Paul’s miraculous claims are too often not our reality, but God in the Spirit is making it happen; pray that it happen for you, for us, and then go, tell others about it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 12 C
Texts: Galatians 3:23-29; 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Luke 8:26-39

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

Here’s what’s not startling today: how people reacted to demonic or evil powers.

The king and queen of the northern kingdom, Israel, want Elijah dead. They’ve been systematically killing God’s prophets, and Elijah’s target number one. So he runs away. The Gerasenes have this strong man who is possessed and violently lashes out. So they chain him up, guard him. Running away from evil or locking it up, that makes sense to us.

What is startling is how people react to God’s evident power over demonic and evil forces. Ahab and Jezebel have just seen the God of Israel’s power on Mount Carmel. Fire from heaven consumed Elijah’s waterlogged sacrifice, even the wet wood and stones. All the people there acclaim the God of Israel is the true God, not Baal. But the king and queen would rather kill Elijah than acknowledge the true God. The Gerasenes witness their neighbor freed from his possession, fully clothed, in his right mind, and they beg Jesus to leave. How do these responses make sense?

But given the history of the Church, what the Church looks like today, we shouldn’t be startled by this. They’re not much different from us.

Paul’s proclamation today of God’s miraculous action makes this clear.

These words from Galatians are breath-taking words of inspiration to believers for two millennia. Paul claims that God in Christ has broken through all human barriers and divisions and created one Body from these diverse parts.

Paul’s communities include people of different cultures, people who are both enslaved and free, people of all genders. These communities thrive with the conviction that they have a deeper unity in Christ that transcends all divisions. There are still slaves and free people. But it’s not their core identity in Christ, Christ is. Men and women are still men and women. But their deeper truth is their oneness in Christ. Greeks don’t need to be circumcised or eat special foods, and Jews are free to practice their Jewish rituals and traditions, because the thing that joins them is not their cultures but the love of God in Christ.

And unlike Elijah’s miraculous heavenly fire, or the healing of the demoniac, Paul’s miracle is not only repeatable, it’s expected. This is God’s new reality. We’re supposed to expect this among us in the Body of Christ.

But look at our response to this marvel God has done: Two thousand years later these are still pretty words. But meaningless, too, judging from our reality.

Paul didn’t advocate the end of the institution of slavery. But his claim that within the community of Christ, the slave and the free person were equal and one together planted seeds that even bore fruit in Paul’s life. He called his friend Philemon to recognize his runaway slave Onesimus as a freed brother in Christ and welcome him as such. Yet it took over 1,800 years for the Church to take that insight and begin serious opposition to slavery.

Paul shared Jesus’ radical view of women as equals. He had female co-workers, leaders of communities, missionaries. But by the end of the first century the Church embraced the old standard of patriarchy, and pretty much eliminated women in leadership. It took 1,920 years for even a fraction of the Church to restore what Paul and Jesus did at the beginning. And we’re still a significant minority: maybe a couple hundred million among the world’s 2.2 billion Christians have women in leadership. It was easier for the Church to agree on ending slavery than equality among genders.

Paul’s cross-cultural unity is astonishing. Paul assumed multiple cultures could co-exist and thrive in congregations, find their oneness in Christ while still living with their diversity. But the vast majority of Christian history has been Christians siloing into their own cultural reality and claiming that’s the true Christianity. Ethnic and cultural groups promoting their way of being, speaking, dressing, doing worship as the only true way, that’s been the norm for most of the Church’s life.

In truth, Paul’s proclamation never became the norm and still barely exists 2,000 years later. We’ve rejected God’s healing oneness.

Paul says today that before we learned to trust God in Christ, we were imprisoned, locked up in fear of the law, in fear of the other, in fear of everything. The tragic thing is, Paul thought this was a past problem.

But we still live in the same fear. It took 1,900 years to agree that Christians were opposed to slavery because we were too afraid of the economic and social impact of freedom. We’re still rooted in patriarchy in the Church because we’re locked in our assumptions and thoughts and won’t envision a new way of being Christ together.

