Jesus draws us into the life of God and into the life of community. United in a common witness to God, we ourselves become witnesses for one another.

Christ Jesus goes away on this day so that we can be filled with the Spirit and continue the ministry of self-giving, wounded love that is the only way the world will be healed.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Ascension of Our Lord
   texts:  Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53

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

Having Jesus around was great for the disciples.

Whenever there was a crisis, Jesus could handle it. If decisions needed to be made, Jesus would make them. If someone needed help, bring them to Jesus.

It was good. These women and men spent their time being taught by God’s Messiah, surrounded by God’s grace and love. They didn’t have to worry about much if they stayed close to Jesus.

The crucifixion was a horrible blow to this peace of mind. But then Jesus was alive, raised from the dead. They had him back. All would be right again with Jesus in charge.

This is to say, it makes sense that after Christ ascended into heaven, the disciples, women and men alike, stood on the Mount of Olives gaping at the sky. “He’s leaving? What are we supposed to do? What do we do now when things get challenging?”

And that’s precisely the point.

The Church from the beginning has struggled to grasp why God became human.

We want answers as in the days of Jesus’ ministry, answers that neatly give God all the world’s problems, answers that say, when someone comes to us we can turn to God and say, “here you go,” answers that say, in a crisis we can look to the sky and say, “now what?”

Except the point of God taking on human life and living among us was to show us in person God’s way, the way of love of neighbor, so that we would do it. To teach us in person how we could love as God loves, so that we would do it. To save the world not through a transaction over sin but through a transformation of human hearts, healing the creation through us, who from the beginning were supposed to be caring for this creation and for each other.

And if that was the point of the Incarnation, there would have to be an Ascension. At some point, the Son of God would have to return into the full life of the Trinity and say, OK, folks, now it’s up to you.

The Church also has an enormous problem understanding God’s role in suffering and evil.

We usually set this scenario and despair: “if God is all-loving, and if God is all-powerful, and if there still is horrible suffering and pain, then God’s the problem.” There are lots of ways Christians rationalize and explain this, sometimes in defense of God, sometimes in prosecution of God. None help. Because there’s a fundamental flaw in the whole argument: the equation is incomplete.

Yes, God is all-loving. Jesus taught us that again and again. Yes, God is all-powerful. The Triune God made all things, universes, galaxies, mitochondria. That’s a lot of power. And yes, there’s enormous suffering and pain in this world that causes us, and all people, to feel grief, sadness, anger.

What’s missing in the equation is how God understands power and how to use it. We assume that since God has the power to make a universe, God has to use that power to deal with human suffering, sin, and evil. When we see all that causes pain to so many, we look up at the sky and say, “Where is God?”

But we already saw God’s answer to human suffering and pain when we looked up at the cross.

On the cross, the God of the universe set aside all that power and became vulnerable, helpless, before human evil.

The Triune God set aside all weapons, chose not to exercise brute force, and, bearing our own body, faced humiliation, torture, and death.

We get angry with God for not intervening in human suffering because we imagine the only way God would intervene is the way we would: by exerting force, domination, punishment.

But on the cross the God who can do all that says, “That’s not my way.” My way is to redeem all things by offering myself. My way is to save you by loving you until you destroy me, and then coming into life again and continuing to love you. My way is to show you in my very life and death that this is how all of you will also end human suffering and pain. By taking it on yourself. By standing with those who suffer. By loving those who hate. By getting in the way of evil to keep it from someone else. By being my loving presence to those who are in pain.

We may want God to act as we would act if we had all God’s world-making power. But we cannot say that God has not acted just because God chose a different way. We can only try to understand, and see if we are drawn to follow.

This doesn’t mean we can’t ever look up at the sky and yell at God.

We don’t need to defend God or God’s choices to anyone, and God’s big enough to handle any criticism. Sometimes God does intervene, and miracles happen, and sometimes God doesn’t. It’s legitimate to scream our frustration to God when that happens. If Jesus, the Son of God, could do it, as he did on the cross, it’s fair game for us.

