Everything is Going to Be Alright
Do you remember the 1998 comedy The Wedding Singer? I hope so because it’s a modern comedic classic. Robbie is the wedding singer, and he sits at a bar drowning his sorrows because the girl he loves, is married to a jerk who is cheating on her. Robbie knows but doesn’t want to tell her because he doesn’t want to hurt her and mess up her life. His best friend Sammy walks in. Sammy has always played the cool guy who chases women and never commits. His idol was the Fonz from Happy Days. Robbie tells him, “You’ve always been right, man. I’m through with relationships. From now on I’m gonna be just like you and be with a different girl every night. Starting now we’ll be free and happy the rest of our lives.” To which Sammy responds, “I’m not happy. I’m miserable. All I really want is for someone to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be alright.” Then the old drunken bum from down the bar comes over, gives Sammy a hug and says, “Everything is gonna be alright.” And they share a moment. If you haven’t seen The Wedding Singer stop reading this and go watch it immediately.
All I really want is for someone to hold me and tell me that everything is gonna be alright. Sammy gives voice to one of our deepest longings…to be comforted…to be held by someone who cares and reassured that everything is going to turn out alright. It’s a need of ours that never ends. We come into the world with it as babies, completely vulnerable, desperate for comfort, and if we make it to old age by God’s grace we leave this world the same way…completely vulnerable and dependent on others to care for us and comfort us. Somewhere along the way though we pick up the message that this is not okay. We need to toughen up. We need to become more resilient, less needy. Just another echo of that old message that we believe instinctively that independence is the way to go. Don’t be vulnerable, don’t be needy. That’s weak. Weakness is bad…we are supposed to be strong. That’s what the world around us tells us. We usually pick up this message and learn this lesson from being hurt in those places of need. It might be from our family. Maybe you were told to suck it up. It’s a hard world out there and you’ve got to toughen up to be able handle to it. Maybe your family culture was one where being needy was not okay. Maybe your family members didn’t know how to handle it so it was simply avoided. Or maybe it was worse…maybe they even ridiculed you and made fun of you for being vulnerable.
Perhaps it wasn’t your family but your peers. Kids can be just horrible to each other. Making fun of each other, being too rough with each other, excluding each other. And so on. I’m sure many of you have stories of when it happened to you growing up, or if you have children, I am sure they have shared their own stories. It happens all of the time. It is a message that we internalize after having survived through trauma. Just think of the British weathering the Battle of Britain in WWII…coping with and living through night after night of the German Luftwaffe bombing their cities, trying to break their will. The Brits collectively held tough. They heroically stood in the gap, while we (the U.S.) figured ourselves out and finally got into the fight to help stop the Nazis. The well-known British mantra resulted, “Keep calm and carry on.” It is a survival tactic, and in times of war, whether that be on the international level or the personal, it is needed to make it through the immediate trauma. It’s important to note this to stop any creeping voice of shame that might tell/accuse you that you didn’t handle that situation right. You should have done it differently…you should have done it better. Ugh, that inner critic in all of us is so cruel and lacking in compassion.
The truth is when you are in crisis, when you are in the midst of a battle, survival is what matters most and is often all you can manage. This is especially true for us as children. We do the best we can with what we have and when we’re children faced with trauma we quickly learn we often have to suppress our need for comfort because it is just not going to be met right now. Of course, as children our perspective is limited…we don’t know that there may be other times in life when it’s ok for us to be needy, when we do not have to live in survival mode, when it is vital for those needs we suppressed to survive to be met…to be comforted. Instead, we learn this message that vulnerability is not okay because when you’re vulnerable you get hurt. I learned it. Whenever I felt excluded, rejected, or picked on I put on a very hard exterior, acting as if I didn’t care, but truth is I did care. Inside I felt hurt and dismissed, but as a defense mechanism I acted indifferent. I’m sure that didn’t help any, but it was my survival technique. That’s all most of us are trying to do…survive. We come to the same conclusion Robbie did…we’re not gonna open ourselves up to that potential to be hurt any more. Simple self-preservation.
But no matter what kind of hard exterior we put on and project to the world around us, we are still just as needy inside. It’s something that is said in certain 12 Step rooms. ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) opens and closes their meetings with a compassionate description of everyone in the room saying something along the lines of: we learned these behaviors (the stuffing of emotions, people-pleasing, controlling behavior, approval-seeking, or judgment of self and others, etc.) to survive as children, and now that we are adults we have learned these behaviors no longer work. Acknowledging the need and seeking help from outside in the fellowship of others to meet it. We never out-grow that longing for someone to hold us and tell us that everything is going to be alright. We want to turn on Bob Marley and hear him sing, “Don’t worry about a thing…’cause every little thing is gonna be alright.”
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
If any of this describes you in any way, I have good news for you today. It’s certainly good news for me today. Jesus tells us that he gives us his Spirit for this very reason to comfort us. In John 14, it is the night before Jesus’ death. He celebrates the passover meal with his disciples and then takes the opportunity to teach them to prepare them for what would be coming. He knows what they must be feeling. He has told them that he was going to leave, and they didn’t really get it before, but now the hour had come. He was going to be arrested later that night, and he knew that his disciples would be very scared. He knew that they would be scattered, that each of them would abandon him and fear for their lives. And he knew that they would not understand why he had to die. They would be confused and discouraged to say the least. We know Jesus is fully aware of all of this because he had just finished predicting Peter’s denial moments before our passage begins. SO he takes the opportunity to encourage them, to tell them that everything is going to be alright.
He tells them that he was going to ask his Father to send his Spirit to be with them forever. He was going away, but he would not leave them alone. He uses a name for the Holy Spirit that describes exactly what his role and purpose would be in their lives and our lives. He calls him the “paraclete” in Greek, which translates to helper, advocate, and comforter. The Holy Spirit would be the one to keep Jesus’ promise to never leave his people, to always be with them (Joshua 1:9 among many others). He is the one who comforts us, who holds onto us and tells us that everything is going to be alright. Jesus describes the way in which the Spirit does this. He says, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” The disciples were about to lose their leader and their teacher…the one who alone had the words of life, as Peter described Him. And now they would be the ones carrying the responsibility for spreading this new faith. You can imagine them thinking, “Oh man, I really wish we had written down more of the stuff he taught us…like the sermon on the mount, that seemed pretty important.” Jesus reassured them that the Spirit would teach them everything they needed to know and that he would remind them of all that Jesus had taught them. Most importantly the Spirit would lead them in the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection. He would be the one to help them connect all of the dots…what Jesus’ cross means for sinners like you and me…that God’s grace and forgiveness has won the day…that we are free in Him. It’s the Spirit that leads them into that truth.
Whenever they might worry, whenever they would find themselves up against it and in over their heads, whenever they might feel alone, whenever they felt their great need and vulnerability, no matter what the situation Jesus tells them that his Spirit would be with them and that he will guide them forever. Everything was going to be alright.
This is actually the good news of Jesus leaving. It doesn’t seem like good news at first. You would think we would want him here with us all of the time. I am sure the disciples thought that…it would really be better if you stayed, Lord. But Jesus knew that they would be going all over the world. He knew that his good news was for people everywhere not just in Jerusalem and Judea. And the way for him to be with every single person that would come to believe in him, for him to keep his promise to be with all of his children forever was oddly for him to go away. You see Jesus is fully God and fully human. He has a real body that is located physically somewhere. While he was on earth, he was in one location…just like you and I are. If he had stayed after his resurrection trying to see him would be worse than trying to get onto Space Mountain at Disney World. You’d have to go to wherever he was, which would be inconvenient at the very least, if he were still living in the Middle East. And once you got there the line would be forever long…like literally billions of people long. Longer than the line was to view the Queen lying in state a week ago. I saw a headline that said David Beckham, the soccer legend, waited in line 12 hours for his chance to pay his respects. You would have to wait a lifetime to see Jesus had he physically stayed here.
By going away and sending his Spirit, Jesus ensured that every Christian on earth would be in his presence at all times everywhere. As Paul says in Romans 8, “The Spirit of God dwells in us.” God has made his home with us (John 14:23). There are no lines to get to Jesus. Because of the Holy Spirit Jesus always holds us and tells us that everything is going to be alright. And we know it’s true because the Spirit reminds us always of what Jesus has done for us. He has conquered sin and death for us once and for all, and he sits on the right hand of the Father…that’s where he is located right now, waiting for the day when he will come again and bring us home to live with him in eternity.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is amazingly good news for us today. Because of him we know that we are safe. We know that we actually can admit our need, we can be vulnerable and ask for the comfort we so long for…and, like Jesus, we can be confident that the Spirit will meet us there and live up to his name…the Comforter. This is why Jesus tells us that he gives us his peace. This is why he tells us to not be afraid because we will never be alone (v. 27). His gift of the Spirit is not like the world gives because He will never wear out, never break down, never rust, never die. He will never abandon us, never surprise us one day by suddenly taking off. He will be with us forever, teaching us all things, reminding us of everything Jesus said and did, and of course comforting us…holding us and telling us that everything is going to be alright. Amen.
Orient Point Lighthouse (off the end of the North Fork of Long Island)