"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. (John 15: 26,27)
When I was in grade school, we would eat our 'lunch box lunches' at our desks. Some days, while we dug into whatever our mothers happened to fill our boxes with, we played a game. I think we called it the telephone game. The kid sitting in the front row would think of a sentence, they would then whisper it in the ear of the person behind them. The process would be repeated until the whispering made its way through a couple rows of desks, or about 7 or 8 kids. The final person to hear the message would recite it out loud. The message usually ended up not even close to the original, which for some reason was highly entertaining for a bunch of grade schoolers.
Imagine if we were to play the telephone game, but instead of playing it with 7 or 8 people, we would play it with 100 people. Instead of finishing up the game in a minute or two, imagine stretching the game out for 2000+ years. Instead of using just one short message, we would use all the stories contained in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then, to make it really interesting, each time we whisper the message into the next person's ear - we would translate it into another language! The professional definition of a generation is approximately 20 years, so since the day that Jesus ascended into heaven, there have been roughly 100 generations and 2000 years. Linguists estimate that there are actually over 5,000 different languages spoken in the world today and there are about 200 different languages that have at least a million native speakers. How close to the original message would the end result be if left in the hands, or more accurately the mouths and the ears, of humans alone? The result would probably not be good, and if the outcome was not good then it for sure would be nothing to laugh about.
This past Sunday I was reminded in a sermon that I heard from the pulpit, that now that Jesus has ascended - 'we are the plan.' Before he went up into heaven, Jesus told his disciples to "...go and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19a) Hanging out in front of the command to go, is the silent and understood pronoun 'you.' The 'you' were those first disciples, those eyewitnesses, who were the one and only people who were to testify about Jesus. Now we, who are Jesus' present day disciples, are the one and only people who are to testify about Jesus. But thankfully for us, when Jesus went up into heaven, he didn't leave us to ourselves to play the telephone game with the precious gospel. Jesus sent the Counselor. The Spirit has given and preserved the gift of the Word, and this is good for us because his words "are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31) Jesus sent the Spirit of truth to make sure the truth of the life giving Gospel was preserved from generation 1 through generation 100 and beyond!
Because of the Holy Spirit, we can be sure that the Word is more than just words, in I Thessalonians we find "...our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction." (I Thessalonians 1:5) Sure, those gospel writers who were with Jesus could have penned fairly accurate accounts of what they witnessed. But on their own, how would they have known what was important enough to make the cut in the editing process? In the final words from the gospel of John we are told that, "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." (John 21:5) Thankfully Jesus sent the Spirit of truth to counsel the gospel writers on the content and to to breath life (2 Timothy 3:16a) and truth into the words.
We have the Spirit's testimony today - we have the Bible. And yet we often either take the power of the Bible for granted, or we simply don't take it at all. You have heard the cliche' about Bibles gathering dust, have you ever heard of a TV remote control gathering dust? How often do we reach for a TV remote control, or a video game controller, or a computer mouse each day? Compare that with how often we reach for a Bible. As we celebrate Pentecost this upcoming Sunday, we should send up a prayer thanking the Spirit for his work in his gift of the Bible - we would also do well to send up a prayer asking for help to better appreciate, respect and utilize the Word.
Living in 2010, we are NOT eyewitnesses of Jesus' life on this earth, but because of the way the Counselor works and because of the gift of the Word, we are also not 100 times or 2000 years removed from Jesus and the truth. In I Corinthians we learn: "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. (I Corinthians 2:12) Only because of the work of the Spirit do we understand what God has freely given us. And for those of us who do understand - we "also must testify," (verse 27) so that those who don't understand might, with the help of the Spirit, come to an understanding. Praise be to God the Holy Spirit, that Spirit of truth, that we are able to testify -that we are able to 'whisper into the ear' of the person next to us who has not yet heard, the pure ungarbled Gospel in perfect truth!
Dear Jesus,
Thanks for sending the Spirit of truth to those 1st century Christians who were responsible for putting on paper all that we know about your life - especially the part about you coming into this world to live a perfect life in our place and paying for our sins by your death on the cross. Help us to appreciate more and more the awesome gift we have in the pages of Scripture. Thanks to the Holy Spirit we are able to crack open the pages of the Bible anytime we want and be comforted by your promises. We have heard the Spirit testify and now we, along with the help of the Spirit, are the ones who need to testify so that others also may come to know your love. Send the Counselor to us today, to motivate us to get out there and get testifying! Amen!
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