Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Allelujah! Our text is the Holy Gospel reading which has already been read.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are now more than halfway through the Easter season, and the Gospel readings appointed for today and the next two Sundays prepare us for Pentecost, which means "fiftieth day," fifty days after Easter, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the apostles to empower their ministry of preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus. Today's Gospel reading focuses on the work of the Holy Spirit, what He would do when He came, and what He still is busy working at today.

Jesus introduces the Spirit's work by promising to send Him after going up to Jerusalem to suffer and die for our sins, rise on the third day to grant us the hope of everlasting life, and then ascend to the Father's right hand to constantly intercede for us, and to send us the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper (Comforter or Paraclete) will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you." That promise would be fulfilled on Pentecost.

In John chapters 14 and 16, the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, or Helper, or Paraclete, depending on which translation you use. If we go by what Jesus says of the Holy Spirit in today's Gospel reading, perhaps another fitting name for Him would be "the Preacher." But the Holy Spirit doesn't just float around preaching; instead to do this work He employs the mouths and pens of His apostles, and then later the pastors of His church.

The threefold reproving / conviction / proving guilty done the Spirit

And Jesus tells us what the Holy Spirit will preach. He said, "When the Spirit comes, 'He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.'" Other translations say that the Spirit will "convict" or "convince" the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. All of these translations convey aspects of what Jesus is teaching us about the Spirit.

The Spirit's message points to two audiences. First, He speaks to the Christian Church, those who have been rescued from this dying world and have been brought into the Kingdom of God through Baptism. To the Church, the Spirit preaches and proves that the world is wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment, and He proves that our doctrine in the Bible is right. You can see this also is the role of pastors: to study the Scriptures and convey the right doctrine to the church of Jesus Christ. So first, the Spirit proves the world wrong, and proves that we in the Christian Church have the right teachings.

Secondly, the Spirit uses the Church to preach His message to the world outside the Church. In John's Gospel, when He refers to "the world," He means that the world is the realm of unbelief, sin, darkness, and rejection of Jesus. We were all part of the world before we were graciously saved from it and brought into God's Kingdom; now we are in the world, but not of the world. And through the Church, the Spirit announces to the world, "Look sinful world, you think you know what sin and righteousness and judgment mean, but Jesus has an entirely different definition of sin and righteousness and judgment than you do, so you need to listen up, repent of your false belief, and turn to Jesus."

In the Church we pray that through the Spirit's preaching, many from the world will be convicted and repent and be brought into God's Kingdom. Also, as the Spirit continues to preach this same message to the Church, He defends Christians against the world's false doctrines and slays our worldly sinful flesh. We desperately need the Spirit to keep on preaching to us through God's Word throughout our lives, so that we are strengthened in our struggle against the influence of the sinful, unbelieving world. That is why gathering for the Divine Service regularly is so essential to the Christian life.

Jesus tells us that the Spirit's work of proving the world wrong and of rebuking the world will have three main points. He says, when the Spirit "comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged." Now we will take a look at each of these three points of the Spirit's work, concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

First, through the preaching of God's Word, the Spirit will prove that the world is wrong and guilty "concerning sin, because they do not believe in" Jesus. There are several things loaded up in this statement.

Most basically, the world doesn't believe it is accountable for sin at all, because it doesn't believe in the one true God. The world thinks that offenses and crimes do happen, but they only harm the victims and society and don't also cause the perpetrators to be guilty before God, deserving of His wrath.

Also, the world considers many grave sins not to be sins at all, like unscriptural divorce, abortion, and sexual immorality. On the other hand, the world considers many things to be sins that aren't really sins, such as eating unhealthy foods. Over the past couple of weeks you probably have heard health experts crying about how bad it is to eat the new KFC double down sandwich, with bacon and cheese stuck between two pieces of fried chicken. To the world, it is a sin to eat this or other fatty foods. Of course, if you ate four of them in one sitting, that would be the sin of gluttony, but just eating a double down is not a sin. Likewise, smoking is not inherently sinful, nor is neglecting to recycle. But these are things that the world calls sins and will not forgive you for.

