Acts
1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53
While today is technically the Seventh
Sunday of Easter, we are reading the lessons associated with Thursday’s Feast
Day. The Ascension of Our Lord comes forty
days after Easter, which means it never falls on a Sunday. Unless we pretend the following Sunday was
the previous Thursday, we never get to hear the lessons associated with the departure
of Jesus and his charge to his followers.
Jesus does leave. His Resurrection is not a return to a life
lived among his disciples. He emerges
from the tomb so they will know that he lives.
But he is only with them long enough to assure them they should listen
to him and share the Good News which he brings.
We read the lessons in the wrong
order this morning. The Gospel of Luke
and The Acts of the Apostles is written by the same author. They are Book I and Book II. So, we should have read the closing verses of
the Gospel of Luke and then the opening of Acts.
Jesus tells his followers at the
end of Luke that while he has shared everything they need to KNOW, there is
still something more coming their way. He
tells them to sit tight, be patient. “Stay
in (Jerusalem) until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Then, in the opening verses of the book
of Acts, Jesus leaves them. He
departs. He “was lifted up, and a
cloud took him out of their sight.”
This is a very critical, pivotal
moment. While so much has gone before,
the largest portion of the story is not only yet to be written, it is yet to be
determined. What will happen to the
message and movement which took shape and form as Jesus traveled the countryside? What steps are next for those whom Jesus sends
for as “witnesses of these things”?
Jesus has preached and taught and ministered, but it will take a whole
lot more if “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed… to all
the nations.”
A pivotal moment indeed. A make-or-break opportunity. Everything is on the line.
And those who watch Jesus ascend
into the clouds are the first to realize whatever is to come will come as a
result of how they respond.
I would say they did pretty
well. After all, here we are some two
thousand years later, and we are still telling and re-telling the Good News. There are Christian congregations in every
time zone around the world and the words of Jesus are recorded in every
language and tongue. They done good.
Which only makes it all the more
critical that we consider how well we are doing, or will do, or might do.
There are a lot of events
intersecting as we gather today. We will
recognize our college students and honor our high school graduates. There is a baptism. Owen Thomas Chong will be bathed in the
waters of God’s grace and Jesus’ resurrection.
And over it all looms the beginning of a new pastoral presence as
Pastors Andrea Bates and Kyle Bates lead their final worship services in Welcome
and Granite Quarry and get ready to move this way.
A pivotal moment indeed.
To the baptismal candidate – today your
parents hand you over to baptismal sponsors and the pastor of your
community. Those parents will remain
part of your life and support you in all that the future will bring, but they are
acknowledging the limits of what they are able to offer you and present you in
the hope and with the expectation that others will be able to aid you when
their presence or strength will not be enough.
To the graduates. You will quickly experience the departure of so
many of the things upon which you have come to depend. The freedom associated with the lack of
pre-determined schedule and set of expectations is one side of a coin which also
bears the image of a future as open as the skies into which Jesus ascends.
To this congregation, as you welcome
your pastor and bestow that title and honor upon them. You are in an identical spot to that of the
Apostles gathered on that hilltop outside of Jerusalem. Your future has not been written nor has it
been determined. It is up to you, the
members of St Michael, how these pastors will serve and what they will be able
to help you accomplish.
There were forty days between Jesus’
Resurrection and his Ascension. There
are ten days between Jesus telling the disciples to wait and the arrival of the
Holy Spirit. Ten days is not that long –
but it is enough time for fear and anxiety and worry to replace the assurances
which had come. It is enough time to lose
confidence in the one who had lead them for the first years of their work. It is also enough time to anticipate and to prepare
and to be ready for where it is that God is calling us and how it is that God
will lead us.
Today is the Seventh Sunday of
Easter. We are reading the lessons and receiving
the encouragement of the Feast of the Ascension. In seven days, we will welcome the Holy Spirit
and the following Sunday we will affirm the triune God who is our Creator, Redeemer,
and Sanctifier.
A pivotal moment indeed.
Amen
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