truth is clear.
“Jesus institutes no priestly caste of interpreters, but He sends out witnesses who testify of Him.”
So Jesus institutes no priestly caste of interpreters, no magisterial supreme court that hands down decrees about what the Scriptures really mean. Jesus institutes not a caste of interpreters, but He sends out witnesses who testify of who Jesus is, what Jesus said, what Jesus did.
That’s what the Scriptures give us. The Bible shows us who we are—sinners—and who Jesus is—Savior. And having given us that, we are invited to confess that truth and receive His forgiveness.
That forgiveness changes us. In today’s Epistle, we get the heart of being a disciple of Jesus: “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” Not our own sins; that forgiveness we get from Christ. The love here is our own love for others who sin against us.
“The only footnotes to the Bible are the ones we put there.”
That is difficult. It’s not difficult understanding the Bible, the Bible is clear – but it is very difficult to confess and do what it says. A lot of the extraneous, fanciful theology is finding interpretations around the clear teaching. Men look for some way to explain the Bible in a way that ends up rationalizing our continued unwillingness to just do what the Bible says. Let’s be honest; the first thing we think when we hear a saying like, “Turn the other cheek” is, “But what about this situation? I’m not turning the other cheek for that jerk. I want justice!” But the only footnotes to the Bible are the ones we put there. The only qualifications and rationalizations are the ones we invent, loopholes to subvert and dismiss the clear Word of God.
This is because the hardest thing in the world to do is forgive, really forgive. But love covers a multitude of sins. That’s what we are called to do. We cover the sins of others (not as a cover-up, like hiding a scandal) - it means that we don’t look at them any more, we don’t see them, we don’t remember them. That’s hard. Grudges stick in the mind, they fester, they poison.
The Eucharist is the antidote to that poison. The Eucharist is the medicine to soothe the heartburn of the sins others commit against us. The Eucharist is the medicine of immortality. This sacrament is the greatest thing in the world, because here, the love of Jesus covers the multitude of our sins. And we pray that from it, we begin to do the same for others. That’s the truth that will set you free.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!