The Triune God now knows what it is to live as a human, and we know what it is to be God’s love in the world, for the life and wholeness of all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Ascension of Our Lord
Texts: Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53, also adding Hebrews 4:14-15, Hebrews 9:24

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

What we celebrate today seems to be the last thing we want to celebrate.

Today, 40 days after Easter, Christ Jesus ascended from the earth, returning into the life of the Triune God, whatever that means in the life of God. But the immediate impact of this ascension was a sense of abandonment by those closest to Jesus. These women and men felt lost, gaped up at the sky thinking, “now what?”

Today we’re reeling from the slaughter of innocents in a Texas elementary school, the slaughter of innocents in a Buffalo grocery store, the slaughter of innocents at a church in Southern California, God’s beloved children of all ages and colors and backgrounds. We’re reeling from the constant barrage of such horrors in our nation, again and again and again and again. Celebrating the absence of a physical Christ Jesus in the world when we’re living with such repeated pain doesn’t feel comforting. We understand gaping up at the sky looking for God.

And we know that 90% of Americans want more controls on guns, and comprehensive background checks, that we’re being held hostage by politicians who repeatedly refuse to deal with this evil to preserve their power, who even proclaim the same messages of hate these shooters espouse in their killing. We also know that we hold responsibility for this world, this culture, and need to be continually engaged, to work for change.

But it would be good to know as well that God is with us. That God feels this pain. That somehow Jesus’ ascension isn’t a sign of God abandoning us to our brokenness and evil.

So let’s hear another perspective on Christ’s ascension.

The preacher whose sermon is called the letter to the Hebrews has this to say:

14 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. 15 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. (Hebrews 4:14-15)

24 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. (9:24)

Christ the High Priest is standing for us within God’s life, and that means this: because Christ Jesus 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, Christ now has carried our truth into the Holy of Holies that is God’s life. In God’s Son, we have someone who knows us better than we know ourselves sharing that knowledge within God’s life.

That means the Triune God now understands us fully and truly.

In Christ Jesus, God-with-us, we know God better, have seen God’s face, know God’s love.

But now Christ is also Us-with-God, so the Triune God also knows us better, in ways God never could without taking on our flesh. Knows our fears and pains. Understands what it is for a mortal human being to see as we see tragedies and evil unfold, to experience as God’s children here do such grief and pain in a broken world, to know how it hurts to feel helpless to do anything. You and I and all God’s children are now known and understood by the Triune God as deeply as we can be.

God has not abandoned us at all. And now, knowing us all fully this way, God’s way of healing this world becomes much clearer, makes sense.

In Christ’s ascension, the Triune God now enters us to change this world.

As Christ returned to the life of God in a new way, Christ gave this promise, which is also a calling: you will be filled with power from on high, with the Spirit of God, so you can be witnesses to God’s love in the world.

As we face evil and horrors and unspeakable tragedy, as we look at a world threatened by hatred and violence against the most vulnerable, even as we sometimes despair that nothing can be done, the risen and ascended Christ says: I give you the Spirit’s power to be witnesses of God’s love. Witnesses in our words and actions, Spirit-filled, trying in whatever way we can to make this world more just and safe and whole for all God’s children.

The road of Ascension goes both ways, our lives witnessed and lived in the life of the Trinity, God’s life witnessed and lived in our lives. And in that beautiful reality, we can dare to hope for the healing of this world to finally begin.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Do you want God to bring wholeness and health to you and the world? That’s all God in Christ is asking.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, year C
Text: John 5:1-9 (including v. 4, omitted in NRSV)

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

Thirty-eight years he lay by that pool.

Most of this man’s life was spent lying on a mat, surrounded by maybe hundreds of others, day after day, waiting for healing that never came. Four decades.

If he had hope once, it was long gone. So he didn’t answer Jesus’ question. Someone who could give him what he wanted stood before him and asked, “Do you want to be made well?” Literally, “do you want to be made sound, healthy, whole?”

It’s a simple question, one he’d have an answer for. Instead, he just named his problem: I don’t have anyone to help me when the water stirs, and by the time I’ve struggled over to the pool someone always gets in there first.

