Never Abandoned

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

John 14:16-18

I’ll never forget it.  One night when I was in High School my friends and I made the pilgrimage down to the Medinah Temple in Chicago 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 home in the suburbs. 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 abandoned they must have felt? 

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 this huge mission to go into all the world.  Then He left!  As they stood there watching him disappear into the clouds they must have felt some sense of abandonment.  I imagine we have all experienced it.  It’s the feeling of panic experienced by the little child in the store who looks up and can’t find his parents.  It’s the feeling of loneliness experienced by the grandmother whose kids and grandkids don’t come to visit. She told me, “It’s like I have been put on a shelf and been forgotten.”  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 arthritus, who asked me if this was God punishing him  – he felt abandoned.  Or there is the young teenage boy who came to me one night because he wanted to commit suicide.  His father had abused him.  While living with grandparents his girl friend became pregnant.  After the child was born, her parents refused to let him see her or the child.  When he moved back home, his mother kicked him out.  He felt abandoned.  It can be a lonely feeling to face a tough decision, to have to be the one to tell your boss something he doesn’t want to hear… We all know the feeling somehow.   

The question asked me by the shut in reveals the true nature of abandonment.  “What did I do to deserve this?”  That’s the real fear – that you are being punished. As one person put it, “When you are doing something wrong and trying to hide it, you feel cutoff from everyone. You seek to hide the truth from people, especially from people you love.  You put on a mask, You pretend that everything is fine. All the while inside you feel terrible.  The guilt eats away at you.  You feel like no one really knows you.  You can’t talk to anyone. You can’t trust anyone.  You feel all alone.  You’re not even sure God wants you.   

Thank God for the two great festivals coming up on the calendar – Ascension and Pentecost.  They both hold out to us this promise of Jesus.   “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”  It’s the same promise Jesus makes just before ascending into heaven. “I will be with you always.” We heard that promise in Acts 1 – “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 work of the Holy Spirit.  As we walk through the joys and sorrows, the good and bad times 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 His table where with bread and wine He gives us the very body and blood of Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes to live and work within us through these means of grace.  Through these means He makes us a part of a loving community – the church.  Through the church He makes sure we are never alone, never abandoned.  I cannot begin to tell you how important that community of believers has been to Linda and me since we moved to Europe so far from home.  The Holy Spirit has “walked along side of us” through the members of Trinity. Let me give you one example.  One of the most daunting tasks facing us when we arrived in Germany was all the paper work we needed to fill out and the steps we needed to take to get legal residence here. Thank God for our church secretary Marion.  She guided us through all of that.  She helped us register our dog, file the applications for residency and get our German Driver’s License.  She literally “walked along side of us” as we filled out each form, went to each new government office.  She helped us navigate what is not an easy process.  Marion is a living example to me of how God “walks along side” of us through our fellow believers – a reminder of His promise, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Amen!