Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, is beyond all human knowledge and thought; yet astonishingly this one God comes to us, becomes known to us a Father who loves, a Son who gives grace, and a Spirit who brings us into communion with each other for the sake of the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, The Holy Trinity, year A; texts:  Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

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

Recently astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Telescope released a photograph of nearly ten thousand galaxies that the telescope had photographed over nine years.  What’s astonishing to me about the picture is that it’s in full color, and the shapes and sizes are an incredible variety.  What the astronomers are doing is opening up the way they look at Hubble images to include information received on the whole spectrum of light, adding in the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, where previously all they had studied was visible and near invisible infrared light.  Opening up the whole spectrum has given the astronomers a huge amount of what has been missing information.

But for those of us who simply look at the picture and are used to white dots in the sky, all I can say is that it’s breathtaking.  I could never adequately describe what it’s like to see it. [1]  What is even more moving to me is that there are some who have already imagined a creation far more beautiful and breathtaking than we could see with just our eyes.  The painter Vincent van Gogh, in The Starry Night, saw for us what now the Hubble sees for us, and he showed it to us on his canvas.  Great artists of all media visual and aural have this ability, to see and perceive the depths of the beauty of the creation, and when they give us their art, point us to the same perception and sight.

For those who believe in God, the awe and wonder in such visions, whether from digital photos of outer space or pigments in oil on a canvas, or melody and harmony that seem to come from outside our very world, in such vision and sound and beauty we see God.  And, like our psalmist today, we gasp at our smallness and at God’s greatness, we are sometimes even struck silent in praise.

There is much that has been said about having proper fear of God, and most of it is unhelpful.  Because to truly understand what the Scriptures mean by fear of God is to simply find the proper awe and respect at the vastness and beauty of the God who has made all things.

That is to say that on this Sunday when we celebrate that the true God is Triune, we really do not celebrate a doctrine.  True fear and awe of God precludes any doctrinal certainty and the reality of God is beyond doctrine. We like to speak theologically – to speak words about God, literally – but in truth, given the vastness of the creation and the Creator all that vastness implies, we can really know nothing about the true nature of God.

In fact, humility and awe before the Creator of all would be in order.  To recognize that there is literally no way we can comprehend who God is, how God is, when God is, except that which God reveals to us.

In this, it is helpful that our first reading was that long beginning of Scripture, the first chapter of Genesis.  Beginning from nothing, God speaks, God sings, and all things come into being.

Genesis 1 helps us find the appropriate humility and awe, as in this familiar narrative God is put over all things, where God belongs.  In a world where people worshipped all sorts of gods, including the sun and the moon, Genesis speaks of God who existed before all things, and created all things, including the many things worshipped as god by others.

In a beautiful, subtle way, the author of this chapter doesn’t even name the sun and moon, for those names themselves were names of the corresponding gods.  No, says this ancient writer, the true God made those things, the big light during the day and the little light during the night, and all the stars.  What you think of as gods are only creations of the true God, to enlighten the whole creation.

And the same thing happens elsewhere in the creation story: anything you might praise or fear is still just a creature.  So sea monsters, Genesis says, the fear of the great unknown, the chaos “out there,” these are just creatures of the true God.  This chaos – seen also in storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, wild beasts, freezing blizzards, anything we fear – Genesis says all this is under God’s control.  And all the beauty – animals, plants, stars, fish, birds – all these, worthy of praise, are still just creations of the true God.

All things begin with the creating song of God, sung into the world, into the void, into the chaos.  So once more we are where we began, as we conclude the story of creation, in a place of awe and wonder.  To fear God is to recognize how truly small we are, how truly great God is, which we know and see and experience in this amazing, beautiful, frightening, sustaining creation.

Yet – and this is the truly stunning thing – we dare to claim that this awesome, unknowable God comes to us and even loves us. 

The psalmist speaks our overwhelmedness.  This star-gazer and poet starts with this awe at the creation, but then asks the truly profound question: how is it possible, who are we humans, that you care for us?  It’s the question we’d never ask if we hadn’t experienced God’s love and care, but it’s the question that must be asked.  The psalmist, though, knows it is true, for the song says, “Yet.”  “Yet you have made us a little less than divine.”

