The Spirit of Reality: Knowing the Truth in Troubling Times

Exaudi – The Seventh Sunday of Easter, 29^th of May, A+D 2009
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
The Spirit of Reality:  Knowing the Truth in Troubling Times

   The Spirit of Reality.  Our secretary, Karla Efird, finds the images that grace our bulletin cover.  Sometimes I will make a suggestion, but usually not.  Karla looks at the readings and searches on the internet to find an image or a piece of art that fits.  Very often, without consulting one another, Karla will pick out a verse of our Scripture readings or a picture that go very well with the particular theme I am building my sermon around.  And, once in a while, what Karla finds will give me an idea, a perspective I hadn’t seen, that I realize should be the kernel that guides my preaching.  Like today.  The Spirit of Reality.  Karla searched for an image to go with John 15:26.  But the translation of this verse on the image she found is a bit different from what we have from the ESV, the English Standard Version, the translation we most often use.  Our cover’s translation is different, still faithful, and interesting. 

   In our readings just heard, in John 15:26, Jesus says, “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.   On our cover, this same verse is translated, ^“But when the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of reality, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify concerning me.”   There are three differences.  First, our cover translates “paraclete” as Comforter, the ESV uses “Helper.”  Both are good translations.  Paraclete is one of those Greek words that covers a lot of ground in English.  It can be translated “Advocate,” as in your defense lawyer.  Also Helper, Encourager, or Comforter.  Take your pick.  At the end, the ESV says “he will bear witness about me,” while our cover says “he will testify concerning me.”  Different ways to say the same thing, brought into our mixed-up English language from different sources.  Just like ‘ghost’ and ‘spirit,’ ‘witness’ has Germanic origins, while ‘testify’ comes from Latin.

   The interesting difference comes in the middle.  The ESV uses the standard ‘Spirit of Truth.  This is good and right.  Our cover says ‘Spirit of Reality.’  Reality and Truth.  These are not in conflict.  Saying ‘Spirit of Reality,’ while unusual, is intriguing.  We associate ‘truth’ with honesty and accuracy, with not lying.  And of course, the Spirit of God is honest and accurate.  What He says to comfort and help us is true, always. 

   Despite what we or others might perceive or think, the Holy Spirit accurately describes how things truly are.  That is to say, He accurately describes reality.  The Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of Reality. 

   This neatly explains a fundamental challenge of the Christian faith.  All kinds of authorities try to tell us reality is one way, that God doesn’t exist, or that Jesus is but one way to find spiritual wholeness, or that the Bible is not reliable.  But the Spirit of Christ tells us the truth, that reality is different, even though our eyes can’t always see it.  And, knowing and believing reality, God’s reality, makes all the difference.  The Spirit Jesus sends from the Father opens the eyes of our hearts to see the truth, the reality, both of our twisted and dying world, and of His redeemed and ever-living heavenly kingdom.  This is the key to life, both of receiving the gift of eternal life, and of living well today, as a Christian who keeps the faith, and truly loves.  Let’s consider a few examples.  

   We’ll get the ugliest one out of the way first.  The citizens of Ukraine and the teachers and children at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas may or may not have believed that people are basically good.  I don’t know.  But we do prefer not to think about how evil people can be, because it’s mentally and emotionally exhausting to consider this reality.  Besides, thankfully, most of us most of the time don’t run into pure evil unleashed.  But bombs do fall on children’s hospitals and beautiful little children do get slaughtered by sick and evil people.  I am not sure how we should respond.  But we should not avert our eyes or get used to it.  Evil exists, and we need to face this reality.  We must repent, and pray, at minimum.    

     Unhinged violence is thankfully rare.  But in reality, we gloss over minor evils all the time.  It is a shibboleth of polite society to agree that “people are basically good.”  Life seems better if we all pretend this is reality.  Well, at least the people on my side are good.  Those others, those people who think differently, they don’t seem good.  They may be so misguided as to be evil.  But me and my friends, we’re basically good. 

     Why do we say this?  It’s certainly true that people do good things, some of the time.  But not always.  And often the outwardly good things we do, if we dig into their reality just a bit, are not so selfless and loving.  Like complementing someone, not because you mean it, but because you want to manipulate them, get something out of them.  Cliques at school and work, as well as our entire consumer economy run on just such flattering lies.   

   Or virtue-signaling, making the outward show that has been established as a marker of goodness, while inwardly and privately you do quite the opposite.  Jesus calls this hypocrisy, and He’s not a fan. 

    You might think of the super-rich folks who flew in private jets to Davos, Switzerland this past week to talk about how we must reduce our carbon footprint, to save the planet.   Right before they got back in their private jets to fly on to their next posh destination, spewing CO₂ all the way. 

