Don Friesen
Mike Strathdee, who is with Mennonite Foundation, has visited our congregation several times in the past two years. One of the services the Foundation offers is help in drawing up a last will and testament. Dorothy and I drew up our will thirty-six years ago, with the help of a small-town lawyer who did it for the princely sum of ten dollars. We have not read it in as many years, and I suspect it still stipulates, in the event that we both die at once, who will look after our children. It's the conventional wisdom that if you hate your children, then die without a will! It's true; many families cannot handle the responsibility of disbursing an inheritance fairly and without acrimony. A well-thought-out last will and testament will be helpful to your heirs.
Some wills, however, are drawn up without sufficient thought. John Bowman, a Vermont tanner who died in 1891, predeceased by his wife and two daughters, was convinced that after his death the family would be reunited, eventually, through reincarnation. In anticipation of their reunion Bowman left a fifty-thousand-dollar trust fund for the maintenance of his 21-room mansion, with instructions that the servants prepare dinner every day in case the family members returned hungry. His last wishes were carried out until the trust was depleted in 1950. That's fifty-nine years of no-shows, and a colossal waste of money and food! It pales in comparison, however, to the last will and testament of Leona Helmsley, who left a twelve-million-dollar trust to her Maltese dog. Her grandsons, on the other hand, received only five million dollars each, contingent upon the stipulation that they visit the grave site of their father at least once a year. Small peanuts, however, compared to Doris Duke, the daughter of James Duke, founder of the American Tobacco Company and North Carolina's Duke University, whose last will and testament left a hundred million dollars in trust for her dogs.
Jesus left nowhere near that amount in his last will and testament, and compared to some of those crazy examples Jesus' last will and testament was not strange at all! He knew how messy matters of inheritance can become, and when he was approached to arbitrate in a family fight concerning an inheritance, he declined – and – issued a warning. "Take care!" he said, "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." (Luke 12:15)
John Grisham wrote a delightful novel about greed called The Testament (1999), the story of a seventy-eight-year-old eccentric who divvies up an eleven-billion-dollar estate, infuriating his three ex-wives and immediate descendants – a bunch of wastrels salivating with greed – by leaving his entire estate to an illegitimate daughter unknown to the rest of the family and who is a missionary in Brazil! It was also a delight to read a popular novel in which a missionary is portrayed with some fairness, respect, and intelligence.
The typical image one has of last wills and testaments is of a family sitting in a room while a lawyer reads the last will and testament of the departed. Now that I think of it, there never was a reading of my parents' will, which makes me wonder if it really said what it was purported to have said. I wonder if it's too late to find out!
Our Lord's Last Will and Testament: A Promise not to Abandon His Disciples
Jesus' disciples were not seated in a lawyer's office, but sitting around a table with Jesus, who had not yet departed. He read his own last will and testament. Most people don't call it that, preferring the title, "The Farewell Discourses," Jesus' last words to his disciples as presented to us in John's Gospel, chapters 13 to 17. There Jesus tells his disciples things he wanted them to know before he took leave of them. The Farewell Discourses follow a literary form common in the ancient world; the book of Genesis, for example, records Jacob's last words, which are quite extensive (Genesis 47:29 – 49:33), and, reads Genesis, "when Jacob had finished giving instructions, ...he lay down ...and died." (49.33) Similarly, Moses delivers a lengthy discourse just prior to his death. (Deuteronomy 32:45 – 34:4)
The time for Jesus' departure was fast approaching, and soon the disciples would be on their own without him. It was a bittersweet occasion; on the one hand it represented Christ's victory over earthly pain and death, but on the other hand the disciples would no longer have Jesus with them to lead them, guide them, prompt them, chide them, and challenge them. For the disciples there was a sense of loss and bereavement in Jesus' leave-taking, perhaps even bewilderment! I can imagine some of the disciples thinking, "We didn't do that well when you were with us; how are we going to cope without you?!?"
The disciples had no idea that their sense of loss would soon be mixed with a sense of shame and disloyalty. Jesus, sensing their unease, told them, "I will not leave you desolate." (John 14:18) Or, as other translations render this phrase: "I will not leave you comfortless." (KJV) "I will not leave you bereft." (NEB) "I will not abandon you." (LB)
"You are ...distressed at what I ...told you" (John 16:6, PHL), acknowledged Jesus, but he promised to send them someone who could help the disciples in his absence. God will "give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit, ...(who) abides with you, and ...in you. I will not leave you orphaned" (14:16-18), he reassures them.
Jesus' leave-taking reminds me of an anecdote from the author of All Creatures Great and Small. James Herriot, a veterinarian in England, took his small children along on his veterinarian's rounds. Once they turned two, his children would put on their big boots, hop in the car, and accompany Herriot on his daily rounds. They helped him open gates and get things out of the car, and they got to know their father's work and clients well. Herriot says that when his daughter, Rosie, turned five and had to go to school,"...she was worried how I'd manage without her."
"Never mind, Dad." she said, "I'll be with you on Saturdays." She didn't want to leave her father bereft.
Similarly Jesus didn't want to leave his disciples bereft, and so he promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit who would maintain their connection with him. The Holy Spirit – alternatively called our Advocate, our Comforter, our Guide, our Helper, our Counsellor, our Go-between, if you will – links us to Jesus.