That tiny word “yet” changes the whole thing.  It’s the profound word that we still do not understand.  God is transcendent, immense, unknowable, vast, astonishing, beautiful, frightening, beyond us.

Yet.  Yet.  God somehow loves us.

Even Genesis 1 opens up this wonder, for the Creator actually speaks to the human beings.  In the whole of this narrative it might be the most eye-opening thing: this Creator God makes humanity, and then, for the first time in the story, instead of singing and speaking things into creation with the divine voice, God speaks to the people.  Gives them promise of food and sustenance, enough to live on in this beautiful creation.  And calls them to care for the creation, to tend it, to have dominion over it, the first commandment given these new creatures.

There is no sense to this relationship, the psalmist might say.  Yet.  Yet.  It is so, wonderfully and mysteriously it is so.

But it is Paul, in his brief benediction, who truly moves us to the silence of wonder.  “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he says, “the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

Stop and hear that once again.  “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The love of God.  The communion of the Holy Spirit.”  These things are with you, with me.

That’s what Paul says.  Maybe because we hear it every Eucharist, we don’t truly understand how remarkable it is.  If God is transcendent, immense, unknowable, vast, astonishing, beautiful, frightening, beyond us, how do we dare believe that we receive such gifts from God – grace, love, communion – that we deserve such gifts?

Yet, the psalmist says.  Yet, it is so.

And it is wonderful in our eyes.

This is the center of what our faith knows about God: we can and do know nothing about the true nature of the Triune God, we know only what this God has brought to us in coming to us.

But that is, astonishingly, grace: we who are nothing and tiny are in the grace of the Son of God, whose forgiveness is as undeserved as it is unexpected, and it transforms our lives and the way of the world.

And it is, amazingly, love that God brings: we who are but specks in the vastness of the galaxies are loved by the Creator of all things, loved enough that this Creator took on our flesh and lived among us, and in dying and rising showed us the true shape of divine love, of the way of the universe.

And it is, wonder of wonders, communion that God brings: we who struggle to live in relationship with each other, let alone God, are given the gift of communion, fellowship, with each other through the Spirit of God who moves in and among all people, so that we are brought closer and closer together in love for our neighbor and in love with God.

Do you see how unknowable God is, and yet how stunning it is that we know this much, and that what we know is such life and hope for us?  We could sit in awe and wonder at that one verse of Paul all our days and not begin fully to grasp how truly outlandish it is that we say it and believe it.

Yet, the psalmist says.  Yet, it is so.

In this wonder we begin to understand what Jesus is asking of us.

In this ending to Matthew’s Gospel, we see disciples, even doubters, sent to pour out this love and care into the world, to bear the Triune Name into the world.  Making disciples is not, as the Church sometimes has thought, tallying up more and more people on membership rolls or thinking we’re saving anyone.  The world needs a Savior and thankfully, they have one.  And it isn’t us.

But this Savior does send us out.  He sends us to make disciples the only way it can happen: by our living as disciples, bearing the name of God into the world, washed in the waters of our baptism.  In our lives of faith and love, our lives of discipleship, we witness to this improbable “yet” of the psalmist, and through meeting God’s love in us, people come to know God.

They know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ through us, wonder of wonders.  They experience the love of God through us, amazement of amazements.  And they are welcomed into the relationship of love the Spirit has made, the communion of the faithful, through our love and welcome, miracle of miracles.

That’s the mission our Lord Jesus needs of us, to bear this astonishing truth about God into the world with our lives along with that little word “yet.”  So that God’s love reaches to all nations, all peoples, everyone.

This is our wonder on this Sunday we celebrate the God-ness of God, the unknowable mystery: the incarnate love of this Triune God still inhabits the creation.  And all is being restored.

It turns out there is a massive word, “yet,” that changes all reality, that the transcendent, immense, unknowable, vast, astonishing, beautiful, frightening, beyond us God who made all things actually does care about this world, these people God has made, this whole creation.

And has poured grace and love into us, into it, and brought us together in communion for the sake of the world.

And we get to go out and live that with our lives, show it with our love, make it real with our grace.  That’s the gift of “yet.”  That’s the life we get to share, so that all may know.

