5th Sunday of Easter (Cantate) – May 18, 2025
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: John 16:5–15
“Works of the Holy Spirit”
Theme: The Holy Spirit works in our heart to convict us of sin and to deliver to us the salvation of Jesus Christ.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
In last week’s readings and sermon, we heard Jesus say, “your sorrow will turn to joy.” God is able to bring joy out of the sorrow of this world. Whatever we may be going through, we can trust that God is with us through the darkness, leading us to joy in this life and the life to come. Sometimes, though, it seems like God is the one who is causing us pain. He points out our faults, or uses others to call them to mind. God does this to heal us. You see, one way of viewing sin is that it is ultimately self-harm. Sin is certainly rebellion against God. It does harm other people. But it also harms ourselves. In order to address sin, God must use his law, which can be painful.
Consider the image of a doctor or nurse who is tasked with hearing all your physical ailments. You might have a minor illness or a major injury. Doctors are trained to analyze the symptoms, diagnose the problem, and treat the real cause as best they can. Sometimes what they do is cause even more pain in order to treat the problem. If you cut yourself open somehow, the doctors need to clean the wound first. They might treat the open wound with some medicine. Then they may stitch up the wound. All of those are painful things. Yes, modern painkillers can take the edge off.
But imagine telling the doctor that all you want is painkillers, and you’ll just walk it off. Depending on the severity of the wound, something worse will probably happen. You are likely to get an infection, which could lead to blood poisoning and death. In the end, treating the symptom of pain with a pain-killer leads to a worse end. Doctors cause more pain in their treatment in order to save your life. Even for more mild cases, taking some nasty-tasting or hard-to-swallow medicine is better than suffering even longer with a disease. Enduring therapy often pays dividends in the long run for healing of the body.
Spiritually speaking, many people in our world are hyped up on painkillers or self-medicating with alcohol, ignoring their problems and refusing to see the cause of their ailments. I am speaking both literally and figuratively here. When I hear of someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol or any such thing, my first thought is that they are using those things to dull the pain of a deeper issue. It could be abuse, guilt, loneliness, or any number of things. Addictions hide the true suffering under the surface.
But when I said that people are hyped up on painkillers in a spiritual sense, I do mean that too. What it looks like is being unwilling to admit that you’re wrong in an argument lest you appear weak to the other person. What it looks like is excusing sin because it’s not harming anyone else.
It would be helpful to see the Holy Spirit as a doctor. Most Christians view the Holy Spirit in purely positive lights. He inspires them or gives them joy or fills them with happiness. They might be shocked to find out that one of the most important works of the Holy Spirit is to convict you of your sin. That’s right: Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes, “he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (8). The Holy Spirit is like a doctor who diagnoses your problems and wants to treat them. It will probably hurt. Healing always hurts
Being convicted of sin happens when the law is presented before you, and you know that you’ve broken that law, and you know you need to repent. When your heart drops into your stomach because you know you’ve messed up, the Holy Spirit is working. When you feel terrible about what you said or did, the Holy Spirit is working. The Holy Spirit uses God’s Law to point out your sin, that you would repent of your sin and be forgiven. The Holy Spirit does not want you to stay in your sin. That’s the devil’s temptation. He wants you to feel guilty and never turn to God for forgiveness.
The Holy Spirit convicts you of sin that he would convince you of righteousness. This is the other promise that Jesus has about the Holy Spirit: “he will convict the world … of righteousness” (8). Our own righteousness cannot heal us. The Holy Spirit heals us like a doctor with the righteousness of Jesus. Jesus promises, “he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (14). What belongs to Jesus? What did he win on the cross? It was forgiveness, life, and salvation. The Holy Spirit takes these things of Jesus and declares them to you. This is called the Gospel, the message of the good news of Jesus. When you hear the forgiving words spoken by a pastor in the stead of Christ, know that the Holy Spirit is also working through those words to heal you. When your spouse or friend or neighbor forgives you, the Holy Spirit is there too.
Sadly, many people reject this spiritual process in favor of spiritual painkillers. They just want to keep on living their life as they see fit. For this, there is also a judgment. The Holy Spirit will convict the world “concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged” (11). The devil will do anything to keep you from the good doctor. He works on your conscience, which is the part of you that tells you when you’ve done something right or wrong. He will either hide your sins from your conscience or try to drown your conscience with guilt and shame. The Holy Spirit judges him for doing this, both now and certainly on the Last Day when the devil will be cast into the pit of fire for all his wicked deeds.
In the end, the Holy Spirit brings Christ to us. He is the true medicine, the true healer. Jesus is not here on this earth with his local presence. He ascended up to heaven. But he is with us in a far greater way, for He sends His Holy Spirit to us. That was his promise: “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (7). If Jesus had stayed on earth, it would be necessary for us to be where He is. But if the Holy Spirit can deliver Jesus to us wherever and whenever we worship God, then we can worship Jesus “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
The Holy Spirit is connected intimately with Christ. In fact, we get a glimpse of the Trinity here in John: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (13) and “All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (15). The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to speak peace to your hearts. The Holy Spirit uses water and the Word to unite you to Jesus’s death and resurrection in Holy Baptism. The Holy Spirit uses bread and wine to bring you Jesus’s body and blood.
So just as God brings us from sorrow to joy, He sometimes kills to make alive. God the Holy Spirit is a doctor who cuts away our sin, that we would repent and believe in Jesus. He speaks the truth about our sinful condition, but even more, about the truth of Jesus’s work for you. He heals you and declares to you all that Jesus has received from the Father.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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