Read the passage first.
Most of us have heard of the healing influence of dogs on sick and dying patients. Something about them can ease the path to death, or even bring new life. We live in a hurting world. I would like to think that followers of Jesus could have a healing influence in the world as well.
Jesus did not leave his disciples without providing guidance for living in a broken, hurting, strange, and hostile world. In fact, what he offers in John 14:15-21 we might think of as a mission statement for such followers.
Disciples are to love Christ, even as in the Old Testament we read of the command to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength. Jesus also says that he is “in” the Father, and that if we love him, the Father will love us. All of this suggests the intimate connection between Father and Son.
Disciples are to keep his commands. Yet, in John, his commands become one: (13:34): "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another." John repeats this summary later in the discourses (15:12), as "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."
Disciples receive help from the risen Lord, as he says, “I will come to you.” The risen Lord will send “another Advocate,” meaning that Jesus has already been such a presence, but the Holy Spirit will bring into their lives that presence in a new and different way. John also calls him, “the Spirit of truth,” for the world will resist the truth. In such a setting, followers of Jesus will need a new home. They receive that assurance, in that as the Son is “in” the Father, so the Son is “in” us, and we are “in” the Son. They have the assurance that the Spirit will be with them and “in” them. God will not leave them without their divine companion to guide them through the strangeness of this world.
Love Christ, keep his command to love, and receive the Holy Spirit. Properly understood, John has given us as followers of Jesus a statement of mission that works, even today. They can then bring the healing this world needs into reality.
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