It’s almost too much to believe.  Yet.  Yet, it is even so.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1]  http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/27/image/a/ 

The Hubble image (larger versions available at the hubblesite link):



The Starry Night (1889):

The Holy Spirit moves with abandon, and we cannot control what she does; but filled with the Spirit we can open our mouths and lives and in our own language tell God’s deeds of power so that all can see the Spirit’s work themselves.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Day of Pentecost, year A; texts:  Acts 2:1-20; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

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

We live in a mocking world.  A world where if someone doesn’t understand another person’s point of view, or passion, or excitement, often enough the first person makes fun of the other one.  “How can you like that?”  “Why do you spend so much time doing that?”  “That’s kind of strange, don’t you think?”  Humans sometimes find it difficult to honor that which we do not know, respect that which does not inspire us ourselves, and be gracious about something that seems utterly foreign to us.  It’s easier to jibe, to make fun, to act as if we’re superior.

What we do in this room today, for example, would seem mightily strange to many in our culture, even to some other Christians, our gestures, rituals, practices.  What other Christians are doing this morning might seem just as foreign to us, even if they worship in this very same city, in the same language as we.  I suspect that some of the school classmates of these three fine young people might think it strange that they got up this morning, got dressed up, put on white robes, and will stand in front of God and this congregation and claim their faith, promise to serve God with their lives.

Well, it might be a little comforting to you three, and to all of us, really, that we’re not the first to be thought strange, worthy of a little derision.  On the first Pentecost of the Church, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on 120 believers in the midst of tens of thousands of pilgrims thronging the city, they acted with such openness and lack of inhibition, such delight and joy, that lots of those who heard them thought they were drunk.  I’m sure that wasn’t said with any kindness, either.

But the thing about the moving of the Holy Spirit in our midst is that she gives birth to life that is different, that is not like life we’ve known before.  We may not be able to suddenly speak in ways a German or a Senegalese could understand in their language, though that would be wonderful.  But when the Spirit blows through the Church, she leads us into a new life, and that life is often strange and different.

And not everybody’s going to understand.  Some might even make fun.  And sometimes that’s just enough for us to hold back, to resist the Spirit even, or to keep quiet.

So here is our question on this Day of Pentecost: what would we say and do if, to quote Acts today, we spoke in our own language God’s deeds of power?  Can we even imagine doing it?  Do we know what we would say if we did?

Whatever we can say about that day, it seems clear that the Holy Spirit could not and cannot be controlled.

Sounds of rushing wind, flashing light that looked like flames of fire, and 120 people speaking in ways that people of at least 15 different nations and languages could understand, though these speakers were uneducated.  This day was out of control.

This lack of our ability to control the Spirit is part of our hesitance to admit we know where the Spirit is moving.  Doctrine we can control.  Dogmas and teachings, too.  We can and sadly do fight about them, even.  We can control how we structure our work, how we shape our ministry.  We can control what we say, when we say it, to whom we say it, most times.

Maybe that’s why sometimes it seems we Lutherans – who really like to be in control – are really good at talking about the work of the Son of God and a little quiet about the work of the Holy Spirit.  You can get into a good fight about your atonement theology, though I doubt our Lord would be pleased with you.  But when it comes to the Spirit, whom Jesus said is like the wind, where we can only see where she’s been, it’s a lot less certain.

And that’s frightening, to feel that we’re out of control.  We certainly can’t control if others in our own community even feel the Spirit’s movement and drawing.  Just the idea that God speaks to hearts through the Spirit is a little daunting, for ourselves, but also for others.  What if they start acting in ways we don’t think are proper or right, or start seeing God lead us in ways that feel risky or challenging?  We can be nervous about that.

But what’s really challenging is realizing that the Holy Spirit has always been moving in the world in ways far beyond our control.

We can’t control where the Spirit goes, whom she touches.  So we have to be open to seeing the Spirit move even among people who aren’t like us, who think differently, maybe even believe differently.  But if we believe the Spirit is alive and breathing through the world, that’s exactly what we should expect.

We can’t control what the Spirit does, either.  She could be – and certainly is – inspiring all sorts of things that we can’t manage or maintain, in all sorts of people that don’t look to us for permission.  The Spirit will go where she will go, and we can’t control that.  And that’s often enough reason for us to act as if we don’t see the Spirit.  To be fearful to speak, to tell what the Spirit is doing.

