In churches that
follow the liturgical calendar, we’re coming to the end of Eastertide, the season
when we focus on celebrating the Resurrection.
The third major festival of the Christian year-- the celebration of the
gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost-- comes next Sunday. Before we get to Pentecost, we celebrate the
Ascension, and we hear the part of the story that Luke/Acts places between
Easter and Pentecost.
One part of the story is that Jesus
has ascended to glory with God. The
glory of the risen and ascended Christ is good news-- something to celebrate.
But the other themes in the story
invite us to look at the Ascension from a very human perspective, the disciples’ point of view, which is where
we stand. When Jesus was carried up
into heaven, when the cloud took him
out of their sight, the reality they were facing was that Jesus had vanished.
As one of my colleagues suggests,
there’s an awkward gap in the story at this point.[1] She compares it to the intermission in a play,
between the two acts of the salvation drama.
In both Luke and Acts, the curtain falls on Jesus’ earthly life, as the
Risen Christ leaves his disciples and is carried up out of their sight. Up until now, Jesus has been the chief actor
in the drama. From his birth to his
death to his resurrection appearances, it’s Jesus who keeps the story moving. And now he’s gone-- offstage once and for all.
The curtain has fallen. Now what?
Is the drama over? By no
means. It’s simply intermission.
Now what are Jesus’ followers
supposed to do? It would have been hard
not to feel anxious and impatient—just as it can be for us.
“Lord,” the disciples ask Jesus, “Is this the time when you will restore the
kingdom to Israel?” We need to know
what the plan is. We want certainty. We want to know now.
Hear what Jesus says: “It is not for you to know the times or
periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” It is not for us to know all the details of
the big plan.
But we have Christ’s promises: “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit...
You will receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Luke tells us that the disciples
worshipped the risen and ascended Christ.
They returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple
blessing God.
In the verses following the passage
we read in Acts, Luke tells how the disciples returned to Jerusalem and went to
the upper room where they were staying, where they and certain women were
constantly devoting themselves to prayer.
On the day of Pentecost, disciples were gathered together in one place
when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them from on high.
I don’t have to remind you that this
is a hard time, a time of transition and struggle for the church of Jesus
Christ, throughout North America, and
for this congregation at Littlefield.
It’s hard to be so demographically challenged here, in the city, here in east Dearborn. It’s hard to see so many beloved friends
getting older and less active, more frail.
It’s hard not to worry about how we’ll have enough people to do whatever
we need to do. It’s hard not to worry
about the future of the congregation, in terms of our finances. How
will we support the mission?
We need to be honest about our fears
and anxieties. We need to grieve the losses. But we also need to be devoted to praying together...and
to blessing God with joy...and waiting for power from on high.
If it feels like we’re in an
intermission in the carrying out of God’s plan of salvation, then we need to
practice waiting for God. If the time
you’re living in seems like an intermission in God’s plan for your life, if Jesus has vanished from your sight, and the Holy Spirit’s power is only a
distant promise-- then it’s our job to
wait. Not just to be idle, or to kill time,
but to wait as disciples are called to wait-- with trust and hope. With eagerness and expectancy for the
beginning of the next act.
Do we believe that God can work
miracles? Do we believe God can use us
to transform the world? Do we believe
that we can do all things, through Christ, who strengthens us? How many of us want to believe these things?
I believe God has the power to work miracles,
and that God wants to use us to transform people’s lives. But it is not in God’s nature to coerce
us. We have choices.
In the great drama of God’s
salvation story, you and I can choose to fill our intermission time with enjoying
our friends and refreshments, until the time-filling activities become the most
important things. We can even choose to
leave the theater altogether, and go off to try to find another story to give
meaning to our lives.
But there is no other story that
will fill the God-shaped hole in our lives.
God is the One who can give deep meaning to our lives, and gives it in
God’s own time, when we are ready, in God’s eyes, to carry out the mission God has planned for
us. If we believe this, then we need to live
through our intermission times as the first disciples lived through theirs.
