SCRIPTURE: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. John 14:16-17 NIV
THOUGHT: Jesus promises another advocate. I don’t think I ever noticed that word “another,” but a few days ago it just jumped out at me. Jesus was advocating already, and he promises yet another encourager, comforter, one who argues on our behalf, “to help you and be with you forever.” But unlike Jesus, whom the world could see and know and reject, this advocate is different: one the world cannot see, cannot accept, cannot know. That makes this advocate a secret source of strength, unseen and unknown by the world.
“You know him,” Jesus tells his closest friends, “for he lives with you.” The second advocate is already living with them? Yes. “And will be in you.” Something different is going to take place. Right now the advocate is with them, but soon he will be in them.
Remember how each member of the Trinity is God – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? Jesus told his disciples, practically in the same breath, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (Jn 14:9).” Now he is saying that they already know the Spirit because the Spirit lives with them. My reading is that Jesus is saying something like, anyone who has seen me has also seen the advocate. You already know him because he lives with you. And Jesus is comforting them with the promise that, although he’s going away, they’ll still have the relationship they have had, only better. “It is for your good that I am going away,” Jesus tells them a little while later. “Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you (Jn. 16:7).”
PRAYER: Thank you, Triune God, that we have a source of strength, comfort, and advocacy that is unknown to the world. An invisible presence as powerful as having Jesus standing beside us.
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
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