Feast of the Ascension

To fully grasp and articulate the ascension is beyond my ability, but like you, l confess this mysterious truth in the Creed we confess at every mass

 “He suffered death and was buried, and rose again in accordance to the scripture. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.”

 We confess this in the closing of most prayers

 “We ask this in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lives, and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever.”

 We know that this new sovereign kingship is foreshadowed throughout the OT.  200 years before Jesus was born we hear in the Book of Daniel about the glorification of the Son of Man.

 “Let us praise and exalt him above all forever.
Blessed are you, Lord, in the firmament of heaven.
Praiseworthy and glorious and exalted above all forever.”   Daniel 3 57-58

 These words capture the majesty of the transcendent Christ and it is in this all powerful transcendence that Jesus can accomplish what he promised us all -

 "I will be with you always, even until the end of time."

 Today we celebrate the mystery of the ascension and exaltation, when Jesus already risen from the tomb is raised again, and not only with a new and glorified body, but raised on high as the exalted Christ, to became not only our Lord, but the Sovereign Lord of all that was and is and will be. 

Paul captures the totality of Christ as

                “The fullness of one who fills all things in every way”

 In Acts we hear that the risen Jesus continues to teach the disciples about the Kingdom of God.  He instructs them to remain in Jerusalem and he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit which will come to them there. You would think that the disciples by this time would understand more, but they ask him

“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

How limited their vision still is. The disciples still think in conventional ways and in the terms of earthy power. 

Princely, political, military power is a small thing, this power comes and goes, and are wiped away by the sands of time. compare this to Christ’s Lordship which includes all times and places, every empire that ever was, every culture that ever existed and every peoples that ever where or ever will be. God’s life-giving sovereignty and eternal authority is now Jesus’.  

 It is through this power that Jesus leaves them with the promise of the Holy Spirit, who will continue to teach them, remind them of all things, and drive them to witness that; Jesus was raised from the dead. He ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of the Father.  With the promise of the Holy Spirit still in their ears, the disciples surround Jesus and watch as he ascends into heaven.  While the disciples still look heavenward an angel questions them as to why they look into the sky as if it were the end – a farewell.

The angel declares

  "This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as     you   have seen him going into heaven”

The angel is clear -It is not the end - it is only the “in between” time. It is the time of both Jesus’ hidden but real presence in the Church & his temporary absence until he comes again in glory. This in between time is the time of the Holy Spirit - It is the time of the Church.

   In today’s Gospel we have the same story. Jesus reminds them that the Christ would suffer (which he did) and rise from the dead (which he did)And they would witness this by preaching the forgiveness of sins in his name (which they did & we still do). Again, we hear the promise of the Spirit, but now there is also a blessing and after the blessing the disciples did him homage and in joy they praised God in the temple.

 These two short descriptions in Acts & Luke are surely the “ascension experience” condensed.

Imagine trying to capture the mindset of the disciples; anguish and sorrow at the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus, three days of deep despair and fear, followed by unfathomable joy of the resurrection and the amazing encounters with, at first, the unrecognizable glorified Jesus, and now, after forty days Jesus leaves them again, but not by the hands of the authorities but by God’s own exaltation. And perhaps in those bittersweet moments of elation and sadness when their minds raced with questions - they remember (and begin to understand) Jesus’ words spoken at the last supper

“Now I am going to the one who sent me.  I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go, for if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you”

And perhaps they spoke and even argued amongst themselves about Jesus and where he went.

And perhaps those words they heard Jesus speak took on a new truth that could cut through everything laid before it

“I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.  In this world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world”

These words cut through the lies of the world, and are worthy of homage and they are certainly worthy of Joy and praise. The simple, but divine truth that now colored everything the disciples and the Church ever knew about Jesus shone like bright light.

I have come from the Father
I return to the Father
I have conquered the world.

 “And you - are witness to these things”  

 And the disciples did witness, and Mother Church does and we do. We confess by our creed and prayers.  We witness by Christian lives lived out unafraid in the world. We sing in endless praise - that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. 