And the cultural divide, whether it’s black-white, rich-poor, north-south, Lutheran-Pentecostal, Christian-Muslim, will never be crossed if we’re the ones to cross it. It’s just too frightening to let go of the way we think things should be and admit others have equally legitimate ways of thinking, being, doing.

We may not be possessed by demons, but the chains that bind us, the prison we’re stuck in, can only be opened by God.

And good news: that’s what God offers.

God says today you need not be captive to your fear. God can break any chains that bind you or others, knock down any dividing walls, even the ones you secretly want to reinforce. The Triune God has come to the world in Christ Jesus, and shown the power of the Spirit to break through all these barriers and create a new reality. A body of Christ, a community of God, that transcends all our divisions.

Yes, it’s frightening to think of losing some of your security blankets. But with security in God’s love, and in the embrace of billions of siblings in Christ, who needs blankets? Yes, it’s frightening to feel the ground shaking as the wall protecting you from others starts to crumble. But if you let God break through that wall, you’ll find a loving family across this planet.

Paul’s words are the only reality worth living. A reality where there’s neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus. A reality that reveals a path to the healing of all nations. God is already doing this. But as Luther reminds you, you want to ask that God do this in you.

Because then you find your true place in these stories.

Once you are freed from these chains of fear, you’re sent back out into the darkness, into the brokenness, into the pain, to witness to what God has done. God told Elijah he couldn’t stay hiding in his cave, he needed to go back, face the evil, keep telling what God was about. The healed man wanted to stay with Jesus, the one who gave him life. But Jesus sent him back to his frightened neighbors, who wanted to be rid of him, to tell them what God had done.

That’s where you come in. As Paul’s new reality becomes your truth above all others, you’re sent out. To go into the world of fear and chains and walls and declare in your body and life what God has done.

But first, like Elijah, have a bite to eat. Let God refresh you in this meal that is prepared for you. Be graced by God’s forgiveness in Christ, be fed by God’s meal of life. As the angel said to Elijah, it’s going to be a tough journey. Eat up, so it’s not too much for you.

Then go, and tell others what God has done. For you. For the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

We know God because God has come to us, invited us into the life of the Trinity, to be changed into the radiant love that we find there.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year C
Text: Romans 5:1-5

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

Look closely at the picture. There’s a place for you.

Nearly 600 years ago the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev wrote an icon depicting the visit of three heavenly strangers to Abraham and Sarah. The Bible claims this was a visit of God, that they actually spoke to God in these beings.

In time, the Church wondered if this was somehow a vision of the Trinity. So this icon, printed on our service folder, is often called “The Holy Trinity,” as well as “The Hospitality of Abraham.”

But look closely. The figure on the right, representing the Holy Spirit, holds her hand out toward the open space, inviting a guest to the meal. You. The one looking at the picture. Some believe a mirror was originally attached where that square is on the front of the table.

Isn’t that lovely? Looking at this visitation of God, you see yourself invited to join God’s presence.

This is the only way you can know God.

We now have 1,600 years of theological reflection since the Nicene Creed on how God is One God, yet Three Persons. None of that reflection actually lets you know God.

It’s God’s invitation to come, enter God’s life, that lets you know God’s truth, God’s reality, God’s essence. You can only really know another person by having a relationship with them, talking with them, loving them, and you can only know God that way.

In fact, our whole idea of the Trinity began with the invitation of the Incarnate One, Jesus, not with theological constructs. Jesus showed us in person the face of God, the heart of God. In Jesus, God came to you, to the world, and said, “Come, let’s know each other better.”

This is where the Church first met God’s deepest truth. It’s where you will.

Today Paul says we have access to God through Christ Jesus. Jesus welcomes you into the life of God.

Look first to Jesus, then. Hear his teachings, listen to his voice proclaiming God’s unlimited forgiveness and love for you and for all creatures, for the whole creation. Eat his meal of grace and life for you and for all. Wonder at the signs of utter welcome, the crossing of human boundaries of law and exclusion, the breaking of taboos of culture and religion, that you see in God’s Son.

