6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;  8 for the words that you gave to me . . . → Read More: May 20, 2012]]> John 17:6-19

⁶ “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;  ⁸ for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.  ⁹ I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.  ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.  ¹¹ And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  ¹² While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.  ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.  ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  ¹⁵ I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.  ¹⁶ They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.  ¹⁸ As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  ¹⁹ And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

It’s easy to let the Ascension slip right by us. It’s not a major church holiday. It never falls on a Sunday, because it’s forty days from Easter, which makes it today, May 17. We sometimes observe it on the following Sunday, so as not to forget about it entirely. In the Roman Catholic Church this Sunday is called “The Solemnity of the Ascension.” Some church calendars refer to this as the Sunday after Ascension, but in our Presbyterian calendars, this is usually observed as the Seventh Sunday of Easter rather than Ascension Sunday. And since we never have a special worship service on Ascension Day itself, it often goes by unnoticed. Jesus’ ascending into heaven is one of the more difficult events in his life story for us to get our minds around. Probably the most obvious significance of the Ascension is that Jesus Christ is now with God, throned in glory..”   The ascension is the completion of Christ’s being raised that began with the empty tomb on Easter morning. It’s a celebration of the glory, power and rule of Christ over all.

This is the day when we sing praises to Christ who has been raised on high, but there is even more significance for us in Jesus’ ascension. These stories from Luke and Acts tell of the last time the disciples and other followers of Jesus saw him after he was raised from the dead. Remember, Luke and Acts were written by the same author-they are volumes one and two of Luke’s story. So it’s a bit odd that these two accounts of the ascension don’t exactly conform to one another. There’s clearly a problem of timing here. In Luke, this is all happening on the evening of Easter. But in Acts, the Ascension seems to happen forty days later. Reformed theologians tend to lean toward the ascension happening at the time of the resurrection-the two were part of the same process. Jesus ascended on Easter, but continued to appear to his followers for forty days, and this final ascension that we read about today was a dramatization of what had already happened.

The event of the ascension serves as the hinge between Luke and Acts. These first eleven verses are the prologue to Acts-here Luke is reworking and elaborating the story he had told in briefer form at the end of his gospel.   The ascension is the marker between the Period of Jesus and the Period of the Church.  Up until this point, Jesus had been with his followers physically, leading and teaching them. But now he is ascending to the Father, and the age of the church is beginning. It is, in fact, something of a crisis for the disciples and the apostles. They don’t know what’s to come. Jesus is going away. Will his work continue? Or is this the end? Can they carry on without him? Is there any point to carrying on without him? Jesus is going, but does it mean he’s gone?

Of course, we know the answer is “no”. He’s going, but not gone. Jesus has gone away, but is still with us through the Holy Spirit. The paradox of the ascension is that Jesus has to go away in order to be fully here, fully present with all of his followers, with us, in this new way. But those first apostles don’t know that yet. They are still in the dark as to what is to come next. Jesus appears to them and teaches them one final time, opening their minds to the meaning of the scriptures. He tells them that he is the fulfillment of all that was written in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms. He is indeed risen from the dead-he’s same Jesus that was with them before. What he taught them then, he is telling them now. It’s the same message and the same person as before the crucifixion. He reminds them that all that has happened was according to what he told them: “that the Messiah is to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” They are the witnesses to all these things. They are the ones who will proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins. But not yet. They are not to charge out on their own. They are to stay in Jerusalem and wait for what the Father has promised, wait until they have been clothed with power from on high. Jesus doesn’t tell them here just what this promise is, or how they will be clothed with power. In the Acts account, he’s a little more forthcoming, saying that John baptized with water, but they will soon be baptized with the Holy Spirit. They will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and be witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

As they are watching, Jesus is lifted up and disappears into a cloud. This is what makes the rational, educated, scientific side of us say, “yeah, right.” But in the cosmology of that day, that’s where heaven was-up, above. “Up” was the place of glory and power. That’s where the gods were.   You went up on a mountain to meet them. The Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus. Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to meet God and receive the ten commandments. Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain to pray and that’s where he became transfigured before them. Going up, being taken up into a cloud symbolized that Jesus was going to be with the Father. He was being elevated to this highest position of glory and power. And even though we have a very different understanding of the universe, on a deeper level than our rational minds, I’m not sure we’re all that different from those first followers. As children, we still think of heaven as being up. Even as adults, on the poetic side of our brain, we look to the heavens for inspiration and guidance. When we shake our fist at God, it’s usually directed upward. We speak of “mountain-top” experiences to describe times of great spiritual insight, awareness or closeness to God.

