We live our lives much with the same sense as the disciples’ lives were lived between the Ascension and Pentecost, in between.  But in this meantime, our truth is that Jesus is with us in the Spirit, even while praying for us to God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Seventh Sunday of Easter, year C; texts: John 17:20-26; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Now what do we do?  What do we do now that Jesus is gone again?

Our celebration of Jesus’ ascension was Thursday, and now it’s Sunday, and Jesus is gone.  Also, in these 18 days we’ll celebrate half of the Church’s six major festivals, but this Sunday isn’t one of them.  Pentecost and Holy Trinity are the next two weeks, not today.  So today we’re between festivals, Jesus is gone, and this is the last Sunday of Easter this year, the last day of Easter paraments, the last day we conclude our liturgy with “Christ is risen, indeed, Alleluia!”  When this run is over, it’s back to normal.  And what are we supposed to do?

Of course, we’re aware that even though we celebrated Easter six weeks and seven Sundays ago, Jesus really wasn’t raised again, that happened long ago.  But that’s the funny thing about the Church Year.  By celebrating each year the events of Jesus’ life and ministry, his death and resurrection, we almost forget that it happened 2,000 years ago and we live as if it were still happening.  In fact, our liturgical life is meant to help us live these events anew each year.  So on Christmas we’re filled with joy, we’re taken back in time and find ourselves wondering at the side of a manger and a little baby.  And even though we know what happens on Easter, living the liturgies of Holy Week does bring us through the pain and sadness of our Lord and of the disciples, if even second-hand.  So when we sing Alleluia for the first time at the Easter Vigil, there is a very real sense that it is as if we are hearing the good news for the first time: he is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

And that makes this Sunday in many ways a hard Sunday for us, just as it must have been for the disciples.  Having Jesus back after his terrible death was thrilling for them, but now 40 days later they had to say goodbye again.  On this Sunday 2,000 years ago he had been gone for three days, and they were still a week from Pentecost.  Just as we are.

It’s funny that the times we can easily identify with the feelings of the disciples are the difficult times, such as in the times they were dealing with the absence of Jesus.  Their reality after the Ascension is our reality every day of our lives: Christ Jesus is in heaven with the Father, and we wonder what we’re to do, how we’re to live, how we’re to know what Jesus would say to us.  Or if he is there at all.

A major issue in our lives is what do we do when we feel that God is absent.

It’s a struggle people often have with great tragedies or disasters.  Where is God here?  Why isn’t God doing something?

But the truth is that we struggle so often with knowing where God is even in our daily lives.  I can stand up here and say, “God is with you always,” and you might believe it.  Sometimes.  But in the dark night of the soul, in the pain of everyday living, in the sadness of depression, in the fear of a frightening world, in the struggle of poverty, in the emptiness of modern materialism, it is awfully hard sometimes to know where God is.  Too many times for too many of us there is just an empty wall we face in prayer and then the wondering begins: Is God really there?  Is Christ Jesus, who is supposed to be God-with-us, real for me, or just wishful thinking?

So again, what do we do now?  How do we go on in this time of Christ’s apparent absence?

Well, we have a gift from John the evangelist.  John’s Gospel, more than the others, spends a lot of time on the goodbyes Jesus gives the disciples.

We’ve been hearing from some of these in the Gospel readings for this Easter season.  For five chapters, from 13 to 17, Jesus is saying goodbye to the disciples.  All these words take place in John’s Gospel the night of Jesus’ betrayal, before his death.  But for we who are Easter people (and this is likely why these words were assigned to our Easter weeks), we hear these words most helpfully as we deal with his absence after he ascended to the Father.

And what Jesus tells the disciples and us is that he is going away, but that he will still be with us.  And that we have work to do in the meantime.