But we don’t stop there. Because there’s always that angel from God standing next to us who, at some point, will say, “Why are you just looking up to heaven? Go back to the city and wait, and God will give you what you need to change this. To begin the healing of the world.”

That’s the grace Jesus gives in leaving: the Triune God is sharing this world-making power with all of us, to heal all things.

In Christ’s ascension, we, like those first women and men, wonder “what now?” We, like they, ask: Who’s going to help these people? Who’s going to figure out what to do in this next crisis? Who’s going to sort out the problems that we have?

And today God’s answer is, “well, you are.” That’s been the plan all along. That we would be so changed by God’s power-relinquishing love that we would bear the power of God’s love into the world on God’s behalf. We would carry God’s vulnerability, God’s willingness to be wounded, into the world to bring life to our sisters and brothers in pain. We would share God’s strange way of using power by setting it aside.

Christ trusts us a lot in leaving us in charge. We’re going to mess up some of these crises. We’re going to find wrong answers to problems sometimes. We’re not always going to know what to do to help someone who comes to us. But Christ trusts us with this ministry. And that’s enough to go on.

And there’s one more grace we have.

Those women and men were sent back to the city and told to wait, because the Holy Spirit was going to fill them with the power from God they needed to do this work their beloved Jesus had begun.

We have ten days until our celebration of Pentecost. We’ve already experienced the coming of the Spirit, all our lives, so it’s not exactly the same for us. But these ten days are a good reminder that sometimes we have to wait before we receive all we need from God. And they’re a reminder that we’re not in this ministry alone, ever. That the Triune God’s answer when we look to the skies is to send us the Spirit so we can have the strength and grace we need to carry on as God’s love in the world.

Jesus once told us it was to our advantage that he went away, so that he could send us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. (John 16:7) That’s the gift. By leaving us to continue the healing of the world, Christ also makes it possible for us to do it by coming in the Spirit. And we also get this: in taking on this ministry of wounded love to save all things, we get to become the people we were always meant to be.

So wait, and listen: you will be clothed with power from on high in the Spirit, and then, well, anything can happen!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We find peace in Christ when the Spirit comes to us, reminding us, teaching us, empowering us, to be the peace of God in the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Sixth Sunday of Easter, year C
   texts:  John 14:[add 15-22] 23-35; Revelation 21:10, 22 – 22:5

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

Jesus offers us peace the world cannot give, he says. Given the utter lack of peace we experience in the world, is this actually peace the world cannot have?

Peace between nations, peace in our cities, peace within families, peace of heart and mind: do we know such peace? From the depths of our hearts to the breadth of this planet, do we see it? Christ may be Prince of Peace, but is that just a pretty title?

The peace he promises today he gives on the night of his betrayal, Thursday night. Three days later, Sunday night, risen from the dead, his first words are “Peace be with you.” In between was heartbreak, suffering, death. There was little peace for these followers those three days.

So of course Christ would re-gift peace to them after all that. But this blessing, the “peace the world cannot give,” he gave before the worst three days of their lives.

The world gives deeply conditional peace. Peace of heart is only possible, the world says, if all things are well and we’ve got all we ever wanted. Peace between people is only possible, the world says, if everyone agrees, if no one raises questions of injustice, if the ones in charge stay in charge and everyone goes along.

If Jesus offers a peace that endures horrible things, as he gave his friends, that is a peace the world cannot, does not, give.

The question is, does Christ give it either?

If we struggle to be at peace in our hearts because of all we face in our lives, because of the lack of peace in our family, the lack of peace in the world, we are not alone. But if we come here and have to pretend that what we see out in the world isn’t important, or hide that we might not feel at peace inside, we’re building our faith on a lie.

The gift Jesus gives us is that here we see clearly he’s aware of our our anxiety and doubts and fears. Twice in this discourse he offers peace. Twice he says “do not let your hearts be troubled.” On Palm Sunday, and now here, he says “do not be afraid.” Jesus is tuned into the hearts of his followers, and knows they’re struggling with what is happening, and will struggle more ahead.

Even with this terrible thing coming, he honors their concern, feels it. And he reassures them and us that he can and will still give peace.

