William H. Willimon - "I Will Not Leave You Desolate" (May 21, 1995)

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-	It begins with a question.	0:11
	One of Jesus' followers ask,	0:16
	"Lord, how will you reveal yourself to us	0:21
	"and not to the world?"	0:26
	And when you think about it, isn't that your question too?	0:31
	Isn't that what brought you here this morning?	0:38
	You.	0:41
	You want to see Jesus.	0:42
	You.	0:45
	In this world with all of its cares and concerns	0:47
	it's easy to become distracted, blinded, not to see.	0:51
	And so we ask with the disciples, "Lord,	0:58
	"how will you reveal yourself to us?	1:02
	"How will we have you among us?"	1:06
	Today's gospel from John:	1:12
	They asked, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal	1:17
	"yourself to us and not to the world?"	1:20
	Jesus answered, "Those who love me will keep my word	1:23
	"and my Father will love them and we will come to them	1:29
	"and make home with them.	1:33
	"Whoever does not love me	1:37
	"and does not keep my words.	1:38
	"The word that you hear	1:41
	"is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.	1:43
	"I have said these things to you while I am still with you.	1:47
	"But the advocate, the helper, the Holy Spirit,	1:52
	"whom the Father will send in my name	1:56
	"will teach you everything, will remind	1:59
	"you of all I have said to you.	2:01
	"Peace I leave with you.	2:05
	"My peace I give to you.	2:08
	"I do not give peace	2:11
	"to you as the world gives.	2:12
	"Do not let your hearts be troubled.	2:16
	"Do not let them be afraid.	2:19
	"You heard me say to you,	2:22
	"I am going away and I am coming to you.	2:24
	"If you love me, you would rejoice that I am	2:28
	"going to the Father because the Father is greater than I.	2:30
	"And now I have told you this before it occurs	2:36
	"so that when it does occur, you might believe."	2:40
	This is the word of the Lord.	2:47
-	Thanks be to God.	2:51
-	Easter didn't seem to last long this year.	2:55
	There was a time in the church when the church would speak	3:01
	of the great 50 days of Easter,	3:03
	the great 50 days of triumphal celebration,	3:08
	of the great reign of God begun at Easter.	3:12
	But this year, Easter seemed to last	3:18
	hardly three days.	3:23
	For it was on the Wednesday after Easter,	3:27
	just three days after Easter, that the earth heaved	3:29
	and shook and a building crashed into blood	3:33
	and death and desolation.	3:38
	It was a short Easter.	3:43
	And now it's hard to believe that we're,	3:48
	that we're just six Sundays from Easter,	3:53
	because it seems much longer.	3:58
	Seems a long time since crowds packed in here	4:03
	and there were triumphal trumpets	4:07
	and banging tympani proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus.	4:09
	From now on when you think back to April 1995,	4:17
	I don't think you're gonna think about lilies	4:24
	and white garments.	4:26
	You will think about the obscenity	4:28
	of chaos and destruction.	4:32
	You will see a bloody child	4:36
	carried from the ruin, a bombed out hulk of a building.	4:38
	And that's a long way from Easter.	4:45
	Joy is always such a fragile emotion.	4:53
	Joy lasts not long, even the deepest, most deep-throated joy	4:57
	is hard to sustain.	5:02
	With time it wilts.	5:05
	Time.	5:09
	Time is the great destroyer.	5:12
	I watch them every year at graduation.	5:17
	I listen to them.	5:19
	And they always say things like,	5:21
	"Oh, we're going to keep in touch.	5:22
	"We'll always stay friends just like we are here at Duke.	5:24
	"I'll call you as soon as I get to L.A.	5:29
	"We'll keep in touch."	5:32
	Young fools.	5:37
	Don't they know that nothing, not even the deepest,	5:38
	best friendship can remain untouched by time?	5:42
	Nothing withstands the ravages of space, time	5:47
	and the dissolution that comes on with distance.	5:52
	The desolation.	5:59
	Child psychologists tell us that that's one reason	6:03
	that the little baby loves	6:07
	to play peek-a-boo, because for the little child	6:09
	when you're out of sight, you are, you're not only	6:15
	out of mind, you're out of existence.	6:18
	You're no longer there.	6:21
	Thus, when the face goes away	6:23
	from the crib and then reappears saying, "Peek-a-boo,"	6:26
	the child cackles with delight,	6:29
	because when the face is gone, as far as the child	6:32
	is concerned, you're gone.	6:35
	You no longer exist.	6:37
	The child laughs at the delight of unexpected reappearance.	6:41
	Adults no longer delight at peek-a-boo, it is said,	6:47
	because as we grow older we learn that just because someone	6:51
	is not physically present doesn't mean that that person	6:56
	no longer exists.	7:00
	Just because a person is no longer	7:03
	standing right there in front of you doesn't mean	7:05
	that that person is dead.	7:08
	As you grow up, it is said,	7:11
	you learn to deal with space.	7:13
	You learn to accept and to understand time.	7:15
	I'm not so sure.	7:26
	Maybe the older you get, the may, the more you learn	7:29
	to respect the ravages of time.	7:32
	I know when my mother died, I can remember promising	7:39
	to myself, "I will not forget that face,	7:43
	"those hands that, I will not forget that precise,	7:46
	"particular way she was here with us."	7:49
	But you do forget.	7:57
	We human beings are rather pitiful	8:00
	in our inability to fix in the brain someone forever.	8:03
	You let them leave us	8:10
	and it is not long before we know we really have lost them.	8:13
	Time.	8:20
	Time, the great obliterator, the great destroyer.	8:22
	Time.	8:25
	And so when Jesus announces to his disciples,	8:29
	"I am going away.	8:32
	"I'm leaving you."	8:34
	They are, as we would be, they are desolate.	8:35
	"I'm going to leave you."	8:43
	To have had Jesus, to have touched the full	8:46
	glory of God in Jesus, now to be left by him?	8:49
	Desolation.	8:56
	You'll find that a great, vast part	9:00
	of the Gospel of John is consumed with this issue	9:03
	of I'm getting ready to go away.	9:07
	I won't leave you desolate.	9:09
	Most of John's Gospel is consumed	9:13
	with Jesus saying good-bye.	9:16
	"I will not leave you desolate."	9:20
	That's exactly what Jesus promises, but yet,	9:23
	how can Jesus promise that?	9:27
	Now comes time, the great destroyer,	9:30
	the obliterator of memory,	9:34
	the devastator of friendship and joy and all the rest.	9:37
	Jesus promises.	9:43
	"My Father and I will come and,"	9:45
	here's a beautiful phrase, "We will come	9:48
	"and we will make a home with you."	9:51
	Jesus's promise, "I will send you a helper.	9:58
	"I will send you an advocate,	10:02
	"a helper, the Holy Spirit, who will remind	10:04
	"you of all that I have said to you."	10:08
	This Holy Spirit is going to be a reminder, a helper.	10:13
	If you have come here this morning to church,	10:22
	wanting to see Jesus, wanting to be with Him,	10:25
	then what shall I offer you in your yearning?	10:29
	We ask with Jesus' disciples, "Lord, how will we,	10:34
	"how are you going to reveal yourself to us?"	10:38
	I really think that was his question.	10:44
	That was his question when he met me for breakfast	10:47
	in the U room in the spring.	10:49
	He asked me, smart, young thing that he was,	10:54
	"How can I be sure that this is true?	10:57
	"How can I know that the things	11:03
	"you people say about Jesus are really true?	11:05
	"How do we know that these things really happened?	11:09
	"It's a wonderful story, I'll admit.	11:13
	"But is it true?"	11:15
	Now, how was I supposed to answer?	11:22
	Did it really happen?	11:27
	"How can I know that it is historically true?"	11:31
	Who told him that was the most important question	11:34
	to ask of Jesus?	11:38
	Oh yes, that's right.	11:41
	He is a student.	11:42
	He has been taught.	11:45
	He has been taught here that history,	11:47
	history is that mighty means	11:49
	whereby we are able to retrieve the past,	11:52
	whereby that which is past is made, is recovered	11:55
	and retrieved and made available	11:59
	and fixed, rendered presence.	12:01
	All you've got to do is study history.	12:04
	You take a Bible course here,	12:08
	you'll take it from someone who is principally a historian.	12:10
	And that's why, when he asked me	12:16
	about Jesus, he asked me about history.	12:19
	"How do I know that it really happened	12:22
	"the way you say it happened?"	12:25
	My Lord, what a sham.	12:30
	History.	12:32
	What was Jesus really, really like?	12:35
	Did he do those wonderful things or not?	12:40
	Is it all historically true?	12:45
	We've been taught that history,	12:47
	history is all that really counts.	12:49
	History.	12:53
	I told him, "Look, we don't even know	12:56
	"who Eisenhower was, much less Jesus."	12:58
	I can name you four books right now	13:05
	on Martin Luther King.	13:08
	Four books on the life of Martin Luther King	13:11
	and all of them are different.	13:13
	None of them agree on who Martin Luther King really was.	13:18
	He's only been gone from us two decades.	13:22
	What history gives back to us of the past	13:28
	is rather small potatoes.	13:33
	History is hardly anything worth basing your life upon.	13:37
	History.	13:44
	We're learning how tricky it is.	13:46
	I remember the distinguished Yale historian,	13:48