In part because foolishly we might think if we don’t talk about the Spirit, she’s not actually going to be messing around in our lives and in the world.  This doesn’t make any sense, I know.  But it seems it’s what we imagine.

But we also fear this: what if someone tells us we don’t get to say it was the Spirit?  That happens a lot.  People believe the Holy Spirit spoke to their group, or to them personally, and someone shoots it down, saying it’s not something you can claim.

And there’s maybe good reason for that.  People can do lots of bad things and claim the Spirit for leading them to that, can claim God’s authority over their power mongering or manipulation or antagonism.  And obviously we need to learn how to discern what is truly of God and what is not.

But what if the Spirit truly is speaking and leading and giving birth to new things?  Do we ever get to say that out loud, claim it?

And we fear this: what if someone thinks we’re unbalanced, needing help if we talk about the Spirit as actually working in our lives?  I don’t mean this as a joke at all.  Some of the great saints who lived in the past spoke and acted in ways that today might lead people to want to medicate them.  And what gifts would the Church have lost if that had happened?

Of course there are real mental illnesses, and there are medications that are very helpful.  But if just thinking that God actually and literally speaks to us could be construed as unbalanced, how will we ever dare listen for the Spirit’s leading?

The problem is, we all know the Spirit is moving and acting and changing us.

We experience it in this place, in our worship, in our life together, and out in the world.

This place, this community is not the same today as it was ten years ago, fifty years ago.  We have learned new things, become new people, grown more into the way Christ would have us be, and welcomed all sorts of other new people who were led here by the same Spirit.  We’ve got much more to grow, of course.  But if you’ve been here long enough, you’ll be able to find ample evidence of the graces of the Holy Spirit moving and shaping us.

And the same is true for each of us, too.  In our Tuesday Bible study it became clear to me this week that there is no problem for most of us to think of times we’ve felt God’s Spirit move us, shape us, change us.  Or to think of stories of when others we know have had that happen.  None of us are the same today as we were last year, or five years ago.  The Spirit has deepened our faith, shaped our behavior and our lives, moved us to grow in discipleship.

Just look at these three confirmands today as prime evidence, how they’ve grown and matured, how the Spirit has brought them to a point where they can stand up in faith and claim their life in Christ.

No, there’s no doubt the Spirit is moving in and among us.  But somehow we’re not talking much about it.

So let me ask us all again: what would happen if we spoke in our own language God’s deeds of power?

If we, like these three, stood up before the congregation or our friends and said what we believe, and where God has been moving?

What would happen if we spoke of this to others, witnessed to what the Spirit is doing in our lives and in the world?

Well, I think, as on that first Pentecost, people would start to believe, would start to see the Spirit working themselves.  Because when I can’t see where the Spirit is, I know that it makes all the difference in the world when one of you witnesses to me that you’ve seen her at work in your life.  And I can see where I didn’t before.  That’s how it goes, how it works with us.  When you hear these confirmands speak, you absolutely will see signs of the Spirit’s work.  And you might even start realizing where you’ve seen her in your life as well.

So let’s see what happens if we just start telling what we’ve seen, what we know.  If, in our own language, we start speaking God’s deeds of power to others.

Telling them and each other of the love of God we’ve seen change lives.  Telling them and each other of the way grace and forgiveness can transform even seemingly impossible situations.  Telling them and each other of the times we felt as if the Spirit of God was leading us to something and we found life and hope and purpose in it.

It’s possible we’ll be made fun of.  It’s possible we’ll be told we are wrong.  And if we’re that uninhibited, people might even think we’re out of control.

But that’s not the worst thing in the world.  What would be far worse would be our seeing and feeling and knowing the grace and love of the Holy Spirit and keeping it to ourselves out of fear.  What would be far worse would be our resisting the movement of the Spirit in our hearts to become different people because we’re afraid people won’t like us if we do.

And it’s possible that if we speak what we’ve seen, lives could be changed, the world could be changed.  It happened before.  Paul says today that to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  That’s why we speak, witness, tell.  Because the Spirit is giving birth to new life for the whole world, for the good of all.  And we have witnessed this in our own lives.  It’s time we let someone else know.

