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15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 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." (John 14:15-21 NRSV)
In my career of the second half of my life I seek to make sure people are ready to leave this life by making sure those who stay behind do not have to suffer. Yes, it's called life insurance. I love and still try to sell people on eternal life insurance; that is the kind found in accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, but that's a more personal decision. Life insurance ensures that the financial burdens of one's absence not leave pressure on one's spouse and surviving offspring. The first policy I sold was to a friend whose dad had bought a policy of $50,000 back when that would have covered a lot. We're talking the 1960s. Had the father died in the 60s the family would have been fine. In the 1960s my parents bought their home for $11,000. New cars were on average worth about $3,000. But the dad did not die until 2021 and the $50,000 did not cover much.
Here we see Jesus making plans for His departure and what He knew to be important and needed once he was not there with the Disciples. His love made sure to let them know they were not to be orphans. Jesus knew their hearts and minds and their abilities and He knew they needed a lot.
It is the night before the crucifixion. The disciples are gathered around a table that still smells of bread and wine. Their teacher has just told them he is going away — and that where he is going, they cannot yet follow. The air in that upper room is thick with confusion, grief, and the kind of dread that settles into your chest when you sense that something irreplaceable is about to be taken from you.
They are afraid of becoming orphans.
And into that fear, Jesus speaks these words — not as a theological lecture, but as a promise. A promise so staggering that we are still unfolding it two thousand years later, here in the bright, alleluia-filled days of Eastertide.
We are not orphaned. We never were. And this passage tells us exactly why.
I. Love Is Not Sentiment — It Is Kept Commandments (v. 15)
Jesus opens with a word that might catch us off guard: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
In our culture, love is very often measured by feeling — the warmth in the chest, the tears at a wedding, the nostalgia of a childhood hymn. But Jesus consistently refuses to let love remain in the realm of emotion alone. Love, for Jesus, has a shape. It has hands and feet. It shows up in how we treat the stranger, the poor, the difficult neighbor.
This is not a transaction. He is not saying, "If you want to earn my favor, you must perform." He is saying something more intimate than that — almost biological. A vine produces fruit because it is a vine. It cannot help it. In the same way, a person who truly loves Jesus will naturally, organically, begin to be shaped by his teachings. The commandments are not a cage; they are the form that love takes when it walks through the world.
In Eastertide, we celebrate a risen Lord who is not merely a memory. He is alive. And because he is alive, his call on our lives is alive too. The resurrection does not retire his teachings — it ratifies them. The one who said "love your enemies" and "serve the least of these" is the same one who broke the power of death. His words carry the weight of eternity.
So we begin here: Easter is not just a Sunday. It is an invitation to a way of life, a life shaped by the commandments of the one we love.
II. Another Advocate — The Gift We Cannot See (vv. 16–17)
Then Jesus makes a breathtaking promise: "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever."
The word translated "Advocate" is the Greek parakletos — literally, "one called alongside." It is the word for a defense attorney who stands beside the accused, for a counselor who remains close in the storm, for a comforter who does not leave when the night grows long. It has also been translated Comforter, Helper, Counselor, Intercessor.
Notice that Jesus calls this figure "another Advocate" — which implies that Jesus himself has been the first one. He has been walking alongside them for three years, answering their questions, calming their fears, steering them back when they wandered. And now, he promises that this same ministry of presence will continue — not through a distant memory, but through one who will be in you.
The Spirit does not operate at arm's length. The world, Jesus says, cannot receive the Spirit because it looks only at the surface of things. But for those who belong to Christ, the Spirit takes up residence — not as a houseguest who might leave, but as an inhabitant, a presence woven into the fabric of the believer's inner life.
This is the Eastertide miracle that we often underestimate: the risen Christ is not merely risen — he is present. Through the Spirit, the distance between heaven and the human heart collapses. You are not praying toward a remote deity. You are breathing in the presence of one who has made your very life his home.
III. "I Will Not Leave You Orphaned" (v. 18)
These may be the most tender words in this entire passage: "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you."
The word for "orphaned" in Greek is orphanous — from which we get our English word. It carries with it all the vulnerability, isolation, and grief of a child who has no one to turn to. Jesus sees the fear in their eyes and calls it by its name. He knows they are terrified of being left alone in a hostile world.
And he says: that will not happen.
For many of us, if we are honest, orphanhood is a feeling we know — not necessarily because of the loss of parents, but because of the particular loneliness of the spiritual life. There are seasons when God feels remote. When prayer feels like leaving messages that no one retrieves. When the silence of suffering makes us wonder if anyone is there at all.
Jesus speaks directly into those seasons. His promise is not "you will always feel my presence." His promise is far more durable than feeling: "I am coming to you." The resurrection itself is the proof. He came. Death could not hold him, grief could not silence him, and the fear of the upper room could not contain him. He came — through locked doors, in the breaking of bread, on a beach at dawn.
And Eastertide is the season when the church re-learns this truth: we serve a God who comes. We are not orphaned. We are found.
IV. The Trinitarian Life We Are Invited Into (vv. 19–21)
The passage closes with a vision so luminous it can be easy to rush past it: "On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you."
This is not merely a description of doctrine. This is an invitation. Jesus is pulling back the curtain on the inner life of God — Father, Son, and Spirit in a perpetual exchange of love — and telling his disciples that they are not spectators to this divine communion. They are participants in it.
You in me, and I in you.
This mutual indwelling — what the early church called perichoresis, a kind of divine dance — is the very life into which every believer is drawn. The same love that flows between the Father and the Son now flows toward us and, remarkably, through us. We do not love God from the outside. We are loved from the inside.
And the evidence of this love? "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."
Notice the cascade: love kept in action → the Father's love → Jesus's love → self-revelation. The risen Christ continues to make himself known. He is not a figure locked in the past. He is a living Lord who reveals himself still — in Scripture, in sacrament, in the face of the neighbor, in the still small voice of the Spirit in the interior of the soul.
This is Eastertide: not the fading of Easter Sunday's excitement, but the unfolding of all that resurrection means. The empty tomb is not the end of the story. It is the door through which we are invited to walk — into the very life of God.
For Reflection
The Easter season lasts fifty days for a reason. One Sunday is not enough to absorb what resurrection means. The early church understood that we need time to let the truth of Christ's victory settle down into our bones, our habits, our daily choices.
This passage from John 14 gives us three Eastertide gifts to carry into the days ahead:
First, we have a Companion. The Holy Spirit is not a force or an atmosphere — the Spirit is a Person, a Paraclete, one who walks alongside you in every moment of this day. You are not navigating life alone.
Second, we have a Promise. Christ said he would not leave us orphaned, and he has kept that word. Whatever season of dryness or doubt you may be walking through, the promise holds. He is coming to you.
Third, we have an Invitation. The life Jesus describes — you in me, and I in you — is available right now, not as a reward for spiritual achievement, but as the gift of a God who has already made his home in you.
PRAYER: Loving Lord, We confess that we have sometimes lived as orphans — anxious, alone, as though the grave had won. Forgive us. Fill us afresh with your Spirit, the Advocate you promised, that we might know — not just believe, but know — that you are in the Father, and we are in you, and you in us. Let this Easter season be more than a memory of an empty tomb. Let it be the beginning of a life fully alive in you. We pray this in your name, and by your Spirit, to the glory of the Father. Amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! OUR CALL TO ACTION: Choose one of Jesus's commandments to keep with fresh intentionality this week — whether it is loving an enemy, serving someone in need, or simply forgiving a debt of the heart. Let your love take a shape the world can see.
I love you and I thank God for you! You matter to God, and you matter to me! Alleluia. Christ is risen and we are not alone!
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