	C. Vann Woodward, saying to a class,	13:51
	"Any American history, no matter how well-written,	13:54
	"any American history which is written before 1960 is wrong.	13:58
	"You people are going to have to rewrite	14:04
	"all American history."	14:06
	Well, some of you were around in 1960	14:10
	and you know what he's talking about.	14:13
	It was like after 1960 our past changed.	14:15
	Our history got seen differently.	14:20
	The whole story had to be retold if it	14:23
	was to be told with any kind of validity.	14:25
	Suddenly, what we thought was past	14:32
	was just crumbled into dust and had to be redone.	14:35
	"I am going to leave you now," the risen Jesus	14:39
	says to his despondent disciples,	14:44
	"but I am not going to leave you desolate.	14:46
	I'm going to give you history.	14:50
	I'm gonna give you a book of history,	14:53
	a record of who I am and what I've done	14:55
	that is going to be so obviously irrefutably true,	14:58
	so undeniably accurate that you will	15:02
	always have me with you.	15:05
	All you have to do is just open up the book.	15:06
	You'll know.	15:09
	Now, and you've come here this morning wanting to see Jesus,	15:13
	wanting to get close to Jesus.	15:19
	"Lord, how will you reveal yourself to us?"	15:21
	Now you know, don't you,	15:30
	that this episode from the Gospel of John was written down	15:31
	by Jesus' disciples at a time long after Jesus	15:35
	was with them in the flesh.	15:41
	Nobody was there taking down dictation.	15:44
	It was written long after Easter.	15:47
	It was written by somebody after Easter.	15:50
	I don't know how long after Easter it was.	15:54
	I don't know whether six years or six years.	15:56
	I don't know how long it was before they wrote	15:59
	this down in the Gospel.	16:01
	Even Richard Hayes doesn't know	16:03
	how long it was when they wrote this down.	16:04
	But it was after Easter.	16:10
	You see my point?	16:13
	It was the same time as your time.	16:15
	After Easter.	16:18
	That's kind of the only time	16:21
	we've ever had with Jesus is after Easter.	16:22
	He was no longer with them as Jesus.	16:25
	He was gone, ascended, they believed,	16:28
	to sit with the Father.	16:31
	And yet, they heard him say,	16:33
	"My Father and I are gonna come with you	16:35
	"and be at home with you.	16:38
	"I'm gonna send you a helper, the Holy Spirit."	16:40
	Now how could his disciples believe that?	16:47
	So long after Easter.	16:50
	How could they believe that?	16:55
	They didn't write this as future expectation.	16:59
	They wrote this as present experience.	17:02
	They could write, "I'm going to come home with you."	17:06
	because Jesus was with them.	17:09
	How could they write that?	17:12
	Well, they had these words.	17:16
	And words are fine	17:19
	as far as they go.	17:20
	Some of you, I bet, have read	17:24
	in the newspaper about the Jesus Seminar.	17:25
	The Jesus Seminar.	17:28
	A bunch of middle-aged professors sitting	17:30
	around voting on the Gospels in the Jesus Seminar.	17:33
	And what they do, a verse from the Gospels is read	17:37
	and then they pass around a box with marbles in it.	17:40
	A white ball means Jesus said it.	17:47
	A red ball means Jesus might have said this on a bad day.	17:51
	And a black ball means there's no way somebody like Jesus	17:55
	would have ever said anything like that.	18:00
	And, and you see what they're doing.	18:03
	They're hoping to just peel away	18:04
	all this history and hearsay,	18:06
	just get that thing peeled down to the 30 or 60 verses	18:08
	that Jesus actually, really, undoubtedly said.	18:12
	We will have Him thereby fixed on the page for all time.	18:18
	You won't have to buy such a large Bible.	18:22
	It will be a very small Bible.	18:24
	It'll just be those that got a white ball	18:26
	when the verse was passed around.	18:30
	He will be there, fixed.	18:32
	Of course, the problem with the Jesus Seminar	18:38
	is the Jesus that comes out	18:39
	of the Jesus Seminar sounds suspiciously like	18:41
	a middle-aged member of the Department of Religion.	18:43
	(audience laughs)	18:48
	And besides, where did the Jesus Seminar get the idea	18:51
	that we worship words anyway.	18:54
	We don't worship words.	18:57
	I'm in the word business.	18:59
	That's all I've got, words.	19:00
	I think the world of words, but let me tell you,	19:03
	you can't worship words.	19:06
	You can't follow words.	19:08
	You can't.	19:09
	The words of Jesus, no matter	19:11
	how authentic, will not release your energies	19:13
	to go out and follow Jesus.	19:15
	It wouldn't make you want to die for Jesus.	19:18
	You don't want words.	19:22