 With the Ascension of Our Lord began a new reality, a new kingship, over the entire cosmos,

though sometimes this new kingship is; dimmed by our pride, hidden by our blindness, or clouded over by our sinfulness. In thinking only of ourselves we fail to give him homage that is his due.  Weighed down by secular society we fail to give him the joyful praise that is our duty. 

 Each Sunday we a confess His Lordship with our lips, but some turn away from this truth as fanciful.

 Others believe, but do not fully grasp it, and so do not live out its meaning in their everyday lives.

 Still others cling in faith, with open hearts, to the mystery of the ascension and they make Paul’s words their own confession of faith-

“Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father far above every principality, authority, power and dominion and over every name that is named, not only in this age, but also the one to come.”

Brothers and sisters, let us take away and remember from time to time,That the ascension of Jesus was not only the beginning of His sovereignty over all and the start of our  in between time, but his ascension guarantees his two great promises to us;One already fulfilled at Pentecost, with the coming of the Holy Spirit - the light and grace that you and I still live in.The other promise yet to be fulfilled - Jesus’s own return, which we wait for in Christian hope and joyful expectation - our voices raised as one voice - Come, Lord Jesus, come.

He Has Risen, 3rd Sunday in Easter

Would we recognize the Risen Lord?

Would we grasp what a new and glorified body, a “spiritual body” as Paul describes it, looks like?

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t.  The disciples in the boat didn’t. Mary Magdalene (the first person to see the Risen Lord, didn’t. And when she did recognize him, those close to Jesus didn’t even believe her story and Thomas refused to believe until he had touch with his own hands.

Yet, despite all this, perhaps as early as the 1^st decade of the Church, we hear surprisingly and un-dramatically -“God, has raised Jesus from the dead”

These are words of faith to be sure, but they are also words that proclaim a lived experience, that though unworldly and beyond understanding was never the less concretely experienced and to such a profound depth that those who were afraid became bold and could proclaim with real conviction what we still proclaim today - “Christ is risen”

We also have Paul’s encounter with the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus, different in substance from the other encounters, but obviously tangible, and electrifying.  Paul adds his experience to the already accepted list of Post resurrection events

“For I hand on to you what I also received: that Christ died; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day. He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.  After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all he appeared to me”

 

It is useless to try to make a chronological or geographical map of the post resurrection appearances. 

They are not a checklist, but the collective experience, collapsed and synthesized into those representative events cherished and proclaimed by the earliest oral traditions that stand behind the gospels.

Let’s do a quick roundup;

In all four Gospels Mary Magdalene, sometimes with other women, goes to the tomb and finds it empty.

In Mark’s longer ending, he simply adds “He appeared to first to Mary Magdalene.” This experience is filled out in John where Jesus calls Mary by name and only then does she recognizes him and addresses him with the intimate term for teacher - Rabboni. Mark has Jesus appear to two unnamed disciples on an unnamed road. Luke fills this in by giving the name of the road as the road to Emmaus and completes the encounter with the breaking of bread and the opening of scripture and the recognizing of Jesus in these actions. Jesus appearing to and commissioning the 11 takes pride of place in all four Gospels. John expands that appearance to two encounters one w/out Thomas one with. And today we have John’s additional encounter with the Risen Lord, not in Jerusalem, as the other encounters were, but in Galilee. 

What does it all mean? On one note it means the details are interesting but of no importance. It is the certainty, the conviction, the experienced encounter with the Risen Lord that counts for everything.

How important is certainty and conviction, Paul reminds us -

“If Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.”

That is – There is no hope, no salvation and we might as well pack up and go home.

But, not today, today we are with the disciples back home in Galilee.  Where they are waiting, keeping their heads low and trying to keep their spirits high.

