John 14:15-21
May 10, 2026
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, Oakland, CA
In our family of 4 boys and no sisters, my mother used to refer me as the “good daughter” that she never had because I always enjoyed cleaning! I used to sweep the dust balls off our long hallway in our third-floor flat. Now, you know where our “LABC Great Purge” came from! Since my mother was a bit of a neat and clean person, no wonder I became one too.
On Mother’s Day, we remember our mothers who gave birth to us regardless of whether we have positive or negative memories of them. We all come from a mother and before we were born into this world, we were being developed in the wombs of our mothers.
For many of us, our mothers died many years ago, but we still remember them. We may not see them in person anymore, but from our memories, they still abide with us. These carnations are a symbol of the beauty of our nurturing and caring mothers and all those others, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and good friends who provided the nurturing home and places that we found safe to thrive and become the people we are today. These people in our lives loved us.
John 14
Our passage is about how love can be known in our lives. Jesus trying to make plain for the disciples that all he asks of them is to embrace love. He has demonstrated that love as he lived among them. He wants to see this love be the goal of their lives.
Coming to the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus speaks of this love that only God knows and that God will continue to be with them through the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will continue to be their Advocate in recognizing that God’s love is most true.
In the times when John wrote his gospel, it was an age of empires, surrounded by emperors, people dominated others, and weapons enforcing the imperial power on the powerless. Today, sadly is not too different from that of John’s times.
But we find John’s gospel strikingly different to the claim of power and order that love brings to life and relationship. This is a sharp contrast to the imperial power in the world back then as well as today.
In this passage, Jesus puts himself as the object lesson to disclose what true power is; it’s in love and truth. Jesus reassures his disciples that following him, they will not be left alone in their efforts to live a life shaped by love. Jesus admits that choosing to see reality through the lens of love in the midst of empire is going to be difficult. Don’t we know that too well today?
Jesus promised that the Spirit who continues his ministry is pointing to the truth of God’s love that now dwells in us. This love is not an idea or an abstract concept, but rather this love is lived out in reality revealed in life, in relationships and in actions. Just like how Jesus lived and acted toward them personally.
Jesus feeds the hungry, touches the lepers, heals the sick, and speaks and acts toward women with care and regard. Love is seen in his life as service and compassion. This love is also seen in Jesus’ fierce protests against those who abuse this vision that each person is important and deserves mutual regard and care.
Instead of the power of domination, Jesus invites us to meet him to imagine power that works toward the wellbeing and the love of all persons regardless of social status.
We can imagine how Jesus’ message to love was received in the time of empires and emperors. People were under such oppression that they couldn’t imagine anything could change the course of human history. Rather, they hunkered down, staying invisible to those in power, so that they and their families can eke out a living and be safe. But gradually, this community of hope started growing.
People became more daring to wonder what might be God’s power of love that Jesus embodies might just be really true. It’s more truthful than the subjugation and humiliations of Roman rule. From this context, Jesus offers them God’s love. He and God are one. Jesus is the promise of redemption and liberation that they thought that God had abandoned them, is once again trustworthy, available, and true.
Jesus not only claims that God’s love is true; he also claims that God’s love is the source of life. This love is both the source of our lives and the goal of our lives. Let me explain in this story.
In Alan Paton’s novel, Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful, there’s a scene that may illustrate this life-giving power of love and the assurance that God’s love discloses what is most true. Paton describes a situation in South Africa during apartheid, when laws prevented black South Africans from mixing with whites. At the death of a white South African official who had worked within the system to humanize life for the oppressed, the blacks were turned away from his funeral, despite the wishes of the family. It was a terrible insult.
Isaiah Buti, a black pastor, visited a white chief justice, whom he had reason to imagine a friend to his oppressed people. He asked the judge to participate in the Good Friday service where the congregation would observe Jesus’ practice of washing his disciples’ feet. He asked the chief justice to wash the feet of a congregant who had been a servant in the judge’s home and had cared for his children.
When the time came for the judge to wash the servant’s feet, the judge came forward and washed and dried her feet. Before he rose to return to his seat, he took her feet and gently kissed them both. It was a gesture that set healing in motion, because in that simple extra expression of care, he disclosed the truthfulness and life-giving power of God’s love.
The servant received love and in the process; the white judge also received the life-giving power of love that help the people recognize in each other as neighbors and friends. From the efforts of this black pastor and a white chief justice, loving one another in this community was becoming reinstated again.
No Longer Orphans
Jesus said, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” One of the greatest fears that children have is the fear of being orphaned. Remember how difficult it was to drop off your child at school on that first day? Remember how you repeatedly reassured your child that you’ll be at the bus stop when the bus gets there or that you’ll be home when they come home?