But what the world considers to be the greatest sin is intolerance—and the world defines intolerance as rejecting someone else's teaching and saying your own is the only right way. Ironically, nothing is more intolerant than the world's idea of tolerance, because such tolerance absolutely refuses to tolerate intolerance. Got that?

Yet when the Holy Spirit comes and preaches the message of Jesus Christ to the world, when Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me," then the world says, "Jesus, you are the biggest sinner in the world, because you are intolerant of all those other religions out there. How dare you tell me what to believe? How dare you tell me that I cannot be right with God except through faith in you?"

Yet Jesus and the Holy Spirit come to rebuke the world because they do not want the world to reject the one true God, but instead they want to save the world. As John 3:16-17 say, "God loved the world this way: He gave His only-begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him."

Look at how God has opened His arms wide toward the world, embracing it by turning aside His wrath against sin through Jesus. Look at what extreme lengths God took to reconcile Himself to the world, by taking all the sin of all of us in the world and placing it on the back of His beloved, only-begotten Son, who bore the lashes, the scorn, the smiting, the crown, the nails, all for sinners, to redeem us from sin, death, and hell. Jesus willingly took the punishment in His own body, that all of our sins deserved, so that the world could be saved through faith in Him.

And now the Spirit's work is to prove that the world is wrong about sin. He shows what sin really all is about: it means not believing in Jesus. That is the chief sin, the only sin that can damn you. As Jesus said, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him". It is a very simple either-or. Faith in Christ, even if that faith is weak, leads to everlasting life; while rejection of Jesus and His Word leads to everlasting death under the wrath of God.

Of course, true faith in Jesus will lead to a life that repents of sins and struggles against all the worldly sins that wage war against the soul. Do not get the impression that we are talking about a sort of faith in which a person says, "Oh, I believe in Jesus, so now I'm saved and can go on and live however I want, even willfully committing sins." Oh, no, in the Scriptures the Holy Spirit warns that this notion about faith is completely wrong and damnable. Instead, believing in Jesus will lead to a life such as St. Paul describes in Romans chapter 7, a life in which we do not say, "I believe, so anything goes," but instead, "I believe, but Lord, I need help. I really struggle with resisting the sins of my flesh and beg for Christ to help and forgive me!" And that sort of faith leads us here to church regularly, to hear absolution for our sins and to be forgiven and strengthened by the body and blood of Jesus.

The second thing Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will prove the world wrong and guilty about is "concerning righteousness, because I [Jesus] go to the Father, and you will see me no longer."

Jesus means that the world thinks that righteousness is a completely external matter. That is, a person is righteous if he does righteous deeds, if he does what is right and good. The world even thinks that this external righteousness can lead to eternal life. Some time ago I did a funeral and the woman's son (who supposedly was a Lutheran) said, "If anyone deserved to go to heaven, mom did. She was so good and kind to everyone, especially to animals." Now I acknowledge she was a very sweet lady, but as a faithful Lutheran she herself had contradicted her son by admitting that her own righteousness was worthless and that only Christ's righteousness could save her.

The world thinks that people's righteousness is based on how good they are, how many people they have helped. And it is true that such righteousness is very useful for society and is very beneficial to our neighbor; and such external righteousness will flow out of true faith in Jesus; but Jesus says that the Holy Spirit's work is to reject this kind of righteousness as a way of getting right with God.

Instead of external righteousness making us right with God, what makes us right with God is Jesus going to the Father. What does this mean? It means that God's righteousness that He gives to cover our sins is accomplished by Jesus suffering for our sins, rising to declare us righteous, and then ascending to God the Father to be our advocate, to plead for the Father to declare us righteous. The Holy Spirit inspired St. John to write in his first Epistle, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous [One]. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world".

Again, see how great the love of God for the world is. He sent Jesus to be the propitiation, the mercy seat, the turner-away-of-God's-wrath by His righteous life, death, and resurrection. And so the Holy Spirit calls out to the world, "Your external righteousness and good works can't make you right with God! Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Receive the righteousness that Jesus bestows on you in Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and make that your highest good in this life."

Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will prove that the world is wrong about righteousness because He is going to the Father and His disciples will see Him no longer. The world wants righteousness to be something visible, but Jesus shows with these words that the righteousness that saves us, the righteousness that is given to us by the Holy Spirit, that righteousness is not by sight, but by faith alone. As Jesus said to Thomas, "You have believed because you have seen me. Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed." Righteousness that saves can only be received by faith, not by sight, as St. Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

Finally, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will prove that the world is wrong and guilty "concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged."

According to the world's judgment, God is not the ruler of this world. Instead, the world believes it is ruled by various other things; some believe it is just chaos, evolution, and natural selection that rules the world; others believe the world is ruled by false gods, like Allah or luck; others think that mankind rules the world, and that we can gain control of all things; and finally, the clearest thinkers in the sinful world conclude that the world is ruled by the devil. That's right, the unbelievers who are most sensible acknowledge that the devil is the ruler of this sinful world because of the great amount of evil, destruction, and death that hangs over all mankind. And that is exactly what Jesus calls Satan here: "the ruler of this world." And no matter whether the world believes in evolution, or false gods, or in humanity, they are all under the power of the devil.

Yet Jesus does not stop at saying the devil is the ruler of this world; Jesus goes on to say that Satan has been judged. As Jesus neared His time of suffering and death, He said, "Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die."

Jesus predicted that His death on the cross would overcome the devil's power once and for all. Satan's greatest delight has always been in accusing people of their sins and convincing them that they are hellbound. Yet on the cross, Jesus drew all the world's sins into Himself to suffer for them and to release us from the devil's bondage. When our sins are on Jesus and not on us, then we can confidently respond to the devil, "No, devil, I am a forgiven sinner. My sins have been laid on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God. I belong to Him, and I am no longer under your power. I may be in your world, but I am not of that world; I am in Christ's Kingdom." As we confess in the Small Catechism, Jesus has "redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, that I may be His own." Now we belong to Jesus, not to the devil, for we have been snatched out of the world's grasp and into Christ's.

Yet while we are in the Kingdom of Jesus under His reign, the devil is still the ruler of this world between now and the last day. God has judged the devil by convicting him of his crimes and he has been sentenced to an eternity in hell, but for a short time, the devil is, as it were, out on parole in the world with very tight restrictions. The judgment is made, but the punishment will not completely be doled out until the last day.

In the meantime, we need to always keep an eye out for the devil so that we may know how to avoid Him. The devil rules the world, with all its unbelief and corruption, and so the influence of the world is one way he tries to get at us. Likewise, he makes use of our sinful flesh to attempt to overwhelm the new creature that was given to us in Baptism.

But you need not fear Satan, for he is judged and you are in Christ through Baptism and faith, and in Christ, the devil cannot hurt you. Think about it this way: the devil is like an attack dog on a leash and chain that cannot be broken. The only way you can be harmed by the dog is by ignoring the "Beware of Dog" sign and by wandering into the area that he can reach. When you are in Christ, the devil cannot reach you, but if you ignore God's warnings about the devil's temptations and you wander outside of Christ and into the devil's reach (that is, you wander away from the Church and God's Word and wander into the world's sins that wage war against your souls), then you are opening yourself up to destruction.

Yet if you have fallen again under the influence of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh, do not despair. Remember that Baptism "works forgiveness of sins [and] rescues from death and the devil." God always stands behind His promises to you in Baptism, so return again to Him through repentance and faith. Likewise, Dr. Luther explains in the Large Catechism that when you partake of Christ's body and blood and receive the forgiveness of sin, "It contains and brings with it God's grace and the Spirit with all His gifts, protection, shelter, and power against death and the devil and all misfortune."

And so finally, you can see the Holy Spirit's work in your life when He is calling you to repentance and faith, showing you the right knowledge of sin and righteousness and judgment: that is, for the sake of Jesus, all of your sin is forgiven, you are clothed with Christ's own righteousness that saves you eternally, and so you have nothing to fear in the final judgment. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.