And stand in awe at the inexpressible mystery of God’s love on the cross, dying to bring you and the cosmos back into God’s life. Rejoice, as we have this past Easter season, in God’s destruction of death and hatred and evil.

Jesus is the face of the Triune God for you, so you know God is good, God is loving, God is for you. Paul says today you have been declared righteous by God in Christ. God looks at you in person in Jesus and sees good, and holy, and blessed. And always says, “Welcome, beloved one. Come, know me.”

Meeting the Trinity first in Jesus then leads to a deeper joy.

You’ve heard for weeks Jesus’ promise that the Spirit of God would come to you, fill you. So, you are not alone, Jesus says, God is in you. You need not be confused or lost, God’s Spirit will guide you. And Paul says today, God’s love is poured out into you through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, the Incarnate One, sends you God’s Spirit to make you filled with God, too. To make you an Incarnate One. To intertwine your life into the life of God forever.

How many times has Jesus said in these weeks that he and the One he called Father were one, united, and that in the Spirit of God you would be united with God yourself? Coming to this world in human flesh was the first step in God’s plan to bring you, and me, and all creation into the heart of God’s life.

So listen for the voice of the Spirit in you. As Jesus promises today, the Spirit will teach you what you need to know when you’re ready to know it, just as the Spirit teaches the Church in the same way.

This is the grace of the Holy Trinity: you are welcomed to join the Triune God’s life forever, to take your place in the circle, and the Spirit makes that happen.

That means a couple wonders, Paul says today.

First, you now have peace with God.

When humans try to imagine God it’s usually a distant, powerful, often judging god. At least in the patriarchal cultures in which we’ve spent the past 3,000 years. So when suffering and pain and evil happen, it’s easy to blame this imaginary god we’ve created, or fear this god is our enemy.

But you know God intimately now, you are filled with God’s Spirit. So you can be at peace with God. When you face suffering, you know God has suffered, too, and knows your pain. Because God’s Spirit is in you, you know that God is with you always, no matter what. And as Paul says, that’s where your hope comes from. Not that all suffering ends, but that when you grow closer and closer to God, filled with God’s Spirit, you have God’s love and strength to face it and thrive.

And as the Spirit fills us all, we together can even face the great suffering and pain of others, bringing God’s hope and love ourselves, trusting that God is working in us to bring life, even if we can only seemingly take tiny steps at a time. We are one body in Christ, across this planet. So we trust that God, working in all the body of Christ, is moving this world toward justice and mercy and peace.

And, Paul says, you also share in the glory of God.

Freed from following a god made in your own image, now that you see you have a place in the Triune God’s life, Paul says you also will share in God’s glory. In the radiance, the brightness of the life of God. In the beginning, God said, “Let us make humanity in our own image.” And now, in Christ, as you take your place in God’s life and heart, that promise begins to be fulfilled in you.

You start to look like God in your love and grace. Your heart begins to beat as God’s, in compassion and love for all who struggle. Your hands become creative like God’s, embracing like God’s. And together, as Christ’s body, we bring God’s life to this whole world.

“Come in,” the Trinity says to you, “come join us in our life. There is room for you in our dance.” So come. Enter into the life of God and be changed, be healed, be made new.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

This is the great surprise of Pentecost: the Spirit is in you, in me, making us the body of Christ, to do the ministry of Christ in the world. It’s us now.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Day of Pentecost, year C
Texts: John 14:8-17, 25-26; Acts 2:1-21

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

I think the Holy Spirit was a great big surprise for the disciples.

Not just what happened on Pentecost, though that must have been quite the eye-opener. And not what they saw in Jesus, either. In his first sermon in his hometown, Jesus declared the Holy Spirit was within him.

But on the night before his death, Jesus promised to send them the Holy Spirit, that God’s very Spirit that was in Jesus, would be in them. Would teach them, remind them of Jesus’ teachings, too.