It’s a really good thing that on the Day of Pentecost we ask the Spirit again and again to come and fill us and inspire us.

Because that’s what we’re going to need.  We’re going to need the help of the Spirit of God to not only see where she’s been in our lives and in the world, but also to help us boldly act like those first believers and speak in our own language God’s deeds of power that we have seen.

It might get a little out of control.  But think what God could do with that!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Unity in Christ is not sameness in Christ; in our baptism we are made one with each other even as the Triune God is one, a oneness of love not of identicality.  And this unity is given by God, made by God, done by God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, year A; text:  John 17:1-11

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

Reading a history of 2,000 years of the Christian Church is not for the squeamish or faint of heart.  Though one starts with the love of God made known in Christ Jesus, somewhat quickly thereafter it degenerates into power struggles and hatreds over faith in the same Christ Jesus.

I recently read such a comprehensive history; I also recently taught a Forum on the Nicene Creed.  Today we hear our Lord Jesus pray, on the night of his betrayal, that all his followers would be one, even as the Father and the Son are one.  What I read and what I studied for that class would seem to clash deeply with our Lord’s prayer.

Much of the life of the Church over the centuries has been given over to the task of enforcing unity (always assuming the enforcer has the truth and the enforcee does not.)  So we have creeds that speak the agreement of the Church on the nature of the Triune God.  This is good.  But at the cost of a large number of faithful disciples of Jesus being cast out as heretics.  The more power the Church assumed, the more forcefully the Church mandated unity.  Not too long after the Emperor Constantine made us the favored religion, believers adopted the murderous and violent ways of the world into which our Lord sent us out in love and peace.  We started killing each other when we disagreed.  Because, you see, unity is what our Lord wants.  So let’s give it to him.  At whatever cost.

It is often said that it is a scandal the Church is so divided in our time.  East from West, Rome from Protestants, Baptists from Lutherans.  Denominations and sects proliferate all over the planet.  Yet Jesus prayed that we be one.  Scandalous.

I wonder.  I wonder very much.  I wonder if in fact our Lord is actually pleased with at least part of our situation.  That is, the part where if some of us see the truth about the Triune God revealed in Christ in one way and others in another, we aren’t fighting a war or burning at the stake to prove who’s right any more.  Given the richness of human experience and the variety of the gifts of the Spirit, perhaps our Lord in fact expected that we would no more agree at all times with each other’s theological point of view today than did the authors of Matthew and John, or did the apostles Peter and Paul.

There is still a fundamental scandal, of course, that the many and various groups of Christians by and large can’t stand each other, relatively few are in full communion with each other, and some of them can’t even get too close to each other lest they start fighting.

In short, perhaps the true scandal is not that we have disagreements and denominations, but that we do not love each other.  That we sit in our own self-centered theological enclaves and throw potshots at the others; sometimes being good to those who seem to have similar enclaves, but disdainful of those who do not.  (Let us be honest: how often do we hear a Christian speak in public who disagrees with us or offends us and think, well, they’re not really Christian after all, not like us?)

In our liturgy I invite our confession of the Nicene Creed with the words of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, from the fourth century: “Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess the Holy Trinity, one in essence and undivided.”  The liturgy says we can only begin to confess our faith if we begin by loving each other.

That would be a good start, would it not?

Jesus prayed to the Father “that they be one, as we are one.”  What if what he meant was in love?

The deeply mysterious life of the Triune God is lived between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and according to the witness of the New Testament, is simply and only love.  The Father loves the Son who loves the Spirit who loves the Father who loves the Spirit who loves the Son who loves the Father.

Whatever we know about how God is one God, yet three Persons, we know because of the witness of the Son, who lives in the bosom of the Father, that the heart of God for us is love.  So the heart of God within God’s own self is also love.  Did not the elder already teach us this in 1 John?

Yet that oneness in love does not mean identicality.  The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father.

Whatever we know about how God is one God, yet three Persons, we know because of the witness of the Son that Father, Son, and Spirit are also not the same.  What is revealed to us, what we’ve experienced, is what we know of God, and from the beginning the Church has experienced the difference of each while affirming the unity of all.

