---

All departures are painful and trying, e.g., the boy to business; the girl to marriage; the friend to sea; the relation over the river of death. Glad that this is true of Christ; that He felt the going away, and needed comforting. But, in His case, that was true which is so often true still — the one who went was the Comforter. His was no ordinary going. He was more to the disciples than they realised.

I. IT WOULD PROVE TO BE A PRESENT SPIRITUAL POWER. Our Lord comforted by giving a two-fold assurance:

1. He would really be always with them.

2. He would give His Spirit to be always with them. But this is confusing, until our hearts learn to hold both these forms of truth in harmony. Our Lord, while here, was always trying to glorify His spiritual relations; and so preparing for the time when His relations should be all spiritual. Is it not infinitely comforting to be assured that temporal relations shall, by and by, give place to those which are spiritual? The comparative value of the temporal and the spiritual we learn in the progress of life. The child-Christian wants a Christ of the flesh. The matured Christian wants a Christ of the spirit. And just that Christ "gone away" has become. He was outside us; He is in us now. We hear of the scene on Olivet, and we say, "He is gone." We hear of the scene at Pentecost, and we say, "He has come again to abide with us for ever."

II. IT LOCALISES OUR CONCEPTION OF HEAVEN. The human Christ went to a place, and prepares a place. "This is enough, Jesus is there; and Jesus knows."

III. IT GIVES US GROUND FOR CHERISHING A HIGH HOPE. Resting upon the promise He has left. Our sorrow is the seeming separation; our everlasting joy shall yet be conscious union, under conditions that involve no separation. One day we "shall be ever with the Lord." We may reverently fit the influence of Christ's departed saints into Christ's own words (as in text). Few of us but have dear friends, "not lost, but gone before." And they seem to whisper in our souls, and say, "It is expedient for you that I go away." We cannot see it. We are like the women at the sepulchre. And yet those who are "gone away" —

1. Do become a present spiritual power to us. By "going" their characters get glorified, so as to be to us —

(1)  Holy example;

(2)  call; and

(3)  impulse.They live ever in our souls. Among the very highest of the spiritual forces moving us in the godly life, we put the influence of the white-robed host, the sainted dead.

2. They localize heaven for us.

3. They keep alive in our souls a great hope. "I shall go to Him, but He shall not return to me." The hope of reunion, where they "go no more out for ever."

(Weekly Pulpit.)

---

---

KJV: Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

WEB: Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don't go away, the Counselor won't come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.