I doubt they were expecting that at all. We forget, we read the Scriptures after the fact, and through the narrator’s eyes. We know from Acts that the Spirit who filled Jesus filled the disciples, sent the Church out into the world. The disciples couldn’t know all that. Nothing prepared them for the idea that the Holy Spirit would be God’s gift to them.

What those women and men did up till this was pretty common. They followed a teacher who spoke truth.

This was normal. A teacher would attract disciples by their teaching, and show them a way of living, reveal insights, help them understand their lives, and often God. Jesus drew these disciples to believe and follow. He showed God to them. So they focused their lives, their faith, their hopes, their dreams, on Jesus. When he was crucified and raised, they found new understandings, believed more than ever he was God as well as human.

What they didn’t realize was that Jesus was just the start. God’s plan now was to send the Spirit into them. God’s plan now was that they would do Jesus’ ministry. Be what Jesus was. Pentecost was the first evidence of this promise being fulfilled. It just exploded from there.

We, at least, should expect this. Today Jesus says something we’ve heard often: that we will, in our faith, and with the Spirit in us, do greater things than even Jesus did.

Let’s be clear, though. Jesus is talking about more than miracles.

We turn Jesus’ promise into an endless loop of conversation with little insight, talking about whether we can do healings like Jesus, and if we can’t, how can he promise greater things? We realize miracles happen every day in hospitals and clinics, that we see great things even our grandparents would call miraculous.

But if Jesus is only talking about miracles, how is it possible that we could do greater things than he? Even if we count modern medicine, even if we have stories of prayer ending someone’s disease, that’s not greater than Jesus, it’s exactly the same. Something else is promised here.

But what can we do that’s greater than Jesus himself?

Well, this surprising gift of the Spirit has made us into the body of Christ ourselves. Made you Christ. God’s anointed. Me, too. And billions more, all one body of Christ. Christ is no longer just one person who lived 2,000 years ago. Since God’s Spirit is poured out into you and me, into the world, Christ’s body is infinitely greater than just Jesus.

That means God can reach more people than Jesus did on earth, through the billions of Christs the Spirit has birthed over these 2,000 years. God can directly love more people in the flesh than Jesus did on earth, touch their lives, embrace them, feed them, heal them.

That means this body of Christ, born of the Spirit across this planet, can offer its life to the world with the same sacrificial, vulnerable love that God showed on the cross, and transform the world. This body, in such love, can dismantle systems of oppression and hatred, break down destructive patterns of racism and sexism, lead peaceful revolutions, alter the course of history, effect change that lets all God’s children live with the same rights and privileges, in peace and justice, well-fed and educated, productive and happy.

There’s nothing small about feeding thousands with two fish and five loaves. But what God can do in us, the body of Christ in the world, is so much greater, so much more transformative, so much more planetary, you can understand why Jesus says what he does.

Maybe we don’t expect this Spirit gift, either.

We can fall into a pattern of worshipping Christ Jesus and praying and focusing all our energy on what Jesus did long ago, and miss the very point of this Pentecost we now celebrate.

But the Spirit is wise, and patient, and has been working in you and in me all along, planting calls to serve, giving insights, making us into Christ’s body. You are being born into a new creation, ever more visibly a child of God, to be a part of these greater things God will do in this Body.

If Pentecost reveals anything, it’s that you are needed, you are anointed, and God’s Spirit is in you, giving birth to this Christ that we are called to be together in the world.

So don’t be surprised. Expect this. Be open to the Spirit’s moving. That’s when great things, amazing things, really start to happen.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Live your witness of peace and hope, even in suffering wounds for your faith; others will see, and ask, and you can say, “It’s yours if you want it.”

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday of Easter, year C
Texts: Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

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

What in the world happened to that jailer?

Working for the Roman authorities in Philippi, one night he goes to bed as usual, and before sunrise, he and his entire family are baptized Christians. Joining Lydia and her friends in the newly born congregation.

What happened? You know the basics: Paul and Silas in prison, singing hymns at midnight, an earthquake, all the cells opened, chains unfastened. The jailer sees open doors and despairs. Taking his own life would be preferable to what punishment awaited him for failing his duty to Rome.