   Or we might consider you and me.  How often do we say and do things, not because we are convinced they are right and good, but rather because the people we like have collectively decided the thing in question is sign of being a good person?  During the pandemic, far too often I chose to wear a mask, or not wear a mask, not from a sense of love toward my worried high-risk neighbor, nor from conviction about whether it served a medical purpose, but rather because the people around me wanted me to do one thing, or the other.  Now sometimes our government was ordering such things.  But not always.  Far too often I do things to look good in the eyes of other people.  I seek my justification from society.  But as a baptized child of God, my justification, my right-ness, comes from Jesus.  Why do I behave otherwise?       

   The end of all things is at hand.  St. Peter says this is reality.  The End Times is not just some hazy future time when things will get really bad.  Every day since the Ascension of Jesus is a day of the End Times, the in-between time, before Christ returns in glory to openly reveal the Truth to all people.  We don’t know when He will return, and so we are called to live as if every day could be the Last Day.  Christians are called to believe and live this reality, for the sake of salvation, our own, and the salvation of the world. 

    This world is filled by God with many beautiful blessings, but evil and ruin, decay and imperfection plague all of it, consequences of our sinfulness.  But the reality of your visible earthly surroundings is not the reality that finally matters.  As a believer in Jesus, you live in two realms, two realities, one earthly, and one heavenly.  Even though we cannot see it, the heavenly reality is the one that matters most, because it lasts forever.  This world is passing away.  So let’s live accordingly. 

      Pretending that “people are basically good,” or that my tribe is righteous, and the other side is evil, these are both ways of ignoring the reality of sin, and in particular, the uncomfortable reality of my sin.  All kinds of bad effects follow.  Honesty for honesty’s sake is an ever rarer virtue.  The basic biological and Biblical family structure, a husband, a wife, and their children, is labeled oppressive, and is treated carelessly, at best.  Women are pressured to kill babies growing inside them, and little boys are encouraged to imagine they are little girls.  We are even giving them drugs and doing surgery to pretend it is so.  And then we wonder why depression and suicide are skyrocketing among young people.  Sexuality can be confusing, and a pregnancy can be really hard.  People facing such struggles need our compassion and help, not to be pushed toward irreversible choices that make things much worse.    

   Sin and the injuries it inflicts must be ignored to maintain the charade that people are basically good.  So abortion is called women’s healthcare, and gender reassignment is called freedom.  But sin ignored doesn’t go away.  It grows, like mold in a damp wet corner.  Besides the obvious painful consequences, sin chafes and makes our hearts callous, less sensitive to the next, deeper step into depravity.

    The Spirit of Reality shines the bright light of God’s Truth on sin.  The world and our own sinful nature hate this light, hate to have the truth revealed.  And so the world persecutes the truth-tellers, the Spirit-led proclaimers of reality.  All persecution of Christians and the Christian Church comes from religious enemies, false faiths that oppose Christ and His Gospel.  Sometimes it comes from a religion that claims to be a religion, like the works righteous Pharisees and Jews who rejected Jesus, or like Islam today.  Sometimes it is a worldly creed that is no less a false religion, like the Chinese Communist Party, or secular materialism.  Sometimes persecution rises from within our own church body, as people want to avoid the truth and pretend we are not poor miserable sinners, daily dependent on God’s forgiving grace.  Regardless of the source, the fundamental reason the Gospel and Gospel believers are persecuted is because the Spirit of Truth reveals the reality of sin. 

     And yet He is the Comforter, the Helper.  He uncovers sin and reveals our brokenness, yes.  But not finally to shame or punish.  Although our sin is shameful and worthy of punishment.  No, the Spirit reveals reality, in order to show people Jesus.  Because in Jesus, our irreversible bad choices have truly been reversed. 

   Sometimes the Light of God’s Truth is compared to a disinfectant, and it is:  When the truth of right and wrong is faithfully declared, sin will be cleaned up, a little; sinners will sin a little less.  And this is a good thing in the world, to have less chaos, and more law and order.  But us sinning a little less to establish a less broken world is not God’s primary goal.     

   No, the Spirit of Truth uncovers sin in order to then reveal the reality of Jesus.  And Jesus doesn’t just reduce our sin, but rather He takes it away from us, and recreates us.  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  The One man who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made to be the righteousness of God in Him.  The Spirit of Reality comforts us with the eternally helpful Good News, that in Christ, God has forgiven and taken away all our sins, as far as the east is from the west. 

    The Truth, the Reality that saves, and gives meaning and purpose to your life today, is this:  In Christ Jesus, crucified and resurrected, you are declared righteous, good, holy, and beloved by God, by the forgiveness of your sins.  And wait, there’s more!  In Christ Jesus, you have a new heart and a new spirit.  The reality of God’s love makes you realize that His Truth, His Way, His statutes and rules are good and enjoyable and loving.  Washed clean in Christ Jesus, you are sent out to a world that cannot yet see this Reality.  Sent out to dare to live in Christ’s truth, and maybe even speak it, loving others as He loves you. 

   And Jesus’ love, shared through you, will cover a multitude of sins.  In the Truth that is Jesus, sins are covered over, they are taken away, and souls are set free to live in the glorious reality of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.   To Him be the glory and the dominion, forever and ever, Amen.