THE WORD
Ac 16, 11-15 / Jn 15,26-16,4
Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. “I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you. I did not tell you this from the beginning, because I was with you.”
IN OTHER WORDS
In legal matters, we hire lawyers as counselors or advocates, because they advise and defend us.
Through life’s difficult times, we depend upon psychology professionals to comfort us, to help us. Not only are such professionals expensive, they are available only by appointment and are subject to error. For us as an institution, we regularly seek their assistance. Our culture leads us to paying expensive lawyers and psychologists for their services.
Our particular Gospel passage has a special term for those who render such services: Parakletos.
According to William Barclay, this word can mean a lawyer who pleads your case or a witness who testifies in your behalf. It can refer to a person who gives comfort, counsel, or strength in time of need. The literal meaning is “someone called in;” but it is the reason why the person is called in which gives the word its distinctive associations. Always a parakletos is someone called in to help when the person who calls him in is in trouble or distress or in doubt or bewilderment.
Further, Parakletos has been translated into Advocate, Counselor, Comforter, and Intercessor, but each of these expresses only one facet of parakletos. The original readers of this Gospel would have heard the full richness of its various meanings. Some Bibles use the word Paraclete, which is not an English word but a transliteration of the Greek word. The problem is that most people don’t know what a Paraclete is, so using Paraclete without explanation will probably convey less meaning rather than more.The Paraclete, of course, is the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit dwelling in and among God’s people.
Note that the various translations of Paraclete (Advocate, Counselor, Comforter, and Helper) all point to the helping, supporting role of the Spirit. The Paraclete is with us always, and offers power and wisdom that are simply unavailable elsewhere at any price. This is not to say that we should not consult lawyers and psychologists, but it gives us an appreciation for the ever-present and powerful help that God makes available to us through the Paraclete.
To those early Christians, whom the world would hate, the synagogues would excommunicate, and Rome would persecute, this was good news. They had no access to professional counsel, but they did have each other – and they had the Paraclete. This is also good news for us. Neither our lawyer nor our psychiatrist welcomes a phone call in the middle of the night when terror jolts us from our slumbers. The Paraclete, however, is always present and ready to help.
Finally, in these verses, Jesus talks about the persecution that his disciples can expect to experience – about a world that will hate them for not belonging to the kosmos. He talks about kosmospeople who hate the Son for exposing them to the light and making them accountable for their sins. The invitation is for us to depend on the Parakletos in its fullest meaning.
- Fr. Lex Ferrer, SVD | DWST, Tagaytay City
The Word in other words 2016
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
