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Christ in this second-to-last Sunday of Easter makes a grand promise to his disciples and to us.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept.” In short, Christ will send the Holy Spirit to strengthen his faithful disciples, but not the world at large. But what sort of strength will this advocate bring? And why are his gifts apparently not for “the world”?

We ought not miss the exact way in which Christ phrases this promise: “the Father … will give you another Advocate.” Christ himself is already an advocate for us, and even more. The Greek word here translated “advocate” is “paraclete,” which can also be rendered comforter. Christ had been among his disciples, and in fact among the whole human race, as a comforter in diseases, trials, and the discouragement of sin, and he has been an advocate to the Father on their behalf. In John 17, we hear exactly what this means as Christ calls out to the Father asking him to defend the disciples, to make them one, to keep them close to himself, to show them the glory of Father and Son from before creation, and to unite them to the Trinity.

After all this, Christ promises the Apostles, and us, that the Holy Spirit will continue that same work among them. That Spirit will remind them of everything Christ taught them, will render the disciples capable of seeing the Lord with the eyes of faith, and help them realize, in Christ’s words, “that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” The Spirit of truth witnesses to the truth of salvation, of mercy, of redemption, of divine love, of union with God. He will make it possible to know the Risen Lord through faith, to hold on to him in trials through hope, and desire him through love.

This is why “the world” will not be able to accept the Spirit of truth. The spirit of the world is one that does not look to God for salvation, peace and comfort. The world seeks comfort in itself, in possessions, reputation, pleasures, honors, experiences, plans, earthly victories and the like. It cannot receive the Spirit of truth and comfort because it does not want to, it is not open to receiving him. It does not see him because it is not looking for him. The world thinks that it has what it needs on its own.

Of course, many of us know from experience that the comforts and truths of merely earthly life do not comfort very deeply or for very long. They pass and we are left with the incomplete mystery of our human lives, our frailty, the frustrations of life in time, with no guarantees that all will find its way into the right place. For this reason, if we choose to look for ultimate comfort in the world, we have to consume what it offers constantly, increasingly, beyond reason.

But if we accept the Lord’s call to keep and treasure his commandments, that is, to let his life and person define the shape of our lives and others, we have access to the Spirit of truth. In that Holy Spirit, we can find even now a comfort that goes past the boundary set on this earthly life, and be sustained on the things of eternity, which do satisfy, and give the most certain guarantees.