The
Seventh Sunday of Easter comes right on the heels of one of the holiest days in
the Christian Calendar, the Feast of the Ascension. Here at Faith Lutheran in
Philadelphia we have historically observed Ascension Day by doing sweet bloody
nothing at all. I mean, c’mon. It’s on a Thursday
for cryin’ out loud, and most folks aren’t going to take off work for a
holiday which Hallmark doesn’t recognize.
Nevertheless,
the Ascension is key to the last two Sundays’ lectionary readings. For the
first three Sundays of our Easter season we’ve been astounded by appearances of
the resurrected Jesus. But by Easter Four we start to look at just who Jesus really is to and for us. In these last
two weeks we get ready to say a permanent good-bye to the earthly Jesus as the
Lord’s followers make the transition from being disciples—students of Jesus—to being apostles—ambassadors for Jesus. Last Sunday, Jesus gave us our
orders: love one another as he loved us. In this Sunday’s gospel (John 17:6-19)
we get his prayer for those who are left here to complete the mission. He asks
the Father to keep us safe and keep us together—a rather tender prayer which
any parent would wish for his or her kids if time on earth were growing short.
We won’t have Jesus with us physically any longer, but we will have his mission
and, in this prayer, we will have his love.
There’s
something kind of sentimental about this, don’t you think? I wonder if we don’t
often recognize how important someone is to us until they’re not here anymore.
Yet tiny little incidents, scraps of music, a familiar expression, a day of the
year, the smile of a stranger, bring the departed person back into focus
unexpectedly, and we recall tons of ways in which that absent soul blessed our
lives.
Have
you seen that bank card commercial where Samuel L. Jackson—with a vast amount
of attitude of which only Mr. Jackson is capable—demands to know “What’s in
your wallet?” Do you carry a memory in your wallet? A picture of a lost loved
one? A ticket stub? A poem? Something which reminds you of people and places
which have made you what you are?
This
past week I was bringing communion to Bill, a parishioner whose been rather
under the weather lately and unable to make it out to church. He told me that
he keeps the torn half of a dollar bill in his wallet. Bill, you see, is a
Korean War combat vet. When our GI’s went “in country” during that conflict
they had to surrender their US currency. Bill and his buddy took one of their
greenbacks and tore it in two, each keeping half. They promised that they’d get
back together after the war, reunite the two halves of the bill with tape, and
buy themselves a couple of beers to celebrate their friendship (“A buck went a
lot further in those days,” Bill reminds me.) But Bill’s buddy never made it
home, and Bill has carried that torn half of a dollar for over sixty years. It
reminds him of his comrade, and of honor, courage, duty, and hope. Mostly, he
says, it make him thankful for his life each and every day.
People
come into and out of our lives for different reasons and different seasons. We
should never, however, underestimate the power another’s life can have to bless
our own. In the First Lesson for this Sunday (Acts 1:15-26) Jesus’ apostles
have lost the earthly Jesus, but he is becoming even more a part of who they
are than if he were standing right in front of them. Granted, they’re still a
bit confused. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do for the world yet
(that will come next week), so they strengthen each other. They make the
administrative choice to move on and replace the treacherous Judas with a
worthy follower who will help them proclaim Jesus when the time comes. It’s the
first thing they do without Jesus having to tell them.
I
wonder if they are keeping that prayer Jesus prayed for them in the backs of
their minds. I would hope they were strengthened and encouraged that Jesus was
praying for their protection:
“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.” (John 17:11)
I
think it’s kind of significant that Jesus pointedly does not pray for the “world.”
Rather, he prays for the ones who are to be healers of the world. It is through
the church that people will meet the resurrected Jesus. That scrap of Jesus
living in us will bear fruit in the lives which our lives touch. We are
encouraged to go on with our mission of loving the world with the love of the
one who is absent but always with us.
May
Christ be with you, my friends.
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