Paul and Silas’ assurance that all are present and accounted for should end the story. He secures the chains, relocks the doors, and wipes his brow in relief.

But that didn’t happen. He fell trembling before Paul and Silas, brought them outside, and called them his masters! “Masters,” he asked, “what must I do to be saved?”

What did he see in Paul and Silas, in this bizarre early morning, that prompted that question?

You need to remember once again what his question means.

The word translated “saved” means “saved.” But it also means “rescued, healed, kept from harm.” We’ve got centuries of practice restricting our hearing of the English word “saved” to life after death. We’re so deeply ingrained in seeing salvation exclusively that way that our gut reaction to this translation rarely opens us to a deeper reality. This is often just told as a story of someone saved from damnation.

But here’s something absolutely clear: Nothing Paul and Silas show this jailer speaks of life after death. This time they’ve been beaten and jailed for disrupting the local economy, not for their theology. Freeing an oppressed slave woman from being the organ-grinder’s monkey for her owners led the owners to get Paul and Silas arrested. Paul took away the goose that laid their golden eggs.

The jailer knows nothing of their theology. He didn’t even hear their midnight hymns; the earthquake awakened him.

“Masters, what must I do to be healed, to be rescued?” can only refer to one thing: what he sees in that moment in Paul and Silas. That tiny glimpse of their lives makes him say, “I want what you have.”

And what did they have?

As the jailer comes onto that broken-open cellblock, and hears Paul saying, “Don’t hurt yourself, we’re all here,” he sees two beaten, bleeding men at peace, calm, and somehow in control of all the other prisoners.

Do you see how remarkable this is? Paul and Silas respond to an illegal beating and jailing with prayer and song that mesmerized the other prisoners. How much pain must they have been in, and yet, their trust in Christ led them to beautifully and calmly sing hymns during the night.

Somehow, their peace and calm radiated to the others even after all the doors were opened. Paul speaks for the prison now – “we’re all here.” He’s in charge, not the jailer. They took control of the prison without whips or rods, keys or chains.

And no one ran. That’s nearly unimaginable.

The jailer hasn’t ever experienced anything like this. Anyone like these two. All his rules about how people act, all his confidence in his office and authority, even all his fear at being accused of dereliction of duty, fall at his feet like the prisoners’ chains. Here is true authority, these two bleeding men standing with hope and confidence, everyone following them.

Of course he said, “I want what you have.”

Can you imagine being such a witness to God’s love in Christ?

Not witnessing by trying to convince others of something you believe. Witnessing by your very trust and confidence in the midst of your great suffering. The jailer saw peace and faith and hope in Paul and Silas he never imagined was possible.

Can you imagine living your faith in such a way that you disrupted a local economy of oppression and servitude? Can you imagine living your faith in such a way that you got pushback from the authorities, and even suffered? Can you imagine living your faith in such a way that without you saying a word, people noticed, and wanted what you had?

What would it take for someone to come to you and say, “I want that. What do I need to know, what do I need to do, to find such healing and peace, rescue and freedom?

This is the result of following Christ: the love we know from God is known in us.

This is what Jesus prays today, that we be so joined into the love of God we have known in Christ, so joined to the life of the Triune God, that our lives witness even without words to this inner hope, this inner peace, this inner love, that is ours regardless of circumstances.

Maybe you won’t be beaten for your witness, lying wounded in a prison cell, your feet chained. But you will be wounded for your witness of Christly love, in other perhaps less visible ways.

That’s the time to sing your hymns. To pray. To rejoice in the Spirit of God that is with you always, no matter what. To live in praise and hope. Not so others will notice. But like Paul and Silas, because that’s where your heart is. Filled with the peace of the Spirit of God, so you live that, radiate that.

And even if you don’t do it for others to see, it’s very possible someone might come to you and say, “How can I get what you have?”

And then here’s your joy: you get to say what Paul and Silas said.

