Sean C. Capparuccia

19 April 2026 – Trinity GMC, Magnolia, NC

3rd Sunday after Easter

Zechariah 13:1-9; Psalm 98; II Corinthians 6:11-7:1; John 16:25-33

Neglecting the Body

Have you noticed that when you miss church, the whole week seems to be off? It may be worse for some than others, but missing church tends to throw everything out of whack. And it must be more than simply messing with the rhythm; it has to do with being centered properly. Like an electronic compass needs to calibrate or recalibrate every so often, we, too, need the recalibrating effect of our weekly worship.

Before I get into the main of the text this morning, let me go ahead and assert my digression at the beginning. There are some who think that the “institutional” church is pointless; they say, “I can be a Christian without going to church. The church is full of hypocrites, anyway.” To which we answer: Yes, and no. It is true that going to church is not what makes you a Christian; following Christ and placing your trust in Him is what makes you a Christian. But at the same time, a Christian, as a part of the body of Christ cannot reject the rest of the body of Christ. Paul plainly teaches us this in I Corinthians 13: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.”  The whole body is essential. It was God who chose you out of darkness to walk in His marvelous light, was it not? And God, in His infinite wisdom and eternal purpose, did not choose out of the darkness anything that was unnecessary; every single person to whom He has given the Holy Spirit is essential in His kingdom. And that means you. It also means the person sitting next to you and on the other side of the church. We, as part of the body of Christ, need the whole body of Christ in order to fulfill our own job. Let us not forget that.

Figurative Language

As Jesus was wrapping up His final discourse to the Disciples, He told them, “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will speak no more in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father” (Jn 16:25).  This single verse plainly tells us quite a bit, doesn’t it? Remember that this Upper Room Discourse covers chapters 13-17 of John’s Gospel; it’s a lot of words. A lot of red ink. In this Discourse the Master says,

“Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You shall seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, I now say also to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come… but you shall follow Me later” (Jn 13:33, 36); and

 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch that does not bear fruit, He takes away” (Jn 15:1), and

“This is My body which is given for you…” and “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:19-20), and

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you” (Jn 15:18).

Indeed, this whole Discourse is full of figurative language; figurative language that has plain and literal meaning. If I tell you that the sky is “like a beautiful azure field with mounds of cotton dancing across its vastness” you would assume I meant that the sky is blue with clouds in it. And, in fact, that is what I literally meant with my figurative language.

The Co-equal Nature of the Trinity & Homoousias

So, Jesus will soon be finished with the figurative language but will, by His action, speak plainly. He will go to the Cross; He will die on that Cross; He will rise again from death; He will go to the Father. It is important that Jesus says here that, “I will tell you plainly of the Father.” When will this be? It will be after the Holy Spirit has been sent. Let us not miss this essential wording: “I will tell you plainly of the Father.” Most of us have, I think, fairly pragmatic and compartmentalized minds. We tend to put things in their proper place. Squares go here; circles go there; triangles go up there. Things I have to do; things I want to do; things I should do but don’t want to do. We put things in their place. So, when Jesus says, “I will tell you plainly of the Father,” we’re wondering just exactly when did Jesus come back to tell us plainly of the Father?  He did, through the Holy Spirit. I think we tend to forget that relationship in the Trinity. They are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three separate Persons, but they are homoousios – one substance. So, in a sense, they are interchangeable: when we speak of the Son we could just as well speak of the Father and the Holy Spirit. When Jesus says, “I,” He very well implies the Holy Spirit.

While we think of the four Gospels as New Testament, they are actually intratestamental. They lie between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. They are, of course, all about the coming New Covenant, but the time depicted in the Gospels is pre-Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was actually given and the New Covenant ushered in. And so, in the rest of the New Testament, from Acts on, we have the plain teaching of the Spirit about the Father, don’t we? And you can quite easily see the difference in writing between the Gospels and the rest of the NT. As one commentator put it, in the epistles, “the seed of the Gospel has become the fully developed plant.”  The plan of redemption as instituted and carried out by the Father is plainly seen.

This is why we can’t get stuck on “red-letters” in the Bible. Jesus’ words are essential, for sure, but they are no less inspired to be written down than any of the rest of Scripture.  There are some who ignorantly declare that they only follow what Jesus said. Well, that just makes no sense! How can you follow just what Jesus says without having a proper understanding of what He meant which is found in the rest of the New Testament and even in the Old Testament? This is perhaps why many Christian cults limit their scriptures to the Gospels; the figurative language of Jesus is very easy to twist and misconstrue.