So on Second Easter he gave us the gift of peace, and said “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  (John 20:21)

On the Third Sunday of Easter he said, “If you love me, feed my sheep.”  (John 21:15-17)

Then on Fourth Easter we heard him say that all who are his sheep know his voice, and none can be taken from his hand.  (John 10:27-28)

On the Fifth Sunday of Easter he told us that while he will be with us only a little longer, he is giving us a new commandment, that we love one another as he loved us.  (John 13:33-34)

And then in words spoken in the chapters between that word and today’s Gospel, he promises several things: “I’m going to prepare a place for you,” he says, “in my Father’s house.”  (John 14:1, 3)  “I won’t leave you orphaned, I am coming to you,” he says.  (John 14:18)  “I will send you an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to teach you and be with you and give you peace,” he says.  (John 14:25-27)  And he tells us it is to our advantage that he leaves us, otherwise the Advocate, the Spirit, will not be able to come to us.  (John 16:11)

In all these last words, these farewells, Jesus is saying some very important things about his absence.  First, that he is not leaving us alone: he is sending the Spirit of God to us to be with us and guide us and strengthen us.  Second, that we are sent as he was sent, to be the love of God in the world.  And third, that he is coming again at the end of all days to take us with him.  We also heard that from the Revelation today: Jesus said, “Surely I am coming soon!”

So this is where we are on this day between days, in our lives lived in the meantime: we are not alone, and we have much to do.

The promise of the Advocate, the Spirit actually is better than we could have hoped.  Christ Jesus leaves because he has things to do for us and the world: a place to prepare for us, sheep that are not of this flock that he has to find.  And as for us, one resurrected man could not be with all people at all times, but the Holy Spirit can fill each of our hearts and be with us.

And even better for us, today Jesus prays to the Father for us, and Scripture tells us that Christ’s prayer continues for us even now.  Christ Jesus returns to the Father so he can continue to speak for us.  He prays continually that we become one as his children.  Prays that we do not feel alone.  Prays that we stay in faith and continue to love each other.  Prays that we share an intimacy with the Father that he has.  He knows the pain we feel, the sense that we sometimes don’t know where God is.  He’s been there with us.  And so he prays for us.

And all this is to strengthen us for the mission we are given, to be the anointed ones of God bringing Christ’s resurrection love to the world.  Sometimes it’s like we don’t really pay attention when Jesus says things like, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  Or when we hear, as we will in a week, Luke tell us that the same Spirit which filled Jesus for his ministry now fills the Church to overpouring?  We have the love of Christ to share, the forgiveness of Jesus to offer, and the work of God’s healing of the nations to undergo.  We are not alone, and we are given this gift of the Spirit so that we can become who we were meant to be.

And as we say farewell to this season of Easter, we welcome the new life in the Spirit that the season of Pentecost will show us.

So, in the meantime, what are we to do now?

Well, we can live in love with each other and God as Jesus asked.  We can realize that we are sent to do the work of God in the world and we can pray that the Spirit give us the strength to do this.

When we eat and drink the Meal of his body and blood we are united with our Lord in the deepest way.  When we gather as the body of Christ we see our Lord in the most profound way we can.  And when together the Spirit sends us out to be Christ in the world, we are the presence of God in a world that desperately wonders where God is.

It turns out that for Jesus, goodbye is only for a very short time.  He is here, for he is risen, just as he said.  And he will be with us and the world always, until the end of the age, until this resurrection life fills all God’s creation.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The gift of the return of Christ to the Father is that we are carried into the life of the Triune God and fully understood, known, and united with the God whose love for us and the world cannot be stopped, even by death.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, The Ascension of Our Lord (A, B, C); texts: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

There is a prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi which includes this line: “grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.”  There is deep wisdom in these petitions, a sense of what it might mean to fully inhabit the life of Christ which is our calling and our anointing in Baptism, that we look to the other’s needs and burdens before our own.  This is right and good, and worthy of our prayer.

That being said, there is nothing quite like knowing that we are understood by another, loved by another.  Perhaps that’s why it’s so important that we pray that we offer that to others.  But I have been thinking a great deal this week about the gift Christ’s ascension gives us of being understood better, more fully, by the Triune God.

All our readings assigned for this festival focus on the reality that our Lord Christ leaves us.

Even Paul’s words to the Ephesians, which speak of Christ’s enthronement above all rule and authority, words which echo the psalm for today, are living in the reality that our Lord Jesus is no longer with us in the flesh.  And Luke’s two ascension accounts, our first reading and Gospel, are strictly from our point of view.  Jesus spends time with his disciples after his resurrection.  He teaches them, talks to them, helps them understand.  And then, 40 days after he is raised, Jesus ascends to heaven to return to the Father.

