Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text is the Holy Gospel reading, in particular the first two verses. Jesus said, "But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning."

Dear friends in Christ, before I went to seminary to prepare for the ministry I worked for a couple of years as a software consultant, helping companies implement computer systems. On one project my employer hired an independent contractor from Switzerland to assist our team, and in a meeting one day he was trying to convince our client to follow a certain course of action, but the client wasn't buying it. They asked, "Why should we do it that way?" to which my Swiss colleague replied in an accent I can't imitate, "Just trust me; I'm a consultant." Needless to say, that didn't persuade our client, because based on the reputation consultants often have in the corporate world, that was like saying, "Trust me, I'm a politician."

When a questionable source says "trust me," it throws up red flags. The same flags should go up anytime we hear a person say, "The Holy Spirit told me to do this or the Holy Spirit is telling you to do that." That phrase should trigger an alert from our nonsense-detectors. I know of a woman who boasted, "One day the Holy Spirit told me where to find a great parking space at the mall." Another fellow went to his pastor and said, "The Holy Spirit told me to divorce my wife." Or consider Houston-based televangelist Kerney Thomas, Jr., who sends out letters with his (in)famous "Bible Red Blood of Jesus Handkerchiefs" because he claims that the Holy Spirit told him to send them to you in order to produce a miracle in your life. Of course, you need to send in whatever cash is in your wallet in order to cash in on the miracle. I quote from his letter that we got in our mailbox: "The Holy Spirit is in this letter and is speaking to you now while I write these words...The greater your sacrifice the greater your blessings...If you follow these 'faith instructions,' today is the day that will mark the end of all your troubles and the beginning of the best days of your life." Is your nonsense-detector going off yet?

With so many competing voices telling us what the Holy Spirit supposedly wants us to do, how do we discern when the Holy Spirit is speaking and what He actually is saying? How do we know which voices to trust?

Next Sunday we will celebrate the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost, but we find the answers to our questions about the Spirit on the lips of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ today, who teaches us to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking in Christ's own Words and in the apostolic testimony about Jesus in the Bible. And our nonsense-detectors do not go off when Jesus speaks to us because by His resurrection from the grave, He has proven that whatever He says comes to pass, so His Word is truth (John 17:17, 20). In fact, Jesus is Truth Incarnate, as He says, "the Way and the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6), whom we dare not question when He says, "Trust Me." Jesus says in John 18, "Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice" (John 18:37). And so His Word is completely trustworthy when in our Gospel reading He promises, "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me" (John 15:26).

The Helper not just a generic spirit of truth, but literally is "the Spirit of the Truth," the Spirit of Christ. He is not some impersonal force or even the human spirit of Jesus, but the Spirit is God, "the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified."

On the night when Jesus was betrayed, when He spoke our Gospel reading, He promised to send the divine Holy Spirit to His disciples, but that could only happen once Jesus had gone away. The disciples were grieved that their Lord was leaving them behind, but He said, "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" (John 16:7).

The "going away" Jesus spoke of was first of all His death. The Holy Spirit could not be given until the New Testament had been inaugurated by Jesus giving His body and shedding of His blood in death on Good Friday, so that He could redeem you from everlasting condemnation for your sins. Yet He did not do this work alone. The Epistle to the Hebrews says that Christ "through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God" (Hebrews 9:14) and here is what they accomplished: Christ now "is the mediator of a new testament, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant" (9:15).

And today, through the Holy Scriptures and Sacraments in the Church, the Holy Spirit delivers to you the benefits of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. We can see the Holy Spirit testifying to this truth in what happens moments after Jesus died. This is how St. John describes it: "One of the soldiers pierced [Jesus'] side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness-his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth-that you also may believe" (John 19:34-35). And then later on, St. John explained the significance of this event when he wrote, "This is he who came by water and blood-Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree" (1 John 5:6-8).

The way that Jesus would hand over the Spirit to His Church was prophesied by His wounds. The water and blood that poured forth from the side of the dead Jesus testified that His death for our sins had been completed, and by that water and blood the Spirit testifies also still today that His death has worked complete forgiveness and salvation for each of us. The water that poured from His side is now carried by the Spirit to you in Holy Baptism to wash you clean of all sins and give you new birth into the Church as a child of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who dwells in you now draws you to this altar where the blood that poured from Christ's side now fills the chalice in Holy Communion and gives you new life, as He promised, "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

The Spirit and the water and the blood are trustworthy, and they testify and proclaim, "Trust us! Christ's death for your sins and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and your Baptism into Christ's resurrection have granted you eternal life," so that you can confess our ultimate Christian hope in the words of the Small Catechism, "On the last day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true."

In this world, it's hard to find people you can trust. Even the people closest to us sometimes let us down. But you can completely trust what the Spirit of Truth says to you, and He promises to preserve you in the one true Faith as you receive forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation through Christ's Word and Holy Sacraments. So trust what the Spirit of Truth says, and enjoy the promise of everlasting life He gives you in Jesus Christ. 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.