7. Sunday of Easter, 05/24/2009

Sermon on John 17:6-19, by John H. Loving

Jesus prayed for his disciples, saying, "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. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; ⁸for 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. ⁹I 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. ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹And 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. ¹²While 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. ¹³But 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.^* ¹⁴I 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. ¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.^* ¹⁶They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth."

On this Sunday following the celebration of Christ's Ascension we look beyond the struggle and heartbreak of everyday-life to that transcendent dimension where God rules over the creation and the anointed Son shares the sovereignty of the Father and intercedes for us his people.

In terms of understanding the Ascension today, it seems to me more helpful to think in terms of Christ's glory as set forth in the Farewell Discourse from St John's Gospel as we heard it this morning. This seems more straight forward than struggling to reconcile St Luke's more physical view of the Ascension with our present-day understanding of the universe. Like others of his time (and some of our own time) Luke seems to have thought of Jesus as rising up through the clouds to his Father's domain from whence he would one day return. We are sometimes tempted to think how convenient it would be if we could just hold on to that three-storied universe with heaven just above and the fires of hell raging below.

In the past four hundred years, since the time of the astronomer Copernicus, there have been some who thought that the rejection of the earlier and less scientific view of the universe also entailed a casting aside of the Christian gospel. But this is surely to take a very naïve view of the New Testament. For while the evangelists admittedly expressed themselves in the thought-forms and categories of their day, (as did Jesus himself for that matter,) their basic teaching was not in the realm of astronomy. Rather, their teaching involved the more fundamental concern with God's rule over the creation and God's boundless love for God's people.

In terms of the Ascension, it is clear that the Early Church believed not simply that Jesus had "gone upstairs" (as it were), but rather that the risen Lord had entered a state or activity that transcended the limitations of time and place altogether. The main thing is not the matter of physical direction-the "upness"-of the Ascension. The heavenly realm is a state, it is a condition, it is an existence that is beyond anything that we can know or feel-whether up or down (or in or out)! Maybe "beyond" would be a better metaphor. The point is that Christ went from earth and humanity to heaven and the fullness of his divinity.

Therefore, in our teaching about Christ's glorification we must never confuse the limited spatial implications of the word ASCENSION with the affirmation that Christ went from earth and humanity to heaven and the fullness of his divinity.

Next, in Christ's Ascension our own eternal destiny is fore-shadowed. This is the glory that we shall ultimately share with the ascended Lord. He goes to prepare a place for us and sends his Spirit to teach and to lead and to sustain us in the meantime. And this is not merely a "holding operation", as it were. For this future hope and expectation will surely influence our attitudes and actions here and now. If we believe that Christ reigns in glory with the Father, then we must know that pain and suffering and death do not have the last word, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. Furthermore, if Christ truly reigns with the Father, then the earthly trappings and security for which we struggle so desperately are revealed in all their superficiality and inadequacy.

By "earthly trappings" we mean not only political or economic power-these are obvious enough-but also the domination of others in more personal realms. We must renounce snubbing, patronizing, vicious gossip, and insinuation. All of this must go. So many of our hierarchies and pecking orders are totally irrelevant in the long run. As the Magnificat puts it, the "proud and mighty will be put down, and the humble and meek exalted". Those who worship the ascended Christ will focus on eternal values and abiding truth and not get bogged down in power struggles, passing fads, and the hoarding of material goods.

In one of the collects for Ascension Day we pray that here and now we may in heart and mind ascend with Christ and dwell with him. And we mean by this not just that we are to bask in his glory, but that we may assimilate his will and serve him to the fullest of our ability. If Christ has ascended, then he is sovereign over this world, and calls us to be his agents for the carrying out of his will and purpose in this place.

The angel in Thursday's Ascension narrative tells the disciples not to stand staring into space, but to get on with the work for which Jesus prepared them. We, too, are summoned to carry out his mission-to share the good news of his resurrection, to minister in his name to the needy, and to reflect his love in all that we do.

Christ has promised to be with us until the end of time. And he who is our high priest or intercessor is one who is also the Son of Man, still bearing the scars of his suffering and death. We have, therefore, an Advocate who knows human existence at its most extreme limits and yet has been raised to the Father's side, where as the ascended and glorified Lord, we worship him this day and forever. AMEN.

Rev., Interim Assistant John H. Loving
The Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal)
Austin, Texas
E-Mail: jloving3@austin.rr.com

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