This is our common view of the ascension: the departure of the Incarnate One.  But what if we focus for a moment not on what is happening here on earth, but on what might be happening within the life of the Triune God?

There is much to be said about the ministry and work that is left to us in our Lord’s ascension, that we are entrusted to bring the Good News to the world.  But there is something in this whole story we might do well to consider: what happens when the eternal Son of God, now Incarnate as fully human and fully divine, returns to the Godhead (in whatever way his return might mean).

Right now we’re studying Hebrews on Thursday evenings, and that text suggests the idea that  perhaps the ascension is important for what God learns as well.

I want to read just a couple lines from this great New Testament sermon to help clarify this: Hebrews 4:14-15, and Hebrews 9:24.  First: “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”  And then: “For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.”

Christ left us, says this preacher, to be our high priest before God.  We have lost the sense of what that image means for us.  The high priest in Judaism was the one who could stand for the people before God.  Who would make sacrifice on their behalf, and seek forgiveness for them.  Who would enter the Holy of Holies on their behalf.

And a large part of the point of the sermon to the Hebrews is to say that Christians need no more high priests since Jesus has become the High Priest par excellence.  And why is he such a great high priest for us?  Hebrews says because he is like us, was tested like us, knows our pain, our sorrow, our fear, can sympathize with our weaknesses, even while being at the same time the divine Son of God.

The whole point of the Incarnation was for God to be with us.  And in the Son of God, we have someone who knows us better than we know ourselves.  Sometimes we think that the great news about “God-with-us,” Emmanuel, is that now we know God better through Jesus.  That is true.

But this preacher suggests that a wonderful thing about God being with us in Jesus is that the Triune God now understands us better.  What an insight, and what good news!  Here is the profound implication of the ascension: raised from the dead and ascended to the Father, now Christ Jesus can speak on our behalf before God, be our great high priest.

Whatever mystery lies in the life of the Triune God, after the ascension it contains human flesh.  At no point are we told that the Incarnation is undone, so humanity is now drawn fully into the life of God.

Consider what that means: God understands us now in a deeply different way.  We normally have a sense of separateness between God and humanity that is understandable: God is God, and we are not.  But somehow, ascended to the Father, the Son now brings us into God’s inner life.  Our fears and hopes, our pains and delights, our sadness and our joys, our very flesh.  These are now brought into the inner life of God.

So it’s no longer God on one side, us on the other.  God up there, us down here, wherever we mean by “there” or “here.”  The prayer we will hear Jesus pray next Sunday is fulfilled in this ascension: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.”  To think that we are that known and understood by the Triune God is awe-inspiring.

This is the great joy of Jesus’ ascension.

The Son of God isn’t gone at all.  We are not abandoned, left behind.  Instead, he’s so deeply concerned for us, loves us so much, and since he knows us so intimately, he’s returned to the Father to plead for us, to intercede on our behalf, to be our Advocate before the Father.  To bring us to God.

So as not to leave us orphaned here, he sends the Holy Spirit to be with us.  To be another Advocate, he says, from God to us.  (And Paul would suggest, the Spirit also speaks to the Trinity on our behalf.)  But that’s the story of ten days hence.

For now, we carry this joy: in ascending, our Lord has gone to where he can do the most good for us and for the world, the throne of the Father.  And even when we don’t know what to pray for in our pain or sorrow or fear or anxiety, we can know without doubt that our Lord is already there, praying on our behalf.  Bearing our life into the life of God, that we might be fully understood and loved by the God who already loved us enough to die for us.

So let’s not stand here gaping at heaven as if today is a day of sadness.

Instead, let’s rejoice that we have such an Advocate in heaven for our sake, someone who knows us so well and loves us even more, who can always speak on our behalf.

And someone who leaves behind the gift of himself in this Meal, so we have him with us here, too.  Someone who gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, so we can be filled with God’s love and grace, who doesn’t leave us orphaned.

Today is not about a sad ending.  It’s about the beginning of the great news of Jesus’ life on our behalf in heaven and his presence with us here in the Spirit.  Thanks be to God, today is just the beginning of the course of God’s love in our lives and in the life of the world!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Baptism can be overlooked as an individual act, something that happens to one person.  But in fact, baptism is the act of joining the entire community of believers and the community of the Triune God.  On this river of life we join together to make a difference in the world.

