Thursday, May 19, 2022

May 29, 2022 - 7th Sunday of Easter

                                                      Biblical Words                                         [774]

Acts 16:16-34;  Psalm 97;  Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21; John 17:20-26.

 Jesus’ Departure is a separation from but not an abandonment of the world. 

The Seventh Sunday of Easter comes three days after Ascension Day and a week before Pentecost.  Even though the Lectionary readings for this Sunday are not directly about the ascension, they still share the aura of this event at the climax of the Easter season. 

The ascension is about departure.  Only Luke, among New Testament writers, narrates an ascension separate from the resurrection.  Many passages speak of Jesus exalted to heavenly rule at the right hand of God, but only Luke tells of his departure from the earth as a specific event (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:9-12). 

The churches addressed in Luke’s writings knew the great event was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, when their charismatic missions in the world had begun.  The ascension, just before that, was the conclusion of Jesus’ time with the apostles.  What followed had been prepared by Jesus before hand (Acts 1:8), but the time of the church in the world is a time without Jesus. 

The apostles witnessed to Jesus as he was in the past – and as he would be one final time at the end – but the churches lived in the world, by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Acts 16:16-34.  

The reading from Acts is very much an action story.  It shows how the church worked in the world – with a little divine assistance indeed, but mainly with a lot of faith and persistence. 

In scene one, Paul and Silas heal a possessed slave girl, employed as a fortune-teller, who has been taunting them (though what she says is actually true, from the writer’s viewpoint, verse 17).  Like other idolatrous men in Acts (19:23-27), her owners are greedy rather than religious, and Paul has ruined their hoax with the girl.  They cause a riot in the market place with the result that the magistrates sentence Paul and Silas to severe beatings and imprisonment. 

In scene two, Paul and Silas sing hymns in prison at night and an earthquake strikes, springing their manacles and the cell doors.  The jailer is saved from suicide by Paul who declares that no one has escaped – though the doors were open.  (This is the real miracle, rather than the earthquake!)  The jailer and his family are converted to the new faith and become mainstays of the church in Philippi. 

Paul and Silas appear to be isolated and defenseless here, to the extent of receiving cruel floggings in the market place.  However, they endure and things work out for them, with the result that the community of faith is strengthened, starting from those in the dungeons. 

Jesus seems absent, but some greater power is working for the life of the spirited church. 

Psalm 97.  

The Ascension is about a departure from earth.  BUT, it is also an ascension to heaven.  The heavenly destination is portrayed at length in the book of Revelation, a complex  portrayal that is based on such ecstatic visions as this psalm. 

It is standard lore that “clouds and thick darkness are all around” God (verse 2, NRSV).  In Israel’s wilderness journeys, God is veiled in a pillar of cloud by day – a cloud which at night glows like a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21-23). 

The psalm is declaring what could be seen if the cloud were not there!  The cloud hides the inner secret of God’s explosive appearance. 

“Yahweh is king” (verse 1).  In the Hebrew, this is an event, not a status.  It is such an amazing thing that cosmic phenomena break out in joy over it – fireworks, lightning, earthquakes, melting mountains (verses 3-5). 

Our psalm becomes a celebration of the Acts narrative when it proclaims the folly of idolaters.  

“All worshipers of images are put to shame, 
     those who make their boast in worthless idols” (verse 7)
  like the greedy ones of Philippi.  
“The Lord…guards the lives of his faithful;
     he rescues them from the hand of the wicked” (verse 10),  
     –  as happened in the prison holding Paul and Silas. 

The reign of God – and of God’s anointed – is a heavenly reality that appears mysteriously within the earthly scenes from which Jesus has departed. 

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21.  

The destination of the ascension, the heavenly presence of God where the Lamb receives authority over the forces that cause chaos on earth, is also the place from which the final return will come.  This passage presents the last words of Jesus, the heavenly Lord, giving assurance that he is coming – that is, he is about to reverse the departure! 

That assurance is answered by the church’s prayer that he will indeed come. 

“See, I am coming soon… I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (verses 12-13, NRSV). 

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come. 
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!  (verses 17 and 20). 

The departure that is seen as the ascension is not final.  It will last only during the time of the servant and spirited church on earth. 

John 17:20-26.  

The whole of John 13-17 has Jesus interpreting to the disciples his imminent departure.  In the last chapter of this section, chapter 17, Jesus has finished instructing the disciples and turns to God in prayer. 

Jesus’ prayer is about the completion of his own mission (verses 1-5), about the disciples who have been prepared but are now being left behind (verses 6-19), and about the later generations who will believe because of the testimony of the disciples (verses 20-26, or at least verses 20-21). 

Our reading is this final section – the believers of the future who will not know Jesus directly but only through the communion with the disciples. 

After Jesus’ departure, the believers will share a mystic communion with God, Jesus, and each other. 

I ask not only on behalf of these [disciples present at the supper], but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.  As you, Father, 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 (verses 20-21, NRSV). 

This communion shows up in the world as love (agape), which binds the unity of the faithful. 

Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.  I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them (verses 25-26). 

At his departure Jesus leaves behind the model and the command to love one another, and in such loving the believers will experience the truth and reality of the righteous God. 

 

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