Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

Texts:
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26;
1 John 5:9-13;
John 17:6-19.

If you were among the fortunate, you saw the Northern Lights on Friday night. It wasn’t certain they’d be visible. If it had been cloudy no one would have seen a thing. Timing was a factor too. The lights come when they come and go when they go.

You had to be awake and watchful to see the glorious sheets of color drifting across the sky. It was at once beautiful and eerie. And then, it was done. Over. You can’t hold on to a solar storm.

Perhaps a similar sense of awe and wonder was felt by the people who saw Jesus after his resurrection. He came when he came and went when he went. When he showed up the atmosphere was charged with varying degrees of fear and hope.

Jesus was very much alive and yet his followers knew for certain he had died. How could that be? Encounters with the risen Jesus upended assumptions about death, and about life too.

Then on the fortieth day it was done. Over. The disciples of Jesus reported seeing him ascend into the heavens. He had predicted this. But who can really be prepared for such an end?

All things considered, it’s a wonder that the Jesus community didn’t just fold up then and there. What did they have to look forward to when their friend and guide was gone? Some followers did fade away during those difficult days.

But those six weeks of post-resurrection encounters with Jesus ignited a spiritual storm in other people. They couldn’t hold on to Jesus, but they could cherish his memory and his words. And they could tend to the work he had given them to do.

This is not to say that they knew exactly what to do. Nor did they have perfect understanding of all the things that they had experienced with Jesus. The evidence of this is found throughout New Testament writings. They debated, took action in sometimes bold and sometimes questionable ways, trusted God as best they could, and as Jesus had taught them to do, they ate together and prayed together.

They gave us as good a picture of interim living as we could possibly ask for. We are still in an interim time. We wait as uncertainly as those first Christians did.

We do not yet live in the reign that Jesus promised. In the meantime we are guided just as those early communities were. Jesus, and the writings of our forebears in faith remind us to watch for, wait for, and trust God. We live in the world as it is but faith means taking our cues from Jesus as best we can.

The disciples remembered how Jesus called them and charged themselves to restore their number to twelve again after the loss of Judas. This they did by discerning candidates, praying, and casting lots. It was, after all, a bit of a gamble on their part. Because when did Jesus tell them to find a replacement?

As it turned out, their gamble didn’t notably pay off. Matthias their chosen disciple candidate was never mentioned again. Not was his competitor Justus. Instead, down the road, Jesus made an unexpected appearance and chose Paul. But that’s a story for another time.

The followers of Jesus muddled on, as we largely do today. There are times when we nearly forget the power and presence of God. Until our cosmos gets unexpectedly stirred up, and those who witness it and do not dismiss it, are astonished again to see God’s mighty presence.

We do well to remember how Jesus prayed just before he went to the cross and his death. Protect your children, Holy Father. Protect them from the world that does not know your name. Protect them from evil that comes from within and from around them.

There are many words in scripture witnessing to God, and to the sayings and acts of Jesus. But when Jesus prayed for his disciples to be kept in God’s word, he meant himself. Jesus is God’s Word. And he also meant the sayings he taught them. To never forget what he said. And to pass their witness onward.

For storms will always come. Stirring up both our better angels and our demons. It will be forever be necessary to discern the spirits of the age and of the world. Jesus said, as I am holy, so they are holy. That is, precious before God.