Monday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 10, 2021

John 15:26B16:4a

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”

The Lord Jesus names the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit”, the “Holy Spirit”, and, as here, “the Advocate”.  Some translations of the Gospel of John use “Paraclete”, from the Greek word which John uses to translate the Lord’s Aramaic word.  The Greek word can also mean “a comforter” or “a helper”.  An “advocate” is one who speaks on behalf of another, adding the weight of his personal integrity to that of the one for whom he speaks.  Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Holy Trinity who proceeds from the Father and the Son, from our perspective: he will speak to the Father on our behalf, offering our prayers to him for us.  As St. Paul says, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8, 26).  The Advocate will also speak on our behalf to other men: “But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak: For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Matthew 10, 19-20).  

Calling him “the Spirit of truth”, Jesus says that the Advocate will “testify” to him, enabling those who have heard the Lord’s teachings to understand them, and to know him better through them.  This Spirit of truth bestows the gifts of faith, hope, and love, which enable us to believe in Jesus and to persevere in our belief, to hope in him and the promises he has given us, and to love him with all of our hearts.  “And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”  That is, because the Apostles have been with him from the beginning of the Lord’s ministry, they will testify to him as Son of God through their witness of his words and deeds.  This also applies to us, inasmuch as our life with him begins at some point and continues, and we can testify to his teachings through our knowledge of them, but we can also testify to how we came to know him, and how knowing him has led us to change our lives to conform with his.  

“I have told you this so that you may not fall away.”  The Lord has spoken to the Apostles of the strength the Advocate will give in time of trouble, and he tells them of the trouble that will come: “They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.”  St. John reminds the people for whom he is writing — the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem — that the Lord foresaw the persecution that the Jewish leaders would unleash against them, and that he was sending the Spirit in order to protect them from losing their faith.  The Lord’s words tell us that the fact that the persecution came from their fellow Jews would shake them, since these had also seen and heard the Lord, who himself had come to fulfill the Scriptures, who himself was the longed-for Messiah.  But “they will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.”  That is, they will do this not because you are wicked, but because they have rejected me.  “I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”  The Lord says that this persecution is supposed to happen and so they are not to panic when it comes to pass.  The foreknowledge of God’s plan and the presence of the Holy Spirit will fortify them in the coming tribulation.