For those of us who live two millenia after Jesus’ time on earth and after the events of the crucifixion and resurrection, the ascension, though it is a marginal religious holiday, is critical for our participation in the body of Christ. We never had the opportunity to be with Jesus physically. We have him with us today because he ascended to the Father, and is accessible to us in every age and in every place through the Spirit. Though we don’t find the story of the ascension in the gospel of John, that gospel writer gives us the clearest description of what the ascension means for us, and why it is essential that Jesus goes away. When Jesus is giving his farewell speech to his disciples in John he tells them, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. . . I have said these things while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”   Though John doesn’t describe the ascension itself, he clearly understands that it is part of Jesus’ story. Later in that same speech, Jesus tells the disciples, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”   And when John writes about Mary Magdalene going to the tomb and finding the risen Jesus outside of it, he says to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go tell my brothers, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

And that brings us to one more meaning of the ascension. Jesus’ ascension is the promise of our own ascension. Because he has risen to be with the Father, so will we. Calvin says that Jesus’ ascent to heaven opened the way into the Heavenly Kingdom for us. “Since he entered heaven in our flesh, as if in our name, . . . we do not await heaven with a bare hope, but in  Christ we already possess it.”   

John 15:7-12

7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.  9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved . . . → Read More: May 13, 2012]]>  

John 15:7-12

⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  ⁸ My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.  ⁹ As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  ¹¹ I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.  ¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Our Lord’s new commandment, to love one another as he has loved us, is easier said than done. Love is such an overused word in our society, and even in sermons, that it’s sometimes difficult to get a grip on what it is that love really means. Perhaps our Lord’s love is particularly difficult to get a handle on because of the preconceived notions we may have about him. Sunday school images of the mild and gentle Jesus may come to mind: Never a harsh word spoken, a smile on his face, a sweetness in his spirit ready to tend to every one of our needs. This image of Jesus, an image that may come from the words of childhood songs like, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” leaves out not only the challenging nature found in the way Jesus loves individuals, but the sacrificial nature that is profoundly expressed upon a cross on a hillside outside of Jerusalem where he stretched out his arms of love. His love may seem beyond our capacity to love and yet his love is available to each of us to embrace and to be embraced by. Some of us are blessed with examples of human love. Some have friends and family who have loved us into greater growth and nurtured us with loving actions.

Our Lord invites us to love one another as he has loved us. His love is not found only in the big gestures, his love can be found in the little things of everyday life. There is a book that I have found helpful in counseling couples who are preparing for marriage and I think in a rather simple way it opens up some profound opportunities for understanding love. It’s a book by Gary Chapman, titled The Five Love Languages. For me, the heart of the book is found in the understanding that there are particular ways that each of us know we are loved. One of the insights it shares is that it’s more natural and obvious for us to give to another the language we need. The five love languages include physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, and quality time. The challenge of the book to the reader is not so much to discover one’s own love language but to discover your spouse’s love language. Then once discovering your spouse’s love language, being willing to learn to communicate in a way your spouse will receive the love you share for him or her. I think the book is primarily about learning to give. At times, it’s about learning to surrender one’s own way of doing things for the sake of building up the other. When our love languages are different it requires sacrifice to learn the other’s language and to communicate it to him or her in a faithful and consistent way. When couples begin to exercise the challenges that are found in the book there is a new sense of joy that often arrives in their relationship. Our Lord tells us that as we live into his commandments, and learn to receive and abide in his language of love just as he has learned and received and lives into his heavenly Father’s love, that we will find our joy increased. Our Lord wants the same joy that is in the relationship that he has with his Father in heaven to be in us not only in our relationship with the Lord but with one another. Perhaps today we may be challenged to open ourselves to discover what it is we can lay down for those we love. Are there behaviors or attitudes that we hold more sacred than the people we’ve been given to care for, behaviors or attitudes that damage relationships rather than build them up? The love of our Lord given to each of us has the power to set us free. True love, loves the other into greater growth.