This is mystery, so much so that in a couple weeks we will have a festival just to revel in the mystery of the Triune God.

Yet Jesus said, “As we are one, may they be one.”

What if unity in Christ also doesn’t mean sameness in Christ?  Just as the unity of the Triune God doesn’t mean sameness?  What if being the Body of Christ with many members, eyes, hands, feet, all sorts, means many points of view, many insights, many ways of being faithful followers?

That is, it may be the world desperately needs both Baptists and Lutherans.  Romans and Protestants.  Western and Orthodox.  It may be there are things these sisters and brothers need to teach us that we cannot hear if we do not begin to love them.  It may actually be a strength that we’re not mandating by force that we agree all the time.

In fact, it certainly must be that the Spirit speaks in different ways to the children of God baptized into the Triune Name.

It seems to me that we’ve confused the important thing: there is a truth about God in the world that is revealed in Jesus the Son that heals the creation – with the impossible thing: that we can definitively know and own that truth, and worse, defend it.

That is to say, to claim that our unity in Christ does not require sameness is not to say it doesn’t matter what we believe or teach.  It means that our unity is in Christ, not in our understanding, and that’s a very different thing.

And if we are like God in our variety, Christ also seems to want us to be like God in the unity of our love.  The unity of the disciples of Christ on earth is in the love we have received from God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and enflamed by the Spirit’s gift-giving.  Just as the Triune God’s unity is lived in love.

Jesus couldn’t be clearer, much as we close our eyes and hope it goes away: the only sign of our discipleship to the world is our love for each other.  What if John 13:35 would be proclaimed to all the world, so that everyone knew that disciples of Jesus could only be recognized by how they loved each other?  Would the world see any?

And can we honestly say that we in our own little group of agreement – 61 million Lutherans among 2.2 billion Christians – are enough to bear Christ’s justice and love in the world, without loving collaboration with all the disciples of Christ?

“As we are one,” Jesus said.  The prayer is that we are one as the Triune God is one: different, varied, but one in love.  Different gifts, different understandings, but one in love.

“As we are one,” Jesus said.  What if he really meant that?

Oh, and as long as we’re paying attention to Jesus here, could we notice what he’s doing?  He’s praying, not commanding.

The Son is asking the Father in prayer (in the mystery of the Triune God) to make this so among us.  That is, our unity in love for each other is not something we can even do, much less enforce.  It, like everything else, is gift, grace, empowerment.  The Son is asking the Father to send the Spirit (if we look ahead in the prayer) to come and make us holy that we be one as God is one.

So could we stop thinking we’ve got a choice in this?  That we have a say?  That we are in control, not the Triune God?

This is all simple, it is not new, it is something we confess all the time: in our baptism into Christ we are made one with God and with each other.

That means all the baptized children of God, made one by the power of God working in water and Word through the grace of the Holy Spirit in us.  Our unity is not based on our agreement or intelligence or brilliant theology, it is our reality in baptism already.

All we need to hear is that the Spirit is calling us to love each other in that unity, to let the Spirit lead us deeper and deeper into the loving dance that is the life of the Triune God, and that is given us as our dance in this world, that we also become one as God is one.

So that ultimately all will know God’s love.  You see, once we start moving to this impulse of the Spirit, flowing in this love for each other as disciples of Christ across all denominations, then maybe we’ll begin to find the maturity we’re going to need to love those of different faiths.

Because I’m quite certain Christ Jesus has that in mind for us as well.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In the face of evil, suffering, and our own shortcomings, it can be difficult to see how Jesus has made the world or us new. He promises, however, that the Holy Spirit, who has been poured out onto us in our baptisms, is transforming us and equipping us to complete his work of inviting all people into relationship with the Triune God.  

Vicar Emily Beckering; the Ascension of Our Lord; texts: Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-11

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The trouble with the ascension is that Jesus leaves us so that we may finish his work, and the prospect of that can feel not only frightening, but impossible.

We, like the disciples, may wonder how and when Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and the gift of the Holy Spirit will make a difference in the world around us and in our own hearts.

The disciples ask, “Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Whether the disciples are asking for Jesus to free Israel from Roman occupation or whether they are asking him if now is the time when the kingdom that he preached will come among them, they yearn to see some tangible difference.