Vicar Neal Cannon; Sixth Sunday of Easter, year C; texts: John 5:1-9, Acts 16:9-15, Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

One summer, we rented an RV.  I was in early high school and our family decided we we’re going to see some of the country.  Apparently our Suburban with eight seats wasn’t big enough for our family of six for this kind of road trip.  In fairness, we’re a big family, we needed the elbow room.

We did a lot of things on this trip.  We camped in various locations, we visited with extended family, and we saw a lot of touristy sites.  One of those sites that we saw was Lake Itasca State Park here in Minnesota.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, Lake Itasca State Park has a special claim that makes it a popular tourist destination.

Lake Itasca is known for being the headwaters to the mighty Mississippi River.  So when the Cannon clan arrived in our RV, we jumped out in the middle of July, and hiked a short path to the headwaters of one of the largest and most important rivers in the United States.

And I remember, coming out of a little clearing seeing something only slightly better than a creek, a small plaque noting the creek’s significance, and being WILDLY disappointed.  This particular creek made Minnehaha Creek look like a roaring rapid! And I have to admit, after spending about two minutes there my first thought was, when can we go back to the RV?

Perhaps I missed the significance of this particular headwater.

You see, what you have to appreciate about the headwaters of the Mississippi, is that this little creek, this trickle, this seemingly insignificant water, joins another creek, and another creek, and then another creek.  And then this creek becomes a river. And then many other rivers join this river until at its greatest point the Mississippi is seven miles wide, and continues flowing south until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

Now think about that for a minute.  What once starts out as an insignificant little creek becomes one of the most important waterways in all of North America.  This creek that begins as something you could overlook or pass by becomes something of staggering beauty and importance.  This creek becomes a river that brings water and life to most of this country.  Through this little creek, you are connected to the ocean, and thus the entire world.

Still, it’s easy to miss the significance of something with a small beginning.  The sad reality is that like my reaction to the Mississippi River’s headwater we in the church often miss the significance of baptism.

In many churches baptism is viewed as a cute ritual or rite of passage, but often we miss baptism’s real importance and meaning.  For example, in baptism we make promises to the baptized, but rarely reflect on the importance of those words.  Congregants make promises to support the baptized in faith, but often never speak to the baptized again.  Baptismal sponsors and parents promise to help raise the child in faith, but how often do we remember to celebrate a baptismal anniversary?  As church leaders we hand parents a certificate, but too often we never find ways to support families in faith formation.

In this sense, baptism is viewed in the same way I regarded the headwaters of the Mississippi.  We’re not impressed.  But like the mighty Mississippi, our baptism starts as something small and easy to overlook, but becomes something far greater.

Lydia’s baptismal journey, for example, begins with one seemingly insignificant encounter.  When Paul and his companions arrive in Macedonia, they come to a group of women, one of whom was Lydia.  Acts tells us that God opens Lydia’s heart to the Word of God, and she is baptized.  Right away Lydia says, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.”

Think about this rapid transformation.  Lydia, a woman on the outskirts of the city who is possibly a widow, encounters two strangers who proclaim a foreign gospel to her.  In this encounter God opens her heart to hear the Gospel and when she is baptized she immediately welcomes these strange men into her home.

Like one creek that flows into another creek and one river that flows into another river, in baptism Lydia immediately enters into a new community that supports her and she in turn supports back.  In this same baptism, God opens Lydia’s heart to the Word of God, to Jesus, and is given the Holy Spirit.  In other words, in baptism Lydia is in community with the Triune God and the entire body of Christ.

In the same way, in our baptismal journey we begin as individuals and leave as a community.  We begin as strangers with nothing in common and we leave as a family connected through Jesus Christ.  And like the Mississippi these baptismal waters bring us together and connect us to the world.

Think of it this way, today Tate Kaufenberg will be baptized as a child of God.  And in this baptism, this community will promise to uphold her in faith.  So much so that wherever Tate goes, no matter what she does, our promise is to support her with all the love, wisdom, and guidance that this community and the Triune God offer.

As such, she joins all baptized children of God who gather to worship God and to make a positive difference in not only this community but in all parts of the world.

This communal influence is radically important, especially in a society such as ours that values me, myself, and I above all else, because it’s also a society that has forgotten the value of ‘us,’ the value of community.

