“No longer orphans”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Tuesday, April 9, 2024

John 14:18-31 (Forward, p. 71) (CEV p. 1121)

I remember how I felt after the death of both my father and mother. I felt all alone in the world, for I no longer had these two ‘rocks’ in my life that I had come to depend upon. My mom was always there, always a comforting presence, and my dad was that stalwart, reliable source of information and know-how. No longer could I go to either of them. And now, much to my dismay, I was now the elder one, the patriarch. Well, in explaining this to a clergy colleague, she said, “Michael, you are feeling like an orphan, for that indeed is what you are now.”

If I felt that way, just think of those in the ancient world might feel in this circumstance. Family was everything, and the eldest son was truly the patriarch, a person with close to life and death authority over his kin. It was an awesome and awful responsibility and weight.

And, for a family member to suddenly be bereft of all of this, to be cut off, to be adrift without any moorings, was especially traumatic and dangerous, for there was no longer the means of support you’d depended upon. That is why widows and orphans were often singled out in the Biblical narrative as especially needing the help and support of the wider community.

In a surprisingly real way, this applied even more to this small cluster of Jesus’ followers, for many of them had left their nuclear families in order to follow Him. Jesus and His motley crew had become their new family. And now, with Jesus telling them that He was about to leave them, where would they be? No wonder the two disciples on the Emmaus Road were so distraught, so depressed: all their hope, all the future they’d envisioned, and all the fellowship and family they’d taken onto themselves, all seemed dashed to pieces. They did indeed feel themselves to be orphans.

And now in today’s account—which took place before those epic last days-- Jesus is saying that He is leaving them, but that He’d return. This literally did take place—in a couple of ways. Firstly, He did leave them, in terms of the crucifixion, and did return. And secondly, He would leave them yet again, in the Ascension, but return, but in a different, non-bodily sense, in the form of the Holy Spirit. It is that Jesus refers to in verse 26, “The Holy

Spirit will come and help you, because the Father will send the Spirit to take my place.”

In certain ways, this would be even better, in two ways. Firstly, the word ‘help’ can also be translated ‘comfort’, ‘encourage’, and ‘defend’, which is a much wider role than that of the earthly earth-bound Jesus. And secondly, no longer being earth-bound, He can be accessible to each and every believer, regardless of the time or place. And so, neither are we orphans either, for now we have Jesus’ own Spirit, the promised Holy Spirit, to live and work inside us.

Forward notes: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled” (verse 27).

Commemoration: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The Episcopal Church commemorates German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer for his courage in publicly standing against the powers of Nazism. Considered an enemy of the state, Bonhoeffer traveled to the U.S. in 1939, where he could have remained but instead chose to return to his homeland. The Gestapo arrested and imprisoned Bonhoeffer in 1943. He was executed with six other resisters on April 9, 1945, only 11 days before U.S. troops liberated the camp.

“Bonhoeffer’s voluminous writings include my own well-read copy of Letters and Papers from Prison. Of the many notes I’ve made, I especially appreciate his observation that time is the most precious gift we have. A man of profound faith, Bonhoeffer lived Jesus’s teachings fearlessly, leading services in prison and pastoring fellow prisoners as well as some of the prison guards. He continued preaching until his death, and his last words were, ‘This is the end—for me, the beginning of life.””

Moving Forward: “What does Bonhoeffer’s life and death teach you about the cost of discipleship?”