To lighten their sadness and ease jangled nerves they are doing what is familiar, comforting in its ordinariness, they are fishing.  But, they had a lousy night of it and by dawn were disappointed and tired. From the shore the unrecognized Risen Lord, calls out (obviously with a real living voice) and tells them to cast their nets on the other side, which they do and of course they catch a huge amount fish. Perhaps, because the beloved disciple suddenly remembers an earlier experience when Jesus first called them from their fishing boats, he takes a second look.  And now, in the remembering, his eyes are opened and he recognizes Jesus.

And so says to Peter – “it is the Lord”. Peter jumped (without hesitation or thinking) into the sea and races the hundred yards or so to the shore, while the others trail in the boat, lugging the catch of fish.

 When they arrived on the shore, there was a real charcoal fire (hot and smoking), and some real food (perhaps bread & olives) already prepared (with real hands).  Jesus (in a voice that is clearly understood) asks for some of the fish to cook up.

In this familiar, simple action among friends, Jesus; the risen, glorified and transcendent, was still the Jesus, who did not deem equality with God something to be grasped.He, who is God, simply invites them “come, eat” He invites them to a meal that surly must trigger remembrance of their last supper together. 

But, this invitation is also completely new and different, because for the first time this table fellowship was with the risen Christ.  It was Eucharistic. 

And in the braking of the bread, as it was for the two disciples at Emmaus, they begin to remember and begin to believe and were now filled with a new deep seated joy. This new belief and Joy that transformed them completely were gifts of the Spirit. When Jesus was raised from the dead the Holy Spirit became active in the world.

It is true Jesus had already breathed on them imparting the new but still hidden life of the Spirit and it would be fifty days before Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit, burst forth giving birth to a new collective boldness and new faith, which would be the boldness and faith of the Church.

But, on that day the Holy Spirit was already helping John to remember and to see and also encouraging Peter to boldly act in faith. We know the Spirit continued in their lives because Peter says so in the first reading "God raised Jesus.  We are witnesses of these things, as is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

And this life in the Spirit leads us to the second part of the Gospel story.

This bit is important, because it reminds us that with the appearance of the risen Jesus comes the sending forth on mission. It is clearly about Peter’s three denials & their remedies in his admission of love for Jesus  three times. It is clearly about Peter being given the authority to feed (that is nourish & sustain) Jesus’ flock.

But what is important is not the authority given to Peter, but the means demanded by Jesus of carrying it out - love comes first, authority second. 

Authority from Jesus is always in the Spirit.  That means real power and authority always looks like selfless love, sacrifice and commitment to service.  Real authority is lying down one’s life.

Perhaps, here Peter remembers (and now understands) Jesus washing their feet. Finally, Jesus says to Peter “follow me”.  

And so they did and we still follow today in the light and joy of the Easter proclamation – Our Lord has risen. We are the present day witnesses to these things.

To proclaim the Risen Lord with conviction and joy is to proclaim our love for him and to proclaim our love for him is to, without reservations, take up his mission, as he asked Peter to do.

And sharing his mission makes us sharers in the life of the Spirit and collectively we are made his servant Church.  

Indeed, he is risen – alleluia alleluia.

4th Sunday of Lent

The Good News can easily become old hat if we let it.

Perhaps, we know it so well, and heard it so often it has become run of the mill (meaningless).

We can know our fundamental Christian reality so well, that we forget its magnificent, saving truth, that God not only loves us first, but loves us always, and in an act of absolute self-giving love Jesus came into the world to save us from ourselves, and bring us back into friendship with him who loves us always.  

In the 2^nd reading St Paul says

“For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him”

Do these words startle us or put us to sleep?

Do our hearts race when we hear Paul’s words that in following Jesus, the Risen Christ we become reconciled with God and in the words of St Paul – become a new creation. Are we grateful and energized when Paul reveals  “Old things have passed away, behold, new things have come”

or are these empty words we have heard so often before? Are we, in fact, more comfortable with the old things anyway.

Our attitude towards Jesus’ parables can be like our attitude to our faith – a polite yawn, a scratch of the head and comfortable nod. Today’s gospel of the Prodigal Son is so well known we often take it for granted.  We skim over it.  Comfortable in its familiarity, we forget its depth.

But, we must always remember that Jesus did not just tell a good story.  He wasn’t just clever. He didn’t just try to pass on some good ethical advice. Jesus preached the Kingdom of God.  What it is and what it looks like in this world.  Jesus preached who the Father was, his gracious love and his lasting fidelity.

Jesus reminds us that it is we who lacks constancy and like children we turn this way and that.

We stomp around crying out we know the better way, demanding to do what we want do.

Of course, if we can be childish and foolish we can also be self-righteous, puffed up with the perspective of being better than others, better than we are. Either way, we cherish our point of view and blinded by that view we are comfortable in the shallowness of our relationship with God.

It is important to remember that we choose shallowness and even estrangement.  The Father’s choice for us is always love and communion. And this is today’s parable - the story of rebellious children who choose, for whatever reason, to turn away from the father to take the lesser road. 

We know the story well.  The younger son knows best and this means - give me what is mine and I will go off do what I please.We should reflect on that the inheritance was not all the father gave the son.  The greatest, yet most dangerous gift, was freedom, the freedom to choose.  I am not sure the younger son meant to hurt his father or that he went off planning failure and ruin.   I am sure he wasn’t thinking at all.  He was empty headed. It was live for today live and live for myself.This thoughtless, empty headed, living (as it always does) leads to a life without meaning and often to ruin and despair. It is no surprise the young son found himself no better than the swine he lived with. But in a moment of clarity, a change of heart, he has an insight (a remembering) Luke simply says “He came to his senses”.  This change of mind & heart caused the son to take action and do something radical, even crazy, and  perhaps for the first time – with real intention -

“He got up and went back”

We know the repentant son returns in shame and guilt, broken and humbled by life estranged from his Father.

But the act repentance is hollow (useless) without the acts of mercy and forgiveness.

And this for me is the truth at the center of the story - “While he was a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion.  He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him”. The father never forgot the son, never brushed him off as unworthy or proclaimed him “dead to me”. The father waited.  He expected the return, he longed for the return.  He still loved his errant child beyond measure.And this intense longing for communion and loving openness to a returning child is God for us Jesus says.

The father, without wounded pride and vindictiveness, came out to meet the son and who, before a word of apology was uttered, hugged him and kissed him pouring out his love upon him. And this is God for us Jesus tells us.

We know that the father forgave the son, called for a great homecoming feast, and returned him to his rightful position as son and made all things right. And this too is God for us Jesus tells us.

But there was another son, the elder son, the good soon.  For him his brother’s leaving was good riddance.  He was offended; his pride had been hurt and he sat in judgment over his brother and in anger protested the father’s abundant generosity. Again, the father, in perfect understanding, doesn’t rebuke the elder son, but reminds him of his love and what generosity and compassion looks like. “You are here with me always, everything I have is yours.  But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come back to life again” True the elder son served the Father, but he did not love the Father.

The older son’s self-righteous obedience blinded him (no less than the younger son’s foolishness blinded him) to the father’s gift of - “everything I have is yours."

Neither child gave their Father his due; sincere gratitude, loving obedience and confident trust.

 Of course, this is our story and we do not know the ending.  We know that one son “was dead and came back to life” That son was made a new, but we do not know how the other son fared. Perhaps, this is Jesus’ judgment on foolishness vs self-righteousness. 

We also know that we cannot let this Good News become old hat.  We cannot take our Faith in the Risen Lord for granted.  We cannot take our baptism for granted. Yes, we are human beings and can wander off down tempting but meaningless paths or we can harden into an empty, self-serving self-righteousness.  Both cut us off from God.  But, if we believe Jesus, if this is our story, and if this is how God is, then we must come to our senses. We must get up and go back, confident that - God not only loves us first, but loves us always, and came into the world to save us from ourselves and to bring us back into communion with him who loves us always.