"Another Advocate"

 John 14:15-17

Maundy Thursday

April 2, 2026

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  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.”

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Jesus endured a lot over the long hours of Thursday night into Friday.  The Romans had a special love of cruelty.  Under Roman law, there were situations when evidence was admissible in court only if it had been extracted under torture.  A Roman festival would not be complete without gladiators killing dangerous animals or each other.  And, of course, there was the public execution of criminals.  Crucifixion was a long, slow method of that.  For Jesus, though, there was another element that was part of the suffering that did not come from the Romans or the temple authorities, but from his friends: abandonment.

 

One of the fears that I hear from older people, more than fear of weakness or illness, is that something will leave them in need of care and there will be no one there to help.  Another version of that is to be forgotten, to become a burden, to grow irrelevant.  Even somebody who is clearly well-loved and well cared-for and totally competent will occasionally have those thoughts.  So someone whose memory is weakening badly may not remember that not five minutes ago their spouse was holding their hand or their children were seeing to their needs, and find themselves facing a deep, deep loneliness.  It’s only when the caregiver returns that they may be calm enough to sleep.  It’s only with the constant reassurance that the anxiety is held at a distance.

 

The story of Jesus’ last hours is a story of his friends’ failure to stick with him in his time of need.  No, there was not much that they could do for him.  Those who stuck by: his mother and Mary Magdalene and some other women, his friend John – they could only stand at a distance and watch – and Jesus found some comfort in being able to commend them to one another’s care.  For the most part, though, people failed him.  I mention John here, but he, with James and with Peter, had fallen asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane when he asked them to watch and pray.  The guards knew to find him there because Judas had taken a bribe to turn him in.  When Jesus was arrested, Peter did follow him to the high priest’s house, where Jesus was first put on trial.  Give him credit for that.  But then he grew scared and denied that he knew him.  One by one, they were stepping back, leaving him to endure as best as he could.  Do you know the old spiritual:

 

“Jesus walked this lonesome valley.

He had to walk it for himself.

O, nobody else could do it for him.

He had to walk it for himself”?

 

That’s what was happening. 

 

            Then came the worst moment when it seemed to him that even God had turned his back on him.  In Mark’s telling [Mark 15:34], he cried out a verse from the Psalms:

 

“My God, my God!  Why have you forsaken me?” [Psalm 22:1]

 

Those were his last words according to Mark.  John’s version is that

 

“he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” [John 19:30]

 

            In the days and years that would follow, a lot more would take place.  Jesus would be raised from the dead, and he would restore his relationship with those who had fled or turned away.  He would commission his disciples, and those who followed him throughout time, to build the kingdom of God through their proclamation and through their lives.  Some of them would do that at the cost of their lives, because the Romans with their cruelty would be replaced by others with their own cruelty and their own idolatry and their own hatred.

 

            But in none of it would they have to endure the darkest abyss of abandonment that Jesus had stared down and conquered.  Because of what he did, he not only opened the way from earth to heaven but he also opened the way from heaven to earth.  That had started with his own incarnation, but it continues with the gift of his Spirit to go with us through our own lonesome valleys, whatever they may be.  He said to his disciples,

 

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  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.” [John 14:16-17]

 

Psalm 22 asks,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

 

Psalm 23 answers,

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”

 

And God’s people add, “Amen.”