He is Our Help :: John 16:7-8
But I, the truth I tell to you. It is to your advantage that I, I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And having come, he, he will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.
We don’t like to ask for help. We think it’s demeaning. That’s why children insist on tying their own shoes and picking out their own clothes. What’s wrong with pairing green and orange, and plaids and stripes, they say. I don’t need help being myself.
We don’t like to ask for help. We think it’s demeaning. That’s why it’s so difficult to be forced into a nursing home or a hospital bed. We don’t want someone to take care of us. It goes against our entire lives as caregivers. We pride ourselves in being able to feed ourselves. We don’t want someone to wash our back, let alone to watch it. I can do it myself, we say.
We don’t like to ask for help. We think it’s demeaning. That’s why we don’t like going to the doctor and taking a pill; we don’t have time to chill. Even if we did, we think the admission of helplessness reflects poorly on us. We think it makes us look weak, incompetant, hopeless, broken. I don’t need your help; I can do it myself, we say.
Yes, it’s demeaning to ask for help because someone might tell us to get a job.
Let’s face it: We love ourselves too much too often to ask for help. We love whatever power we have. We love holding all the cords. We love to come to the knowledge of the truth on our own. We love independence. We fear judgment, vulnerability, and not being in control. We love the Old Adam and Eve within us seeking our own pleasure, even if it comes with a side of evil. We love protecting our pride because we think it is demeaning to ask for help.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, let’s thank God that Jesus isn’t like us in this way. He didn’t have a problem asking for help. He didn’t have a problem demeaning himself.
1. He is our advocate with the Father; He is our help in the name of the Lord.
In our Gospel reading from John chapter 16, Jesus delivers this fundamental truth as he bids farewell to the disciples. For three and a half years, he has called them, loved them, protected them, nourished them, taught them, and helped guide them to the Father.
Did you know you needed this help, too?
Now as he sits in the upper room on the night he was betrayed, delivering his farewell discourse during his Divine Service to us on the first Maundy Thursday, Jesus declares: I ... the truth I tell to you. It is to your advantage that I ... go away ... for if I do not go away, the Advocate ... you know the helper ... will not come to you.
The Lord knows, you need a helper, whether you want to admit it or not.
This is the reason Jesus came to us to begin with: To help us. As the Psalmist says, Behold, God is our help; the Lord is the upholder of my life (Ps 54:4). He upholds us with his spirit. He upholds us with his word. He is our help.
God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, our advocate with the Father, for this reason. Jesus was delivered up to death; he was delivered for the sins of the people for this reason. Even if we could have asked for this help, we wouldn’t have. Because we think it’s demeaning to ask for help.
But the Father doesn’t. He sent us his Son, to do what we can’t do: Live a life without sin; Die on a cross for our sin, setting us free from all sin. While we were still in our sin, in our pride and idolatry of ourselves, our sinless savior, the Lord Jesus, came to help us (Eph 2:1). Although you were dead in your trespasses and sins ... God, being rich in mercy, came to us ... to help us ... because of the great love with which he loved us (Eph 2:1-4). He saw we needed help, so he came to breathe new life into us, washing us, renewing us, restoring us (Titus 3:4-5). He came to pay the ultimate price for us. Jesus had to die for you, and depart from this world for you.
I have to go away, Jesus says, in order to properly pay for and to make satisfaction for your sin (Rom 5:9). When I go away I can then be your advocate with the Father.
2. I know we don’t like to admit it, but we all need this helper, this Advocate.
Advocates listen, clarify, suggest, model, attend, solve, educate, and follow up on all the things we can’t, don’t, and won’t do. They help us in ways we could have never figured out on our own. Advocates plead our cause and speak for us. They interpret our groanings with words we can’t express. Good advocates do their homework. Effective advocates persevere. And honorable advocates stick their neck out.
We all need a good, effective, honorable Advocate to speak for us, to tell us the truth. And because of Christ, we now have one.
I will send him to you, he says. This Advocate will reveal the truth concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment (v.8). And because he did, we now know that only God is good, that only his word is effective and that only he is without sin. We know that Jesus is much, much more than simply a good man with a good word about good living.
The world has been trying to convince you otherwise: that you can advocate for yourselves, that you can be like Jesus, that you can live a good life without his word, that you aren’t a sinner.
See, I am a good man, the world says. Good men go to heaven.
The world is trying to convince you that all Christian confessions are the same. But the Advocate reveals otherwise: There is only one Christian and Apostolic church.
The world continues to argue that your sin is simply a weakness or a gross outburst, that you can control yourself and your life, that you won’t be held accountable for every little thing you DIDN’T do, DIDN’T say, DIDN’T think. That’s what the world would have you believe.
But it’s not true.
3. Instead, Jesus has sent us a Heavenly Helper, to convict us of sin and to convince us that he is our righteousness and that in him sin has been judged (v.8).
The Holy Spirit shows us this truth in the scriptures. All scripture is breathed out by him (2 Tim 3:16). This is why Jesus sent the Advocate: to guide us to proclaim Christ. Through the scriptures, we learn to recognize how we were conceived in sin (Ps 51:5), how we were born as sinners who sin, how we wallow in sin, and how we will die because of that sin. Because of that curse, we cannot see the kingdom of God (Jn 3:3) unless the Helper enables it. And he does! He helps you confess your sin. What sin is killing you?
God, who is faithful and just, does not desire the death of a sinner. That’s why he sent us the Helper ... to call us to faith, to proclaim the promises of Christ, who was condemned for your sin and raised for your justification. That’s why our Helper was poured out upon us. Christ has united himself with us in this way, and made us children of God, not because we saw with our own eyes the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus ... but precisely because Jesus sent the helper, the Holy Spirit, to us to testify through the word the truth that you believe. The Helper has opened your eyes and ears to receive in faith these promises of God so that you can stand righteous before God.
Do you see now how Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. First Jesus came in the flesh to live, die, and rise for us. Now the Holy Spirit comes to reveal this truth in Christ, to call you by the Gospel, to enlighten you with his gifts, to sanctify you and make you one with Christ. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth (Jas 1:17-18a).
THANK GOD, HE IS OUR HELPER
He helps us put away our filthiness and rampant wickedness. He helps us receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (Jas 1:21). He guides you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come (v. 12). He helps us humble ourselves before the throne of Grace. With His Help, we can now do all things in Christ, knowing that we have an advocate with the father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One (1 John 2:2), who ...
4. Continues to provide us with Heavenly help, through Word and sacrament.
These means of grace ... baptism, absolution, the Lord’s supper, in particular ... provide us with all the help we need to preserve this body and life. In them, our Advocate assures us that we have the forgiveness of sins by giving us his tangible proof. He speaks for us when we don’t know what to pray for. He attends to our every need of body and soul. He gives us living hope in the resurrection.
Knowing this, brothers and sisters in Christ, you can now shout and sing for joy ... knowing that ... great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel helping you to eternal life (Isa 12:6). Let us therefore stop denying ourselves the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
In his means of grace Christ delights to help us do extraordinary things that he prepared for us to do (Eph 2:10). Let us lean on our heavenly helper, listening to his word, returning to our baptism, and receiving the Supper. In his means of grace, we can be confident and free, knowing God’s living and active word has triumphed for you. In Jesus’ name.