That night and the next two days they must have thought the opposite was true. But when they met Christ alive again, they began to understand. Their circumstances, and the circumstances of their world, still didn’t look like peace. But as they entered deeper and deeper into life in Christ, they found a peace that transcended circumstances, and had the power to change them, even change circumstances. They found a peace that was without conditions.

Now, if we could only find that so we’d actually be at peace.

As it turns out, our Lord has taken care of that, too.

Today Jesus promises he will send the Holy Spirit to be with us, to remind us of all he has said. Listen: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I give to you.”

Christ’s peace comes directly from this gift: we don’t have to keep everything straight that we have learned and known in Christ. The Holy Spirit will teach us along the way, and remind us of all Jesus told us that we so often forget.

Don’t underestimate this. We so often talk about discipleship and faith in ways that make us more anxious than at peace, because we struggle to be what we keep hearing we are called to be. But we have a Lord who helps us, who sends us the Spirit of God, to gently remind us of all that we have known but that we sometimes lose along the way.

This is an astonishing gift. And here is what the Spirit reminds us:

The Spirit reminds us that we are not alone.

A lot of our fear is that we don’t have Jesus ready at hand in a way we can easily see. So much of these followers’ anxiety in these verses is related to him leaving, and them fearing being alone. So Jesus takes care of that. “I will not leave you orphaned,” he says. As if it’s his job to make sure we’re OK, that we’re not feeling isolated and lost.

We aren’t alone, that’s the first reminder. The Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and minds every day, and that is the source of a true peace regardless of circumstances. In fact, Jesus promises that he and the Father will make a home with us, too. That the Triune God will live with us.

There is peace in this: whatever we are facing, God never abandons us.

The Spirit also reminds us of how to love like Christ.

Jesus’ words last week brought great anxiety over the implications of his command to love in our lives. It’s too easy to forget how clear Jesus is about love of neighbor, how insistent he is that it is the shape of our lives, it’s too easy to turn inward. So we are filled with worry about this.

We’re also distracted by the problems of life, by the problems our neighbors, even our family, create for us, and to lose track of our call to love as Christ loves.

But the Holy Spirit is our teacher and reminder not only of what Christ has taught us, but what it means for our lives. We don’t follow a God who gives a job description for “Servant Disciple” and leaves us to figure it out. Our Lord has a job, too, to gently nudge and move us into love. To teach us the ways of love we too easily forget. To remind us when we’re distracted of what our calling is.

And the Spirit also empowers us in this love. A little later Jesus talks about us staying connected in him, like a branch to a vine, so we can have the strength to love as we are called to love.

There is peace in this: the Holy Spirit will remind us what we learned and help us live as we are called.

And the Spirit reminds us that our Lord is coming back for us, that there is a new creation being made.

Just as the Holy Spirit opened John’s eyes to a revelation of the world to come in the new creation we just heard, so the Spirit opens our eyes to see that the world is going to be brought into a new life.

The Spirit, the Comforter, gives the peace that God has not abandoned this world, no matter what we see, and is even now making things new. Preparing a new creation that will be, as we heard today, a gift and blessing for all nations and peoples. For us, and for all, there is room in God’s house.

There is peace in this: in our darkest hours, we have hope that God is still working for the healing of all things.

We often speak of God’s unconditional love. Today Jesus promises unconditional peace.

This is the deep peace those who are in Christ have known for millennia, a peace that Paul tells us “passes understanding,” a peace that transcends our current situation. It is a peace without conditions, a peace given us by the Triune God through the Holy Spirit, a peace that doesn’t have to wait for everything to be perfect to be real and life-changing.

This peace is ours when we know we are not alone, but walk with the Spirit beside and within us.

This peace is ours when we are guided and empowered by the Spirit to live abundant, loving lives.

This peace is ours when we are reminded by the Spirit of the healing to come for all people.

When our hearts have this peace, we much more easily become Christ in this world that knows little peace. We become peace-bearing people who bring God’s justice and peace to our families, our city, our world. At peace in Christ, we become beacons of the Good News by our very lives. And other people find peace in God through meeting us.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. Our God is bringing peace. And in fact, it’s already here.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen