Never Abandoned

“I will not leave you as orphans…”

John 14:18

We couldn’t believe he’d done it.  One night when I was in High School my friends and I made the 18 mile pilgrimage down to the Medinah Temple in the City of Chicago.  We were going to see a presentation by the Moody Bible institute.  We drove in two cars because one of my buddies had to bring his little brother and sister along.  Afterwards we all agreed to meet back at a friend’s house. When we got there, we noticed that our buddy didn’t have his little brother and sister with him. We asked him if he had dropped them at home.  His jaw dropped.  He suddenly realized that he had forgotten them.  He had gone to get his car but he hadn’t come back to pick them up.  He’d left his little brother and sister standing there on the street corner, in the City of Chicago, alone, at night.  Can you imagine how they must have felt?  Abandoned, forgotten, unloved…  I wonder if that’s not a little of what the disciple’s felt as they watched Jesus ascend into heaven.  They had just gotten Him back from the dead.   He gave them the great commission, sending them to be His witnesses in all the world.  Then He left!  They must have felt some sense of abandonment, of having been left behind. 

We’ve all experienced that.  It’s the feeling of panic experienced by the little child in the store who suddenly looks up and can’t find his parents.  It’s the feeling of loneliness experienced by the grandmother who has had to move into a nursing home, who feels like her kids and grandkids have forgotten her.  Abandonment is part of the grief that follows the death of a husband or wife.  Spouses and children often feel abandoned at the time of divorce.  The man who had rheumatoid arthritis, wondered if God was punishing him.  Had God abandoned him?   

That’s at the heart of our fear of abandonment.  We know what we deserve because of our sin.  I remember what one man told me. “When you are doing wrong and trying to hide it, you feel cutoff from everyone. You seek to hide the truth, especially from people you love.  To do that you put on a mask, you give off the impression that everything is fine. All the while inside you feel terrible.  You feel like no one really knows you.  You can’t talk to anyone. You feel all alone.  Surely God wants nothing to do with you.  You know that’s what you deserve.” 

Yet the meaning of Ascension and Pentecost is quite the opposite.  The promise of Jesus in our text for today is that God has not and will not abandon us.  “I will not leave you as orphans…”  It’s the same promise Jesus makes just before ascending into heaven. “I will be with you always.”  In Acts 1 Jesus promises, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you…”   Indeed, that is one reason why He ascends into heaven.  He leaves so that He might give to you and me the gift of His Holy Spirit.  “I will ask the Father,” Jesus promises, “and he will give you another Counselor to 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.”

The word that is here translated “Counselor” is the word “paraclete.”  That word means “One who walks along side.”  What a perfect description of the Holy Spirit.  As we walk through the joys and sorrows of life God gives us His Holy Spirit to walk along side of us.  The Lord sends Him to us in the waters of Holy Baptism.  He speaks to us in every sermon and Bible Class.  He meets us at this table where with bread and wine He gives us His very body and blood… The Holy Spirit walks along side of us is by giving us each other.  That’s the whole purpose of a ministry like Stephen Ministry, of pastors, of small groups, of AA and Celebrate Recovery groups – fellow believers God uses to walk alongside you in a time of trouble.  How much it helps to receive cards from fellow Christians when were sick, to have a Christian neighbor stop by to see us in the hospital, or to bring a pie by the house at the time of death.  How good it is to be able to call a brother and sister in Christ just to talk or laugh or cry together.  The Holy Spirit walks along side of us as we support and care for one another.

I remember one woman who was at the worst part of chemo therapy.  She was feeling alone and abandoned.  One day she was on her way home and she stopped for an ice cream cone.  While there she passed a man who just sort of starred at here.  Then he followed her out of the store.  “You are going through cancer treatments, aren’t you?’  “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”  “I could tell,” he said.  “I was where you are just a year ago.  I just wanted to tell you that you are going to be ok, no matter what happens. I know you feel alone right now. But you aren’t.  The Lord will never abandon you.  That’s what got me through.”  That man noticing, understanding, stopping to speak to me was all the assurance I needed that what he had told me was true.  I wasn’t alone!  God had sent that man, just when I needed him.’  That’s what Jesus has promised. “I will not leave you as orphans.” Amen!