This... Is Serious, May 16, 2021

 This… Is Serious         May 16, 2021         John 17:4-26, Acts 1:6-14
 

Rev. Linda Meyer, Community UMC, Keenesburg, Colorado
 

    Thursday was Ascension Day, the day Jesus rose to heaven. The Bible tells us this happened forty days after Easter. Today is the seventh Sunday in Easter, but it is also Ascension Sunday. Next Sunday is Pentecost – the day the Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ Disciples and other people in Jerusalem. Once again, time has flown by, and we are now coming out of the time after Easter.
   

    Ascension Day is a little hard to preach. Luke wrote about it in his Gospel and in Acts, but none of the other three Gospels talk about Jesus ascending to Heaven. In Luke 24, we read, “50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”

    I included our reading from Acts to remind us that after Jesus’ resurrection, he was here with us another forty days, then ascended into heaven. We know it happened, but except for these two scripture readings, there aren’t a lot of details, other than Jesus arose, and the Disciples were full of joy. His disciples then spent time in prayer, waiting for whatever was next.

    In our Gospel reading from John, Jesus is in the Upper Room with the Disciples, after the Passover dinner. Soon after this scene from John, Jesus goes out to a garden, and will soon be arrested. This is a long prayer, but there is so much going on in Jesus’ prayer! I left out the first verses from this scripture reading – it was already long enough, and sometimes it is hard to follow Jesus’ words. Jesus starts by praying to God that he knows the time has come to glorify God. By “glorifying God”, Jesus means he will die on the cross, and then be resurrected to show God’s power and glory. Jesus prays for his Disciples, asking God to take care of them because Jesus will be leaving them.

    During the last few months before this time in the Upper Room, Jesus tried to prepare his Disciples for what was to come. Even though he told them several times he would be leaving, the Disciples never quite understand what is going to happen. I would love to know what they were thinking whenever Jesus talked about leaving. Did they think he was serious? Did they think he was going to another area or country to teach other people? Jesus loved a good party – maybe they thought he was kidding with them, and nothing was going to change.

    But this prayer is serious. It is one of the most serious things Jesus ever said or did. The other three Gospels don’t mention this prayer, but John was there and probably heard every word of Jesus’ prayer. Not only is this a serious prayer, it is also one of joy and hope.

    Why is there joy and hope? Because Jesus is praying for us, too. “20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

    “Those who will believe in me through their message.” That is us. From these twelve Disciples, plus possibly another twenty to fifty people, who knew Jesus and preached the Good News, there are now over two billion Christians in the world. That never ceases to amaze me. From this small group of average working people living in a small area of the Middle East, in less than two thousand years there are over 2 billion followers of Jesus Christ. With the help of the Holy Spirit to spread the Good News, as the Disciples go out and preach, the Spirit will open the hearts of the people to receiving Jesus as the gift of God. Then those people will tell others about Jesus, and their hearts will be opened as well. The circle keeps repeating itself, as the Good News travels around the world.

    Jesus prays that his Disciples will be protected from the world. There is a lot going on in our world that is hard for us to understand. Some things are pretty similar to what Jesus’ Disciples faced. Violence, hatred, people being cruel to each other, the list goes on and on. In Jesus’ time, there was a lot they didn’t understand about the world: evil spirits, strange beasts that were found in the deserts and mountains. Today we might have some explanations for those things, but there are still a lot of things we do not understand.

    This is probably not the first time Jesus had prayed for his disciples. But here, in his most difficult hour, when they should have been praying for him, Jesus looks up to heaven and prays for his disciples. He holds the church up to God and asks for the continued well-being of those who have followed him. Jesus knew the reality of evil and the hostile nature of the world. That evil and hostility will send him to the cross. Jesus knows that his followers are likely to face persecution and great danger, even death, because of their loyalty to him. But, just as God sent Jesus into the world, Jesus will send his followers into the world to continue the work of the gospel. Jesus prays that they will become one together, that they will be unified, just as Jesus and God are one.

    As Jesus prays to God to protect the disciples following his death and resurrection, Jesus is not promising the church a life free from hardship or suffering. Instead, Jesus shows that the presence and power of the Holy Spirit and the church’s intimate relationship with God and with each other, through Jesus Christ, will give us strength to remain faithful to God. Jesus prays for us so that we might be something that would be impossible if it wasn’t for Jesus: the church.
     

    Jesus also asks that his followers be blessed so that they can continue to grow in godliness and righteousness. He prays that our lives may start to resemble his life, so that every day we may become a little more like Jesus. He prays that our hearts might be one: one with him, and one with each other.

    In many ways, the church is an image of the Trinity. In Christ we are caught up in the divine life of the Trinity. In Christ we are invited to share in the relationship, the community, the fellowship, that exists at the very heart of God. God has given us to the Son, in and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We belong to Christ, and we belong to one another. Our relationships, our fellowship, our life together points to the Holy Trinity of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In praying this prayer Jesus says, “This is who you are.”

    Jesus invites us to join him in the unique way of life we know as Christian discipleship. What if, as members of the body of Christ and fellow followers of Jesus, we devoted our time and energy to praying for one another and asking God to support, protect, and bless each other? If the church commits itself not only to praying this prayer, but to also live it, with God’s grace we just might start to resemble the beloved community we are called to be.

    In our baptisms, we are raised with Christ to begin living in that power of life and peace right here again today. We are not only justified in that word of truth but we are sanctified in it. We are empowered by the Spirit to begin truly living for life and not for death. We are empowered to begin living God’s way of peace — to bring peace through the power of God’s loving forgiveness.

    This is our good news: Jesus prays for us. Jesus reminds us we will never be alone. The Last Supper wasn’t really the last supper. This wasn’t really Jesus’ final prayer on our behalf. Jesus comes to us every day, to feed us with his word of truth and to pray for our protection in his word of peace.

    Through his prayer we become the church, God’s gift for the life of the world. And in our church, we become a community of believers – Jesus’ beloved community for all people. Jesus calls us to go into the world and be his witnesses to the world.

    Through Jesus Christ, we are one.