When nothing much seemed to be
happening, and they couldn’t see where the future would lead them, they
remained focused on the drama of God’s salvation story, and worshipped God with
great joy. They were centered in God’s
gracious, powerful promises as they worshipped
joyfully.
In his
book, God’s Politics, Jim Wallis talks about “The Critical Choice:
Hope Versus Cynicism.”
Wallis says that one of the big
struggles of our times is the fundamental choice between cynicism and
hope. The prophets always begin in judgment,
in a social critique of the status quo, but they end in hope—that these
realities can and will be changed. This
choice between cynicism and hope is ultimately a spiritual choice—one that can
have enormous political consequences. Wallis
argues for a better religion-- a
prophetic faith—the religion of Jesus and the prophets.
According to Wallis, the difference
between the cynics and the saints is the presence, power, and possibility of
hope. And that is indeed a spiritual and
religious issue. More than just a moral
issue, hope is a spiritual and even a religious choice.
I agree with Jim Wallis when he says
that hope is not a feeling. It is a decision. And the decision for hope is based on what
you believe at the deepest levels—what your most basic convictions about the
world and what the future holds-- all
based on your faith.
We can choose hope, not as a naive wish-- but as a choice, with your eyes wide open to
the reality of the world. I believe this hope is grounded in faith…and
nurtured in our worship life.
The Civil Rights movement in the United States grew out of the
African-American church… and then others joined in—people who chose to hope.
During the days of Apartheid in South
Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to say, “We are prisoners of hope.”
I know I’ve shared
this story with you before, but it’s powerful.
During Apartheid, the South African Security Police broke into
the Cathedral of St. George’s during Tutu’s sermon at an ecumenical service. Tutu
stopped preaching and just looked at the intruders as they lined the
walls of the cathedral, wielding writing pads and tape recorders to record
whatever he said and thereby threatening
him with consequences for any bold prophetic utterances.
They had already arrested Tutu and
other church leaders just a few weeks before and kept them in jail for several days to
make a statement and a point: religious
leaders who take on leadership roles in the struggle against apartheid will be
treated like any other opponents of the Pretoria regime.
After meeting their eyes with his in
a steely gaze, Tutu acknowledged their power, saying, “You are powerful, very powerful.” But then he reminded them that he served a higher
power greater than their political authority:
“I serve a God who cannot be mocked!”
Then in an extraordinary challenge
to political tyranny, Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the representatives of South
African apartheid, “Since you have already lost, I invite you today to come and
join the winning side!” He said it with
a smile on his face and enticing warmth in his invitation, but with a clarity and
a boldness that took everyone’s breath away.
The congregation’s response was electric. The crowd was literally transformed by the
bishop’s challenge to power. The heavily
armed security forces that surrounded the cathedral greatly outnumbered the
band of worshipers. Yet the congregation
was moved—empowered—to literally leap to their feet, shouting the praises of God. They began dancing. They danced out of the cathedral to meet the
awaiting police and military forces of apartheid, who hardly expected a
confrontation with dancing worshipers.
Not knowing what else to do, they backed up to provide the space for the
people of faith to dance for freedom in the streets of South Africa.
Some time later, a few days before
Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as President of South Africa, Wallis remembers
wondering, “Who would have ever believed?
And that’s just the point, he
says. We have to believe.
I know… I know…
We’re just a little church. We’re
so demographically challenged. So many
of the members are older. Everybody is so busy… and so on….
And yet, we are called. Christ has given us a Great Commission: You shall be my witnesses.
We have Christ’s promise: You will receive power…
Like the first disciples, we have
the promises of God to cling to, even in times of sorrow and anxiety. These promises are ours, even at times when
it seems that Christ has vanished.[2]
So let us cling to God’s promises
and rejoice in them. Let us be ready for
the curtain to go up on the Salvation story.
Because in God, there will be a second act.
Amen!
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan 48126
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