Jesus knows that feeling when he was about to leave his disciples. He said, “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. (14:19) He told his disciples that they will continue to access the Father. As long as they love him by keeping his commandments, he will be with them. Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to sustain their community after his departure. But the coming of the Holy Spirit depends on the disciples’ loving Jesus and love is demonstrated by keeping his commandments.
Jesus is expecting his disciples to fully identify with his identity in believing, abiding, loving, and keeping his commandments. This total devotion is made clear in the act of love, demonstrated by Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. “No one has greater love than this: that someone would lay down his life on behalf of his friends.” (15:13) Not only is Jesus demanding love, he demonstrates that total love in his self-sacrifice for them.
In contrast to the world, the world of empires and emperors in ancient days as well as today, Jesus is saying that the world may not be able to see him. But as disciples, we do see Jesus because he is living in us and we in him. True life, made available through Christ, allows the community to continue to see Jesus even after he has gone. Seeing Jesus is equated with the knowledge that just as Jesus abides in the Father, so his followers, we as his disciples abide in him and Christ in us.
“In” Us
In John 14, verse 20, Jesus said, “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
This tiny word, “in” should not matter all that much, but it does. Jesus is promising us to be “in” the people who keep his commandments. He promised that he will be “in” his earliest disciples. Is Jesus actually “in” us? How would we know?
The answer is the Advocate, the Holy Spirit of truth, who Jesus promised will be with us, forever. We refer to the Spirit as the Advocate to mean that God will stand up for us, like a lawyer speaking on our behalf in court. This Advocate as Jesus promises, will be “with you…in you.” Jesus himself will be “in” the disciples, as he is “in” the Father, and as his disciples will be “in” him.
Remember that scene of Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate in Pilate’s headquarters? Pilate asks, “What is truth?” Jesus stands there in silence. Why does he not answer? The answer is right there. You are looking at it, Pilate. The truth is standing “in” front of you. Watch him, and you will find out what truth is.
In Jesus is the truth of God. It’s like since I was in my mother before I was born, when you see me, you would see who my mother was too.
While we can’t see Jesus’ healing, teaching, and dying as the first disciples did, we now have the Holy Spirit who is “Christ “in” us.” Jesus is present and active in us as real people who sometimes struggle just to get along and other times filled with joys and blessings. So, when Jesus promises to be “in” his disciples and promises that they will be in him, then it is clear that we are to love one another right now. We are to be active in spreading love as our mothers were so close to us sharing their love with us.
You might say, “This is too hard, Pastor.” We might say that this sounds all good but loving the most unlovable people on earth is just not possible.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta famously left her record of a lifetime of struggle—struggle with the darkness that plagued her because, for more than half her life, she did not feel the presence of Christ. Nonetheless, among Christians she is generally accepted as a modern saint. Some consider her an even greater saint because in spite of the dark doubts she continued to be faithful. Even though she had not been gifted with spiritual certainty, she steadfastly pursued the mission to which she believed she had been called, and the Christian community recognized and affirmed that mission.
I know we have people in this church who are still thinking about believing in Jesus. They really want to be certain; as certain as they possibly can. But like Mother Teresa, we can still follow Jesus even when we have years of spiritual doubt. Regardless of our uncertainties, our doubts, Christ in the Holy Spirit is “in” you. All we need to do is to want to love God and love our neighbors.
Jesus clearly promises his presence and the presence of the Spirit to those who keep his commandments to love and serve one another. The love Jesus commands is not a feeling—not even a feeling of certainty about union with Christ. The love Jesus commands is about a master washing the feet of his disciples, about a white judge washing the feet of his black South African servant, about being a loving disciple even when the presence of God wanes in you.
The love of Jesus is very much like the love that our mothers have for us; never giving up on us, never stop fighting for us, never stop believing in us.
There’s a Navajo poem that I wish to close:
God is before us.
God is behind us.
God is above us.
God is below us.
God’s words shall come from our mouths.
For we are all God’s essence, a sign of God’s love.
And I would add, Christ is “in” us. Amen.
Let us pray.
Loving God, help us to learn from the love Jesus showed us and now enable us to invite the Holy Spirit to abide in us as we are in Christ. We pray that our lives always reveal your love for others and for the world to which Christ came to save. And for our mothers, and all those who nurtured and loved us, we give you thanks. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
Benediction
God has listened to our prayers and abides with us.
God’s blessing rests on us and in us as we scatter to serve.
The Spirit lives within us and among us.
We seek to live as resurrection people. Amen.