May 24, 2009
The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year B)
The Sunday after Ascension
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13;
John 17:6-19
This is the seventh Sunday of the Easter season, actually the last Sunday. This past Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension, a day as important in our Christian calendar as Christmas and Good Friday and Easter – and Pentecost, which is yet to come! It is the day upon which the risen Christ ascended into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God. We attest to this every time we say the Creed! Unfortunately, because it is always a weekday, always a Thursday in fact, and has never grabbed Hallmark’s attention, it really gets little press, maybe a joint celebration by several churches – this year our neighboring Episcopal church, Trinity in Concord, hosted the service. (I have to admit even with the best of intentions, I forgot.) You may ask, “Why is it always a weekday?” I will tell you! “Because it occurs forty days after the Resurrection.” The number forty is/was significant in the Jewish culture/society/religion. Can you think of a few examples? The rains of Noah fell for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites wandered for forty years in the wilderness before coming to the promised land. The great kings, David (2 Samuel 5:4, 1 Kings 2:11) and Solomon (1 Kings 11:42), each reigned over
During those forty days the disciples went from being a frightened, disillusioned, silent group, hiding initially in the upper room where they had last gathered with Jesus, to being ready to carry on his work, convinced by his several appearances to them that he was truly the risen Christ – remember the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and how their hearts “were burning within them” (Luke 24:52) while Jesus, whom they did not recognize, was talking to them? And the stories of Thomas and how he had to see Jesus for himself?
So, now, on this last Sunday of the Easter season we hear his final prayer for his disciples as recorded by John. Yes, this is a prayer made while he was still alive, still in this world, but very much aware that he was about to die. As one of my regular resources noted, rather pedantically, I thought, “John 17:6-19 is a prayer from the One who has died, composed by a living theological poet in order to express a community's longing for sustained connection to the One who is the source of their identity and their hope.”* True, but . . . Jesus, the “One,” prays this prayer at the end of the evening of the Last Supper, an evening that began with the washing of the disciples’ feet. Much has happened since then!
On that evening Jesus was teaching his disciples to be as servants to others, to preach repentance and forgiveness, and above all to love one another as he has loved them. At the same time he was preparing them for what was to come, what was so very imminent, namely, his death, and for what they were to do when he was no longer with them. In the first part of the prayer, the disciples listen to Jesus telling God how he has made God “known to those whom you gave me,” how they now know that everything Jesus has given them came from God, how they now believe that he, Jesus, was sent by God. His prayer at this moment is not just for them, but “at” them. They are being reminded of what they already know! It’s as if he’s saying to them, “Listen up, folks! You’ve got it all there; you know it all; it’s in your hearts, in your minds, in your hands. We, your God, have given it to you and we are with you always.”
This time of year we see either directly because we’re there, or indirectly via the media, the graduates of our high schools and, especially of our colleges and universities, being sent off into the world to make it a better place. Time and time again they are told, “You have been given the tools, now go to it.” The keynote speakers usually stress how the students were given into the charge of the teachers and professors some four years ago, and that those mentors have now finished their jobs. It’s time for the students to move on, to take up the torch.
I see Jesus with this prayer doing the same thing. His disciples have finished their course of study with him. He has protected them and guarded them while he taught them, but his time with them has come to an end. Therefore he is graduating them, ordaining them, telling them to take what they have learned and go out into the world and make it a better place, but instead of a diploma, he will give them a cross. As he concludes, Jesus, the keynote speaker, puts on another hat, and gives the Benediction calling on God, his Holy Father (those are his words according to John), to sanctify these disciples of his in the truth, the truth which is the word of God, which is Jesus, the Word made flesh.
Now I could stop here, but that leaves us just like all the parents, the siblings, the spouses, the proud grandparents, and the aunts and uncles, sitting on the sidelines, or in the grandstands, or maybe, if we’re lucky, in comfortable auditorium seats. And that is all well and good for a college graduation. But in actual fact every time we come into this building, or someplace like it, and join with our Christian community in listening to the scriptures, in professing our faith in the words of the Creed, in saying the prayers, in passing the Peace, in sharing the bread and the wine, we are all effectually being re-graduated, re-ordained, and re-sanctified, yes, re-commissioned, to go out into the world and to make it a better place.
A better place – I’ve said that several times! I’m sure many of our college graduates think in terms of fixing the politics, ending the wars, finding cures for the incurable, developing more “green” ways to live, educating the young, taking their skills to faraway places to teach and to heal. All noble and ambitious thoughts and plans! Nor would we be faulted for having the same! But underlying, undergirding, surrounding such challenging and visionary ideas as well as the most simple of acts, such as going to the store, preparing a meal, reading a bedtime story – for those of us who profess to be Christians there must be, and there is, that strong Jesus connection which has come down to us from that time when Jesus commissioned his disciples to carry on his work. He commissioned them and he commissions us through them to respect the dignity of every human being, to speak in love to one another, and to work for peace and justice in our communities, our nation, and in our world. To be a Christian is not to be a spectator.
Dignity, love, peace, and justice are words from our Baptismal Covenant. They are words to live by. There are none better as, indeed, the Covenant Committee concluded. They are the “how” behind “love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”
The Collect for today reflects the positioning of this Sunday between the Feast of the Ascension, the ascending of Christ into heaven, and Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Like Holy Saturday when, although we are post-Easter people, we relive that time of despair following Good Friday, of not knowing and yet in reality knowing that Easter is come, we are once again between two great events. The Collect begins, as I did, by recalling the Ascension. It ends with asking God to send the Holy Spirit so that we shall not be comfortless, not without strength, to do God’s will. We pray for that to come which we have already received. Let us go forth from this place knowing that we have received all that it takes, all that we need, to follow Jesus.
Amen.
Sonia F. G. Stevenson, M. Div.
Church of the Good Shepherd
* Christian Century, May 19, 2009, 18