This is a society that has forgotten that we all need the collective love, wisdom, and guidance of those who have gone before us. We need people who say yes and no to us.  We need others to love and care for us when we’re down.  We can’t operate on our own.  Without community, we are on an incredibly lonely journey, like a creek that never connects to a larger body of water.

But in baptism, in community, we are shaped by and help to shape those around us because in baptism, we join a community that gives life to a neighborhood that gives life to a city that gives life to a region that gives life to our world.  And it’s in this baptism we join the headwaters of Triune God, where all healing and life giving water comes from.

As Revelation tells us, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.”

I sometimes laugh when we compare this image to the image of our baptism because it doesn’t seem like it measures up.  One could easily point out that our baptismal water doesn’t come a crystal river, but from the sink in the sacristy.  It’s not as if it were chipped away from the purest ice on the top of a mountain, and then hauled down by Franciscan monks and delivered directly to Mount Olive.

The truth is that this water begins as ordinary water.

But the beauty about baptism is that we claim that the water that comes from our sacristy sink is in fact the same water described in Revelation.  In baptism, it’s not ordinary water because as Luther says, “it is water enclosed in God’s command and connected to God’s word.” It’s water that’s connected to the headwater of the Lamb because it is connected to God.  And so in these words that Pastor Joseph will say to Tate, and to Tate’s Family, and to this congregation, we find that this is in fact the water that gives life to the world.

Revelation goes on to tell us that this water feeds the tree of life with leaves that bring healing to the nations.  And never more intimately is that healing found than in our gospel text today in the story of a man who had been ill, presumably paralyzed, for thirty eight years.

Now, there are a couple interesting points about this story. The first is that this story takes place at Beth-zatha, which in Hebrew means House of Nets.  But some manuscripts actually have Bethesda, which means, House of Mercy.

The second, is that it’s important to remember that at this time people with disability were stigmatized because it was believed that people became ill because of sin or wrongdoing that they or their family had committed.

So whatever the translation we use, it is clear that people came to the House of Mercy to be healed not only in body, but also to receive mercy and grace in the waters that were found there.

This is why it’s ironic and cruel that this man, who is lying on a mat and seeking healing in the House of Mercy, is bypassed, shoved out of the way, and disregarded time and time again; unable to even get into the waters that he believed would bring him healing. That is of course, until Jesus comes.

When Jesus comes he appears to be the only one who notices this man.  Jesus is the only one that cares enough to ask him, “Do you want to be made well?”

“Do you want to be made well?”  What a strange question to ask to someone who has been ill for thirty eight years.  The answer seems so obvious.  Of course he wants to be made well!  But the man essentially responds by saying, “I can’t get to the water.”

Jesus doesn’t waste time.  He says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”  And the man does.

What I find fascinating about this story, is that the man never gets in the water at the House of Mercy but the water of life comes to him.  This man never knows who Jesus is, he never even makes a confession.  Still, the water of life that flows from the Lamb comes and brings mercy to this paralyzed man.

This same water of life comes to us in our baptism.  The same healing and mercy and love come to us before we’re ever able to make a confession and before we even know who Jesus is; before we know Jesus, Jesus in community with us.

In Tate’s baptism today and in all of our baptisms, the grace and mercy of God comes to us in seemingly insignificant ways.  And whether it’s the headwaters of the Mississippi or the kitchen sink from Mount Olive, this water does incredible things.  Like a creek that joins a river that joins the ocean in this baptism, we are joined together with this community that promises us love, guidance, and support. And what’s more, the Triune God comes to us and brings mercy and healing in these waters.

Baptism is an incredible gift, and I wonder what it would be like if we treated baptism not as the day we received a plaque but the day we set out on the mighty headwaters of the Lamb of God?

Because after all, this is the day that Jesus Christ comes to us and removes our shame and disgrace and instead clothes us with mercy and grace.  This is the day we join others and set out on an incredible journey to bring healing to our communities and yes, this entire world.

This is the day we remember that baptism is not ordinary water.  This water is water that is enclosed with God’s command, and connected with God’s word; this is the river of life.

And on the river we surround others with the Word of God and the community of God.  And on the river, the word of God and the community of God surround us also.

Thanks be to God.