Jesus must have been tempted to say, “That’s not what I asked you.” But Jesus told him to stand up, pick up his mat, and walk.

When you wait years for something good to happen, hope to arise, restoration to come and it doesn’t, it’s hard to imagine it ever will.

For 530 years, since the arrival of European settlers on this continent, the lives and culture of those who lived here has been systematically destroyed, the consequences still crushing our indigenous siblings. Five centuries! For 400 years, since the beginning of the African slave trade, what we did to the lives and culture of those dragged here, abused, killed, sold against their will, has shaped a racist reality that abides in the core of our nations’ institutions, culture, and society, the consequences still crushing our neighbors. Four centuries!

Our community of faith here is full of people who join many in our country and long for those centuries of oppression and violence to be ended, for justice to come, people who hear the cries of our neighbors, feel deep anger and sadness at yet another killing, deep depression at the rise of totalitarian rule led by a white supremacist minority and fueled by right-wing Christianity.

But if Christ were standing here today saying, “Do you want this city, this nation, to be made sound and whole, to become healthy?” would we answer as this man did? Saying: “It’s so deeply engrained, and every time we see a step forward there are ten backward, and the polarization and rage in this country seem to be increasing and nothing ever gets better.”

But then Christ would say, “That’s not what I asked you.”

Can we answer Christ’s question?

Do we want this culture healed, this city made whole, this nation to become sound, where all live in justice and peace, with mercy for each other and care for this creation? God’s not asking whether we think it could ever happen. God’s asking, do you want it?

Too often people of good will who hear God’s call for justice in Scripture, whose hearts are shaped by Christ’s love, assume fixing the world is all on us. And if for years nothing seems to improve, what’s the point?

But justice and peace and mercy aren’t just God’s words in Scripture, they’re God’s full desire and intent for this creation. God promises to make this world new and whole and sound. It is God’s mission we are asked to join, not our mission to create and do.

And that’s very different. God in Christ is asking us, “do you want all this to be made sound and whole?” Because my hand is working on that.

And God came among us in Christ not just for the big picture, the whole world.

In Jesus, God’s care extended individually to the smallest child, to the most marginalized person, to all who felt lost or abandoned or wounded or oppressed or afraid or anxious. Jesus cared not just about the forest, we might say, but also the individual trees.

Which means God in Christ cares deeply for you, and asks, “Do you want to be made well? Sound, whole, healthy?”

And how many of us would answer like that man? Saying things like: “What I’m dealing with has been so long and it never really gets better and that’s the way it is. Or: My depression is too deep-seated. Or: This relationship is too frayed. Or: Spiritually I feel dry and alone. Or: My mental health always seems fragile.”

But that’s not what Christ asked you. The question is, do you want to be made well, sound, whole?

Can you answer Christ’s question?

It’s not a question of whether you hope that a specific illness or pain or struggle is completely taken away. We know often physical ailments aren’t fully healed, and mental and spiritual illness can last indefinitely. Even the apostle Paul long had a suffering that never was fully removed.

But the question is, do you want God’s hand in your life to bring you wholeness, peace, and soundness? Even if the outer circumstances don’t seem to change, do you want God to calm your heart, bring you hope, help you cope with whatever afflicts you or those you love?

Because so many witnesses of faith can tell you God comes to them in the Spirit and gives them hope and life in whatever situations they find themselves. They find wholeness in the broken pieces of their lives, soundness in the frayed and fragile places, health in the wounded places. God cares even for the smallest sparrow, Jesus, God-with-us, said. Do you want God to care for you like that?

Answering Christ’s question is enough to go on for today.

There’s work for you and me to do. God’s mission to serve, our lives to live. But for today, do you want to be made well? Do you want this city, this nation, this creation, to be made well?

If so, Good News. God is even now working in this world for the wholeness and health of all things, and you’ve even seen in you, in others, in this world, God’s hand bringing life. God is even now working in you for your wholeness and health, calming your heart and spirit with the news that you are beloved and nothing can separate you from God’s love.

The One who makes all things new wants to bring you and the world wholeness. Stand up, pick up your mat, and let’s walk together into that new future.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen