Last words
Betty Stroud
Year C Easter 6 2025
Last words are important.
I used to take piano examinations. I can remember at my final lesson before an important exam, my teacher said: ‘Betty, you’ve put in the hard work, whatever happens at the exam, you need to know that you’re well prepared, and what you do on the day will be enough. Don’t worry about the outcome – just concentrate on the present.’
These were great words of advice.
I’ve no doubt that many of you have received wonderful ‘last words’ from somebody you respect, or love.
Sometimes, last words can make us a bit tetchy – ‘What did the person mean by that?’ ‘Does the person think I don’t know that?’ On the other hand, last words can often make us stop, ponder, and ponder some more.
The passage we read from John’s Gospel is an excerpt from the latter part of what is known as Jesus’ last discourse to his disciples. The words we heard read can, I think, make us ponder, and ponder some more.
Jesus knew his disciples would find things tough after he died. He also knew that his last words to them would be important for them to reflect on and to remember over the years.
They come down to us today, for our reflection.
In our passage, Jesus talks about God – God indwelling in the lives of his disciples. Through the Spirit, God will be in their lives and work through their lives. The Greek word – Paraclete, is used here for Spirit. It’s used in the sense of being an advocate, someone who will work alongside, with and for us.
‘But the Advocate the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.’
Jesus is saying that the Spirit – that advocate, will bring the reality of God’s and Jesus’ presence to the disciples as they keep Jesus’ word and engage in his mission.
What the gospel writer John sketches here, is nothing short of the rationale for the Christian and the Church. John pictures those who keep Jesus’ word as dwelling places of God’s Spirit and Jesus in the world.
Loving Jesus and keeping his word may be variously defined, but at a fundamental level it must mean being a lived-out word of God’s offer of love, just as Jesus was.
Jesus then goes on to say: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.’
When people talk about what they are most looking for in life, I would hazard a guess that peace features fairly highly on their list.
Take a moment to think about the sorts of peace we long for:
World peace … inner peace …. If only I could have a bit of peace and quiet …. ‘Will you children just leave me in peace !’ …..
I’ve no doubt that the disciples, like us, longed for similar sorts of peace – although they wouldn’t have had the same wide world view as us, they would have wanted their country to be left in peace by the Roman occupiers, they would have had similar ups and downs in their personal lives, which meant they would have been looking for some sort of inner peace.
With his promise of peace, Jesus takes us to a place where each one of us wants to be.
But peace is often a rather fraught concept, isn’t it?
If we think about the trouble spots in our world: Gaza and the Ukraine in particular, we know that those who are seeking peace in these places have to find solutions and agreements where both sides compromise and concede some ground but, at the same time, they need to feel that they haven’t lost face or sold out. If we follow the news from these places – even cursorily, we know that as the conflicts have dragged on and on, it seems as the positions on both sides can harden; temporary peace deals might be struck, but if one side seems to be gaining more than the other, then things revert back to hostilities being resumed.
We know that more often than not, all that is achieved is an uneasy truce, a fragile peace, which is about winners and losers, victors and victims.
The losers concede too much in order to survive, but the bitterness remains to erupt another day
What the professional negotiators strive for in the world’s violent hot spots is, in principle, the same thing being sought in difficult industrial negotiations: some compromise on both sides without either side losing face and selling out.
And it is also an issue in our personal quests for peace, and this is where some of you may begin to recognise just how fraught the process is.
Far too often, in the arenas of our personal lives, there are no skilled and experienced negotiators hammering out the terms. We are on our own, and selling out to secure or preserve the peace is far more common. Far too many women and children live in fear of abusive men, maintaining a fragile “peace” entirely at the expense of their own interests.
And we know that whilst men are by far the most common abusers, there is no absolute gender divide on this.
Even apart from situations that would unquestionably be labelled as abusive, most of us, know the gutted feeling of swallowing our dignity and settling for some sort of “peace” rather than speaking up for the truth at the risk of further insults and rejection. Most of us know that far too often, we have been the victims who paid the price for a “peace” in which someone else was clearly the victor.
So when Jesus said, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you, but not as the world gives’, there is clearly an acknowledgement that we hunger for something better than the fragile peace of a grossly unfair ceasefire. What we crave is real peace. Peace without bitterness and humiliation. Peace without casualties and victims. Peace that doesn’t come through the sacrificing of someone’s integrity, interests and dignity. Peace that doesn’t just look good to others; but feels good to be part of.
I believe this peace can only come about when we allow God – through the Spirit – the paraclete or advocate, to take up residence within our lives. This sort of peace can only come about when we allow God’s Spirit to teach us, to inform us, to prod us, to challenge us and to comfort us.
How do we allow this?
Well we might make space every day to just sit …. To listen to God’s voice within us.
We might make space each week to come here to worship …. to join with others in worshipping God and allowing God’s Spirit to fall upon and within us.
We might make space to allow the Spirit to be breathed more deeply into us as we garden, take a walk in the bush, read poetry, paint, or listen to music.
I read the following sentence the other day: ‘Look less for the dwelling of God than to be the dwelling of God. In that is peace.’
Let me repeat it: ‘Look less for the dwelling of God, than to be the dwelling of God. In that is peace.’
The truly saintly people I’ve come across in my life are those people who have allowed God’s Spirit to fill their lives. Those people who have, by allowing God’s Spirit to work in and through their lives, become dwelling places of God and who have found that inner peace which we all long for.
This week, let’s open our lives to the wonder working power of God’s Spirit: the paraclete who will be with us in everything and fill us with God’s wonder working love, joy and peace.