	You want Jesus.	19:23
	And that's what John says we get.	19:29
	The Father and the Son at home with us.	19:33
	The Holy Spirit.	19:38
	The helper.	19:40
	That's the reason you will note in our worship,	19:43
	we always have a prayer for illumination	19:45
	before we ever read the Scripture.	19:48
	Prayer for illumination.	19:50
	Look at it, what is it?	19:51
	It's a prayer for the Holy Spirit	19:53
	to make these words stand up,	19:57
	walk around and move in with us.	19:59
	You're here looking for Jesus.	20:03
	Or more accurately, each one of you has gotten the notion	20:08
	that Jesus is out looking for you.	20:11
	He has come to you.	20:15
	He has helped you.	20:17
	And in a way, you're not here to get close to Jesus.	20:20
	But you're here because he's gotten close to you.	20:26
	You're here because Easter isn't over.	20:28
	He went in for surgery and loving family and friends	20:37
	rallied around him such as he'd never known before.	20:42
	But the night before his surgery, late at night,	20:48
	when everybody went home and he was left alone to lie	20:52
	on that hospital bed and wait for dawn,	20:55
	wait for that long journey from the room down to the OR.	20:58
	He was alone.	21:04
	You have to do it alone.	21:08
	He was alone as never before.	21:10
	Was he desolate?	21:14
	No.	21:17
	He felt a great sense of peace.	21:18
	He knew that he was not alone.	21:24
	It was as if someone was standing there beside him.	21:28
	A helper.	21:33
	Holy Spirit,	21:37
	at home there in the darkness.	21:39
	Now those of you who've been married for a long time	21:47
	know that when you marry,	21:48
	somebody really becomes part of you.	21:50
	It's like Jesus said, "The two become one flesh."	21:53
	It's just like you're part of one another.	21:56
	And so you can understand that the night that he died,	22:02
	she thought to herself, "I am dead.	22:06
	"I can't go on.	22:11
	"It's just like half of my body	22:12
	"has been ripped away from me."	22:13
	She wanted to die.	22:17
	But she didn't.	22:21
	Somehow into that void created by his leaving,	22:23
	Jesus came like he made a home.	22:28
	Courage.	22:34
	Courage that she never knew that she had rose up	22:36
	within her and she went on.	22:42
	She triumphed.	22:45
	He said, "Look, who cares?	22:52
	"Hey, everybody's doing it.	22:55
	"And besides, don't we love each other	22:58
	"and isn't that what it's really all about?	23:00
	"Right?	23:03
	"Love?"	23:03
	And, it was like she heard herself say the words,	23:08
	"No, I can't."	23:10
	"Well why," he persisted.	23:14
	And she said, she was surprised she said it this way,	23:17
	she said, "Well, for for one thing,	23:21
	"I'm trying to be a Christian	23:25
	"and we don't do it this way."	23:28
	But she wondered where did those words come from?	23:34
	What gave her the courage,	23:39
	the inner conviction to resist?	23:42
	She'd always thought of herself as a basically weak person.	23:44
	It was the helper.	23:50
	She had not been left desolate.	23:53
	You have come here this morning saying,	23:59
	"Lord, how will you reveal yourself to us?"	24:00
	Listen to the testimony of the Gospel.	24:07
	"I am leaving you, but I will not leave you desolate.	24:11
	"I will send you a helper.	24:15
	"I will give you the Holy Spirit.	24:17
	"My Father and I are gonna come make a home with you."	24:21
	And then Jesus ends it all by saying,	24:28
	"I'm telling you all this that you might believe."	24:32
	(bright organ music)	24:46

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "I Will Not Leave You Desolate" (May 21, 1995)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:11. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 24:45.
This sermon discusses ways that God is revealed to people. The preacher states that the Bible and the presence of the Holy Spirit help Christians to remember and follow Jesus. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4s17t695

Date:

May 21, 1995

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Easter

Biblical Book:

John

Chapter and Verse:

John 14:23-29

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0755
ref9582_1ci
uachapelsermaud
duke:320671
dcrau001460
ark:/87924/r4s17t695
c30437b4-6e62-4550-819c-37bc0b54ba41

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "I Will Not Leave You Desolate" (May 21, 1995)

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1. William H. Willimon - "I Will Not Leave You Desolate" (May 21, 1995)

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William H. Willimon - "I Will Not Leave You Desolate" (May 21, 1995)

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