Lectionary Readings: Year A – Sixth Sunday in Easter

One of the things my friends and I in college liked to do was to use fake church names that let people know that rather than going to church we instead decided to stay at home. You’ve probably heard a bunch of these. “Oh yeah, today I went to Bedside Baptist.” “I spent the morning at the Church of St. Mattress.” Or, “Pillowtop Presbyterian.” Most of these are pretty evident when you say them out loud, but one of them, especially, only works when you see it spelled. “Yes, I went to church today, at the Church of the Holey Comforter.” You probably know of a church by that name. But that’s “Holey” with an “E.” As in, “full of holes.” As in, “I was in bed with an old thread-bare comforter, and just couldn’t get myself up in time for church.”

The reason you’ve heard this name for a church is because of the Gospel reading we had today. In the Gospel, Jesus says that he will ask the Father, and that the Father will give us all another Comforter. There’s even a Church of the Advocate, as that’s the other definition of the word that Jesus used. That word is often translated as “Helper” as well. And what you hear often depends on the aspect of the Holy Spirit that people want to emphasize.

There’s a lot going on in this passage, of course, and if we emphasize the Comforter, then we will likely emphasize that Jesus will not leave us orphaned, or without comfort whenever we face difficult times in our lives. If we focus on the Advocate, then we will likely focus on the Spirit of Truth, because we want to point out that Jesus will send someone to keep us on the straight and narrow, away from sin. And if we focus on the Helper, then we will likely focus on the phrases, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” because we recognize that no matter how much we want to love God – and therefore love other people – we will not be able to keep all the commandments without some supernatural help.

And while we may focus on these different aspects of the Holy Spirit based on our need, the reality of the matter is that we need all of these aspects of the Holy Spirit, not just one or the other. We may need one or the other at different times in our lives, but we cannot focus on only one aspect of the Spirit, and assume that we’ve cracked the code to God.

Let’s take a moment and understand these aspects of the nature of the Spirit.

I will send another Comforter. First, this implies that Jesus was the first Comforter and that the second Comforter will continue the work of Christ spiritually rather than in the flesh. We know that the Comforter will abide with us, and will be in us. But more than that, Jesus says that he will not leave his disciples as orphans or bereft, which also means without comfort. He knows that his leaving them, and returning to the Father will leave a hole in their hearts, and he wants them to know that he will be with them in Spirit. And this comfort applies not just to those that Jesus left behind when he went to be with the Father, but it applies to us. When we are torn, when we are broken, when we are in grief, we can turn to God, and God will comfort us. Sometimes this will take the form of other people, sharing God’s love with us. At other times, it will be that God transcends space and time, and gives us the comfort we need in our grief or loneliness, by giving us an overwhelming sense of peace amid an otherwise turbulent life.

I will send another Advocate. An advocate is one who publicly supports, or argues for a specific cause, or the rights of an individual or people. It is someone who represents you when you need to defend yourself. Jesus is eternally advocating for us with the Father, as his death and resurrection is a continual and perpetual mediation for us. It is magnifying the death and resurrection in the past, so that it points to the hope in a future that Christ’s actions have accomplished for us in the kingdom of heaven. 

Here on earth, however, the Advocate is God within us. It is the Spirit of God giving us the clarity and advice that provides help in the time of trouble. Either people will confront us with lies and untruth, or we will be confronted with the temptation to do the same against others. And the Spirit will be a Helper in all of these times to remind us that the path of life flows through the Love of God. Loving God, and Loving our neighbor is not always easy, and the Helper is there to lend a hand, to lift us up when we would rather stoop to the level of pigs, wallowing in the mud. The Helper is there for us, to remind us that the way of God walks firmly in peace and love, and to give us the strength to choose that path.

I will send the Spirit of Truth. This is related to the idea of the Spirit as a Helper, because the Spirit of Truth provides us with the ability to discern right from wrong, error from truth, sin from righteousness, and death from life. It is in the Spirit of Truth that we are provided with the ability to see the path before us and determine if it is the correct path, and not just the path that we would prefer to take. It allows us to see the truth of the options before us, and choose the one that aligns with God’s love for all humanity. It shows us the way, no matter how hard that way is, and then it provides the help to accomplish what needs to happen. 

And what exactly needs to happen? It is right there in the beginning of this passage, as Jesus tells us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  This phrase pulls together all the aspects of the Comforter, the Advocate, the Helper, the Spirit of Truth. When Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” he is implying that we do not love God when we do not keep God’s commandments. Let me say that a different way. When we do not keep God’s commandments, we show that we love ourselves and other things more than we love God. It shows that our priorities are not aligned with the path that Christ has laid before us, and given an example to us to follow. The Comforter, the Advocate, the Helper, and the Spirit of Truth are all attributes of the Holy Spirit that guides us, and prompts us, and keeps us on the path of living out the commandments of Christ. And all of this is not easy. It’s simple. The commandments of Christ are pretty simple. They are just not easy to follow through on.

Jesus had stated that the entire law can be summed up in just two commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Those are two pretty simple things, when you look at them. But they are terribly difficult to do when we get down to where the rubber meets the road. 

But Jesus also says, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” 

That last part is important. Jesus is saying that it is in love that God is revealed. Or, to put it in slightly different words, God is revealed through love. God is revealed to us through love, and God is revealed to others through our love.

Keeping the commandments to love God and neighbor is not always easy. People can be difficult. People can lie. People can cheat and steal and kill and destroy. People can look for ways to harm you, they can look for ways to glorify themselves, and they can look for ways to cast doubt upon your character. 

But we are still called to love one another. To love even our enemies.

Our hardwired response to all things is self-preservation and even self promotion. We like to think that we deserve all the best, and deserve none of the worst.

It is in the act of loving others that we are stretched thin. We are squeezed into uncomfortable places when people do not acknowledge or accept the love that we have shared. We are pushed and prodded into places we would rather not go when loving others requires meeting them where they are at in life. And we are ground down when our pride and ego gets the better of us and we try to place ourselves above others. 

But love requires humility.

And it is when we actively try and live into keeping Christ’s commandments that we find both the most difficult of life experiences, and the greatest experiences of joy. Because when we love, that is when God is revealed to us. And when God is revealed to us, then God is revealed to those we are trying desperately to love – even when they may have given in to their own desires of self-preservation or self-promotion and caused us harm. It is in this simple, but difficult path of keeping the commandments that we find that God is revealed to us as a Comforter, a Helper, an Advocate, and the Spirit of Truth. It is in walking this simple, but difficult path that we find that God is not just in us, but that we are in God. And, we find that God is revealed to us and to others in keeping the commandment to love, no matter how difficult such a simple task might be.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on May 10, 2026.]