In verse 26 Jesus says, “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father.”  You will be hard-pressed to find anywhere in the Gospels where His disciples prayed to God in the name of Jesus. They didn’t have to; Jesus was praying for them. Then as they were wondering how to pray, Jesus taught them, pray like this…. “Our Father..”  But “in that day,” the day that was coming shortly when the promised Spirit would be poured out- in that day, the followers of Jesus will be able to pray directly to the Father.  And guess what? We are in that day now. And we are able to say, “Abba, Father….”  Christ is our only Mediator, but He does not need to be our Intercessor. Not that He has ceased interceding for us; as our only high priest, He continues to mediate the covenant, but He has opened the way for His people to go directly to the Father. The veil that kept God and man separate has been “rent in twain.” It is no more. Those who love Jesus, who have placed their trust in Him, are seen by the Father through the lens of Jesus Himself. Not that we are little Jesuses, but the Father sees His Son when He looks at us.

Infusion vs. Imputation

I’m going to throw out a couple theological terms to you now because I think they are very important to understand. That the Father sees Jesus in us and not sees us as Jesus is essential. This is the difference between infused righteousness and imputed righteousness. When something is infused, it becomes an inherent part of something else. For example, when I infuse a tea bag into a cup of hot water, I am no longer drinking water with tea in it – it is now considered “tea” and the tea and the water cannot be separated. When something is imputed, it is a quality of one thing being attributed to another. In this case it would be like, oh, let’s say there was a party for wealthy people going on at the Country Club; a black-tie affair, which means men wear a tux. Well Mike is not wealthy and he doesn’t have a tux but his wealthy friend, Sharon, needs a companion for this party. She gives Mike a tux to wear. They go to the party and all is well. In this case, wealth was imparted to Mike. He wasn’t wealthy before, he wasn’t wealthy during, and he wasn’t wealthy after the party, but he was viewed as wealthy at the party.

So it is with us. In Christ, righteousness is imputed to us. His righteousness. This doesn’t make us righteous in our own right, but God sees His Son’s righteousness when He looks at us. This is one of the main differences between the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The Holy Spirit is the “tuxedo” that is given to us by Christ. In the parable of the wedding banquet there is a man who is thrown out of the party because he isn’t wearing the proper clothes. He didn’t have the Holy Spirit, and the same will happen to all who show up to the Judgement without having been given the Holy Spirit.

[As for another illustration, it reminds me of that scene in Predator where Schwarzenegger discovers that the alien predator can’t see him if he’s covered with mud. The mud somehow blocks the biometric sensors of the alien. Christ is our mud.]

So, “in that day” we will ask in Jesus’ name. God will see in us the righteousness of His Son and will grant to us all that we need to be fruitful in His kingdom. Asking in Jesus’ name simply means asking of the Father in accordance with what Christ has done – in light of His death and resurrection; in light of His atonement and ascension. Because of what He has done, the Father will look favorably on us who put our hope and trust in Him.

Up to this time, Christ has interceded for His people because access to the Father was blocked until the atonement was accomplished. Now, He doesn’t need to intercede on our behalf. He does intercede, for sure; He does bring our case before God the Father, but we have the same access to the Father. We can boldly come before Him with our needs and desires. Jesus’ name is the only thing we need to come before the Father. There is no other name by which we can come to the Father than Jesus. No. Other. Name. !

The Plan of Redemption

He says, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world again; again I am leaving the world and am going to the Father” (16:28). You really have to put yourself in this time and place and forget that you know what you know. The disciples are hearing Jesus, with whom they have walked and learned from for the past three years, now telling them that He is leaving. They are in Jerusalem, the place they had been avoiding because Jesus had a price on His head. They must know that He is about to be killed. There has got to be an element of fear going on. What’s going to happen to them?  But in Jesus’ words here we note His attitude of victory. Now, we know He was resurrected, but the Disciples didn’t know that; they just see that He is about to be killed.