In the same way, we yearn for some visible sign that God is bringing about change in the world and in our own hearts.

We, too, may stare up at the sky with arms open asking, “Since Jesus was crucified and is risen, and has made all things new, why is there still so much suffering and evil in the world?” People still starve to death. Children are still kidnapped and held hostage. Wars still ravage countries. Those whom we love are still subject to cancer and illness.

The Holy Spirit has been poured out onto us in our baptisms, yet we may still wonder where the change is that Jesus has promised will happen in our hearts. How long do we have to wait until we have this Christian life figured out? How long will we struggle with sin and relearn lessons that we thought we had already learned? When will we finally be able to make the right choices in our relationships and love as we are called?

And yet in the face of these realities—a broken, hurting world and imperfect disciples who still do not understand—Jesus leaves and tells us that we will be the ones who will bring to completion God’s plan of restoring the world.

At which point, we may find ourselves asking Jesus along with the disciples, “Wouldn’t it just be better if you do it? When are you going to fix everything? How can we possibly do this job?”

But in response, Jesus tells us, and those earliest disciples, that God intends to complete Jesus’ work through us and gives us the Holy Spirit to do it.

Even though we know this, the nagging question still remains: if God desires and promises to be with us, then why must the Son of God be physically absent from us? Why can’t the one who was crucified and raised finish the work of preaching forgiveness? And since it takes us a lifetime to learn—and even then we still aren’t perfect—wouldn’t it just be better if God would do this work without us?

We want God to end hunger, to wipe out disease, to force armies to lay down their weapons, to remove militants and set kidnapped girls free, to just destroy the pieces of us that hurt others, and to crush everything about us that prevents us from living as God would have us live.

But that is not God’s way. The way of the cross continues to be God’s way even on the way to Pentecost. Jesus empties himself yet again, and as God did in the very beginning of creation, shares power with us rather than use it to control us or the world.

God could completely end hunger, or wars, or disarm militants by force, or just make you and me automatically who God would have us be, but that would require control and coercion that God is not willing to exercise.

Force and threats are not God’s way because they do not lead to healing or growth.

Only love can do that: the kind of love that God shows through Jesus, who enters into our very brokenness and suffering, taking it all on himself, and now, is made visible in us through the Holy Spirit who equips us to love. Our witness is how the world will be invited into, rather than forced into, relationship with the Triune God.

All this could sound like empty platitudes in the face of real suffering, disappointment, or evil to simply say, “Don’t worry, God is at work in you to make you and the entire world new.”

But the truth is, that that is exactly what Jesus promises us today, and it is no empty promise.

The Spirit of God is with us, transforming us and the world, and we have seen it.

The fruits of the Spirit that have been poured out onto are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Whenever we see these in the world, in one another, or in ourselves, the Spirit is at work.

Throughout this last month, we saw the Spirit when congregations around the world joined together to pray for the children kidnapped in Nigeria. As the church prays for all these girls, and we pray especially for Naomi, the Spirit of God is working to turn all of our hearts to our neighbors, and giving strength and courage to those in Nigeria and to governments throughout the world to work for their return.

This last week, when you signed letters for Bread for the World, and next week when you feed community members, the Spirit of God is at work to end hunger.

And when you notice that this time, rather than demanding your own way with your partner, spouse, children, parents, friend, or even someone whom it is usually very difficult to love, you lifted up their needs, gave forgiveness freely, or saw Christ’s reflection in them, the Spirit of God was moving.

Even though it may be slow-going, and we or the world might take two steps back for every one-step that the Spirit leads us toward growth, it is well worth the wait according to God because the value is in a real, authentic relationship that comes from freely choosing to respond to God’s love for us and growing toward God in love and in faith. Because God values this growth, the Spirit is with us and will continue to be at work.

Tonight, just as God did on that original Mount of Olives—first through the presence of Jesus and then through the angels who appeared to the disciples after he ascended—our Lord calls us back from fear of being alone or ill-suited for the task given to us. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is forever with us and will forever be working through us to offer forgiveness, to show his love, to invite all people into relationship with him, and to wipe away every tear from their eyes until that time when death, mourning, crying and pain will be no more.

Amen.