Liturgically this Sunday is an in between time, in between the Ascension
– 40 days after the first Resurrection appearance of Jesus
and Pentecost – the 50th day of the Easter Season.
This, in some ways, parallels significant in between points/transition points in our lives
many that often occur right around this time of the year:
graduation – leaving school, and what comes next.
job transitions – a first job or a change in jobs or retirement.
weddings – with a period of being engaged transitioning from
being single to investing a whole future being a couple.
pregnancy, expecting a new being to arrive into your life
that will henceforth change your personal agenda drastically.
the death of a loved one – and the empty space that person leaves
and how to live now.
Transition – in between what has been known and the ? of the future.
The reading from the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles
briefly tells us the story
of Jesus being lifted up and disappearing in a cloud,
and the disciples, now relabeled as apostles, stand there looking up
at a cloud, the last place where they had seen him.
I would have like to have heard more of the conversation Jesus had with them,
in the last time he was with them in the familiar physical form
they would no longer see.
I wonder if it might have gone like this:
Jesus saying to them,
Hey ya’ll, I am not limited to one particular place
at one particular time.
It may seem that I am leaving you
when you think you need me the most,
when you say to yourselves,
“How are we going to manage?
How can we maintain what you began?
How can we carry on as limited as we are?”
Jesus says, “This is why I am leaving you, me in this form,
so that I can be with you in a much more immediate and universal way,
so that each one of you will be able to experience my Presence
with you intimately, personally,
exactly what each and everyone of you need
at any time in any place.
Tell me how I could do that if I stayed!
I have to go.
Things have to change, but for the better.
You must let go of what you want
in order to take hold of what you need.
This is message of the Ascension – and Jesus disappears in a cloud.
Clouds veil what we see, both literally and metaphorically,
clouds of confusion, clouds of doubt,
clouds of worry and anxiety about what cannot be seen.
What we naturally want in situations like these
is for the clouds to clear away
so we can see in broad daylight again.
Two men in white robes stood by them.
They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven,
will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Jesus will come again as you saw him go.
He will step out of the cloud and become visible,
and it will be just in the nick of time.
It will be when you are in those in-between times, transition times.
- when you are under pressure.
- when the Church, the Community of Faith is in an in-between time.
… like emerging from a pandemic,
when looking at the future: How are we to be now?
when looking for leadership:
Are you just hanging on until a new priest shows up?
Are there any alternatives, ideas, visions?
Will Jesus emerge for us out of the cloud?
The earliest Church, the 12 minus 1 disciples plus Mary and a few others,
still reeling over the previous 40 days – not a very long time –
Jesus dead, then suddenly alive again but weirdly different,
trying to get their minds – and emotions – wrapped around
what Resurrection is,
and now apparently having that go poof in a cloud of smoke (so to speak)
not realizing that where there is smoke there is fire – not far off.
First the cloud and then the fire
(Think Exodus and the pillar of cloud that led the Children of Israel by day
and the pillar of fire by night giving them protection and light.)
What do the disciples do then in the midst of this perplexing disappearance
of Jesus’ big fade out?
The best thing they could do: They devoted themselves to prayer.
The text does not say that they wept or mourned.
“Oh, Jesus, why did you desert us?”
They devoted themselves to prayer,
which is an act of faith,
which means they trusted what they had seen and heard from Jesus.
He was not leaving them orphaned.
So they prayed,
they devoted themselves to the inward conversation of trust
whether they could hear his voice just then or not,
whether it seemed like their prayers were heard
or sent out into a fog bank.
And the fog did lift and skies became clear
and the flames burned bright
engulfing them all,
not just the 12 minus one, but others joining them in prayer
until now 10 times that number
120 praying together in that Upper Room on that 50th Day,
the Day of Pentecost,
that Ultimate Resurrection Appearance
when Jesus returned in pure spiritual presence
as Divine Presence
as Holy Spirit
Resurrection Jesus in transfiguration brilliance on each of them
in each of them.
Well, the road ahead for those 120 was going to expand exponentially
from that point on
until the Gospel had spread throughout the world,
but not without trials and troubles and suffering aplenty.
AND not without (as Peter wrote in his first letter we just heard read)
“the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, … resting on you.”
And so through the centuries, through the ages,
the Community of Faith for whom Jesus had made God known,
has gone through cloudy days and days of brilliant shining,
enduring all weathers,
sustained by the promise Jesus conveyed
recorded for us in John, chapter 17:
“I have made your Name known to [them]…
They … are yours.…
This is eternal life, that they may know you,
the one/singular true/real God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
These words were not just for the 11 and Mary
and those certain other women and family members,
but for all the rest of us
10 times to the 10th degree and more
including each of us here today,
this humble gathering
like so many other humble gatherings
huddled together holding our prayer books
- or the Sunday bulletins containing our prayer book worship,
nevertheless holding the pages that have been carrying the Gospel message
through the centuries here to us at this moment.
In the Epistle reading Peter gives us the exhortation for this sermon:
Suffering abound
in so many different ways.
We are all touched by suffering.
“But (Peter writes) rejoice. Christ identifies with your suffering.”
We are not in the midst of persecutions here in this place right now,
like those described throughout the book of Acts,
like those to whom Peter was writing,
but suffering is all around us.
And Peter‘s words to the persecuted
are also words of comfort and advice to us:
“Humble yourselves… under the might hand of God…
Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
Discipline yourselves
[that is, engage the spiritual disciplines of prayer and service
and gathering together and supporting each other]
Discipline yourselves, keep alert.”
The clouds will part, the fog will lift, the sun shine
and Jesus will be revealed as having been with us all along.
Sometimes we just need to let go of what we want
in order to take hold of what we need.