Yet in this one sentence from Jesus, we see the whole plan of redemption: “I came forth from the Father” speaks to the Son’s pre-existence. He is eternal; He was with God the Father in the beginning: “In the beginning was the Word (the Son) and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

“I am come into the world again.” He voluntarily came out from the Father leaving His exaltation behind; His throne, His crown, His power over the universe was laid aside in order to come as a baby into this world. He was incarnated.

“Again I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” Here is the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ back into heaven as the firstfruits of resurrection. Because of His obedience, the obedience unto death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8), the Father can now be in fellowship with those who are His very own. The union between God and fallen man has been restored.

After giving them the plan of redemption, the disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God” (Jn 16:29-30). I’m sure that in the original Greek this makes more sense; I think it sounds kind of nerdy. But either way, they think they understand now. Perhaps they think that what Jesus has just described has already taken place. Everyone is in the clear now. Jesus must be God because God is omniscient and Jesus knows everything that is going to happen. But everything has not already taken place; this was wishful thinking on their part. And Jesus responds, “Do you now believe?” In other words, “do you now fully believe? Is your faith now unshakable? You’re telling me that you believe I came from God but how mature is this faith of yours? Because in a short time, in fact even now, you all are going to be scattered; you’ll all go running to your homes and leave me all alone.” This was Thursday night. And guess what? As soon as those soldiers came with Judas in just a little while, the Disciples vanished. The only one at the cross was John and some of the women. But if you’ll recall, on Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene knew exactly where to find Peter, didn’t she? She knew where his hidey-hole was.

And yet, even in the midst of this coming turmoil, Jesus tells them something that surely stuck with them – and it should stick with us as well – “These things I have spoken to you, in order that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation…” (Jn 16:33a). The Greek word here for tribulation is qlἱysis – thlipsis – meaning “distress,” “affliction,” “pressure.”

The world, in this case, the “world” meaning all that is the antithesis of God and His Kingdom, namely, the people who are against God and His Kingdom, continually put pressure on the believer in Christ.  There is always a pressure coming from the world. It wants us to conform to it because it refuses to conform to Christ. What the unbelieving world has done to Christ, the unbelieving world will do to you.

And that brings us to the final verse in today’s Gospel:  “…but be of good courage. I have conquered the world” (Jn 16:33b) Beloved, our Savior has conquered the world! There is nothing, not even death, that can stand against Him. 

You know, before he died, Chuck Norris was bitten by a poisonous snake. And after writhing in pain for several days, the snake finally died. But even Chuck Norris, who was a strong Christian I might add, has succumbed to the death of his body. But because his faith was in Christ, Chuck Norris will not die, but will rise again. Because of our faith in Christ, we will never die. Because of Christ, we, too, have conquered and will continue to conquer the world.

John the Apostle, in his later years, wrote, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (I John 5:4-5).  Then why are we still struggling, you ask?

Long after WWII was over, on one of the Philippine islands, there was a Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda who didn’t believe that the war was over. He thought it was a trick of the Americans to flush out the remaining Japanese soldiers. He went into hiding and survived in the jungle for 29 years until his former commander was flown in to convince Hiroo that the war was indeed over. In 1974 he finally accepted the reality of peace and had lost 29 years of his life. 

Our Savior has conquered this world. Now, there are a lot of unbelievers who don’t accept that. They are still fighting and sometimes we have to fight with them on matters of importance. And so, these local battles will continue until Christ comes again. But, friends, the war is over. So we are not fighting for victory, we are fighting from victory, because just as Christ has overcome the world, so have we, in Christ.

Confusion to Clarity; Fear to Peace; Defeat to Victory

By the Holy Spirit who indwells every believer, confusion becomes clarity and we then seek to bring that clarity to others. “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, that will turn their hearts to the right….”

By the Holy Spirit who indwells us, all fear will become peace. Jesus tells us not to be anxious about anything, “about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Mt. 6:25), and “which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life?” (Mt. 6:27), and “…do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Mt. 6:34). Anxiety and fear go hand in hand. It seems a lot of people are suffering from anxiety lately. We need to teach people how to “let go and let God.”

And by the Holy Spirit who indwells us, all defeat is turned to victory. By the Lord has this been done.  “He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him and He has made known His salvation” (Psalm 98:1b-2a).  If you love Jesus then you are on the winning team. Doesn’t mean everything is a bed of roses, but the victory is ours because the victory is His.

Let us then, as His servants, make known to the world His salvation. Just tell it like it is. ~Amen,