One summer during my student days I worked near a nickle mine that needed lots of water for the refinery. There was a river about three miles away that had an endless supply of water. My job was to help build a pipeline to link the source of water to its destination, and since the pipeline was thirty-six inches in diameter, the supply, once connected, was plentiful! Similarly, if an electrical power source is linked to a light bulb, the bulb shines forth! Radio waves link a transmitter is to a receiver, and the results, when it was first done, were amazing! A wireless network links a computer to the worldwide web. Similarly, the Holy Spirit links us to Jesus, for the Spirit, Jesus told the disciples, "will teach you ...and ...remind you of what I said while I was with you." (14:26, CEV) The Spirit links us to Jesus, and helps the spirit of Jesus dwell in us, so that we are equipped to be Christ's presence in the world.
At one point in Jesus' farewell discourses he seems ready to conclude his discourse and leave. "It's time for us to go" (John 14:31, my paraphrase, similar to the CEV), he says, but then it's as if he got up from the table and sat down again – as if he forgot something he really wanted to say – another way, perhaps, to reassure his disciples that they will remain connected to him. He continues, comparing himself to a vine, and his disciples to branches on that vine. We're all joined together, linked together, connected, and within seven verses he uses the word, "abide," ten times! (John 15:4-10) The quaint word, "abide," means "dwell". The connection is so intimate that it is as if the Holy Spirit dwells within us. The Spirit will keep us connected, according to Jesus – us to Jesus, Jesus and us to God, and us to one another.
Our Lord's Last Will and Testament: A Spiritual Swiss Army Knife
Our Lord's last will and testament did not bequeath his disciples – or us – any riches, except those "in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt" (Matthew 6:20, KJV), and he didn't leave anything to dogs – not even to the donkey who carried him into Jerusalem – but he did leave us the Holy Spirit, who connects us to Jesus, and keeps us on the straight and narrow. The Holy Spirit is like a spiritual Swiss Army Knife, with many features and functions: one part, the Comforter feature, is there to comfort us when we feel Jesus' absence intensely. There is the Advocate feature, which speaks and argues on our behalf when we can't think of a thing to say. There's the Prompter feature, which tells us what to say when we're speechless. (John 14:26) There's the Intercessor feature, to help us when "we do not know how to pray as we ought," and the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf "with sighs too deep for words." (Romans 8:26)
Then there's the Counsellor feature, which does pretty much what any effective counsellor does in our day, providing us with insights about ourselves, guiding us toward wholeness, and helping us to identify and remove blockages that inhibit or prevent our growth. A good counsellor has a personal concern for others, and the Holy Spirit is concerned about each one of us, while at the same time reminding us that the Holy Spirit is a gift to the Church, and can help us to function fruitfully in the community of faith. Another mark of a good counsellor is empathy, and the Holy Spirit too is an empathetic presence while at the same time nurturing empathy within us.
The Holy Spirit has quite a bag of tricks up its spiritual sleeve, and unlike some counsellors, who politely listen to us for fifty minutes, and then want us to pay – and leave – the Holy Spirit is ever present. A good counsellor does not solve our problems or make decisions for us, but helps us discover inner strengths, and new resources and insights, so that we can make the decisions needed, difficult and painful though they may be.
All in all, that's not a bad inheritance! But there's more! "If you love me," Jesus told the disciples, "you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15) And the commandments Jesus left us are but two or three, depending how you count them. There's the new commandment, "that (we) love one another ... (for) by this everyone will know that (we) are Jesus' disciples" (John 13:34-35), and then there's the greatest commandment, an amalgam of two Old Testament commandments, namely to "love ...God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength (and to) love your neighbour as yourself." (Mark 12:30-31)
The disciples were sad that Jesus was leaving, and he could have rebuked them, like he did on other occasions. He could have said, "Hey, C'mon, you guys. Easter's coming! I will be triumphant! There's nothing to worry about. Stop your snivelling, and get on with the work!" Jesus did not take that approach, and that's in character with Jesus' nature, with his love for us, and with his central message of love.
There's an interesting artistic transformation that took place with one of the sculptures that can be found in a church in Copenhagen. Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), a Danish sculptor and the only non-Italian sculptor commissioned to have one of his statues installed in St Peter's Basilica, may be best known for his Christus sculpture, also known as "The Resurrected Christ." Thorvaldsen's early sketches and models of this sculpture show Christ's arms raised above his head, but he was dissatisfied with this and spent considerable time fussing with it. The story is that with one of Thorvaldsen's early clay models, the raised arms slumped during the night, and Thorvaldsen, seeing the new pose, quickly made it permanent. Whether it was divine intervention, or gravity, we can't be sure, but Christus was transformed from a majestic figure with regal gestures – Christ's face tilted upward in triumph, and his hands raised in power and authority – to a figure with lowered arms of welcome, the confidently upturned face now lowered onto the Saviour's chest, and the face no longer that of a King wearing a crown, but a compassionate shepherd worrying about his sheep.
Our Inheritance – Love – Compelled Amazing Acts of Christian Witness!
Jesus' last will and testament bequeathed us the multi-helpful presence of the Holy Spirit, and the commandment of love, which together have achieved much more than multi-millions could ever achieve. One has only to read through the Acts of the Apostles to see one example after another, including the Apostle Paul's audacious witness in the intellectual centre of Greece. While not effective in terms of numbers, Paul's encounters in Athens show the extent to which the disciples of Jesus were empowered to spread the message of love, and to engage their culture with the possibilities of this new ethic of love. It's an inheritance that puts all others to shame. May we use it to God's glory! AMEN
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.