“If you want it, it’s yours.” That’s it. No test for the jailer’s theology. Trust in Christ Jesus and you’ll find a life we know, they say. The jailer will even learn to trust that this life won’t end with death. But for now, all he needs is to trust Christ and he will know the life Paul and Silas know.

Today we heard the very last words of the Bible, the final witness: “Let everyone who is thirsty come. Let everyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” There are no exclusive rights to the Tree of Life, no rules for who is written in the Book of Life. The Spirit and the Church simply say, “Come.” It’s yours.

That’s evangelism worthy of the word. To live a life of faith and trust that causes others to recognize their own thirst and ask for a drink. And then to say, “Come, it’s all yours. Come, find life.”

Pray this happens in you, in us. So everyone knows this life is theirs now and forever.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In the Ascension, the Triune God draws human life into the inner life of God and makes it possible for the Spirit of God to live in our humanity, joining us with God forever.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Ascension of Our Lord
Texts: Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23

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

It’s strange: what God does today is opposite of what we think.

Look at Luke’s second Ascension account, in Acts. Jesus is “lifted up,” a “cloud [takes] him out of their sight.” And the disciples stand there, gaping up at the sky.

And why not? The focus of their life for three years, God’s presence in their lives, has just . . . well, they don’t quite know what he just did. So there they stand.

Until two beings in white robes appear and ask the obvious: “what are you doing staring into heaven?”

But for most of human history, people stared up into the sky for God.

We know “heaven” isn’t a location reachable by space shuttle, above a sky dome that keeps the waters of creation at bay. But before our age, nearly every human culture who worshipped gods envisioned their home as “up”, above the clouds, on top of mountains.

And even with our scientific understanding, we’re still looking up for God. Humanity still tends to view whatever god they worship as “apart,” somehow far away. Even Christians too often default to this.

Now, the Church claims that God took on human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. Came near.

In this Palestinian human male of 2,000 years ago, we believe the Creator of all things is found. As a human being, Jesus was the focus of the lives of all who followed him. He was their beloved Master, their gifted Teacher. He bore God’s healing and creative power. He embodied God’s love and forgiveness. In his brutal crucifixion and utterly astonishing resurrection, Jesus’ believers ultimately saw him as not just human, but God Incarnate.

Having him back in these forty days after Easter was a grace and a blessing. Still teaching, still loving, Jesus was back and all was well. They knew where God was again – in Jesus. Once again, Jesus was their focal point.

And then he was carried away. Gone. For a brief moment, God was with us. And now we’re back to looking at the sky. We’re back to God up there, us down here, just as we’ve always thought.

“You’ve completely missed the point,” those white-robed messengers say.

It’s not a question of God’s presence leaving you, it’s the opposite. Just wait, and God’s Spirit will come upon you, just like with Jesus.

This is the first astonishing truth about the Ascension: in taking Jesus, the embodied, Incarnate God-with-us, away from walking on earth, the Triune God will no longer be embodied in just one person, but in all of humanity.

This is foundational to Luke’s understanding. Everything he claims about Jesus comes from the Holy Spirit of the Triune God flowing into Jesus, from his conception to his baptism, to his ministry, to his death and resurrection. And in Acts, Luke says God’s Spirit is doing exactly the same thing with the Church. As Jesus is the Incarnate One, filled with the Holy Spirit, so now is the Church.

This is the heart of God’s plan.

As long as Jesus remains here, only he could be the focal point of faith, and only where he was in person. Even raised from the dead, everyone would look to Jesus for help, or to do what God needs doing.

But God lifted Jesus back into the inner life of the Triune God, Paul says, made Jesus the Christ, so Christ’s body now could become the Church, and the Incarnation now could happen in humanity.

In all the diversity of human race and gender, gifts and cultures, God is known. We don’t have to look up, or believe God has gone away. Paul says we are given the Spirit of wisdom that reveals to us God working in all things, embodied in all people, with more hands and voices and feet and skills and gifts than we can count, bringing God’s grace and love to all.

But there’s another mystery about the Ascension.

Jesus of Nazareth, God-in-human-flesh, is lifted up into the life of the Triune God.

That means not only is God embodied in humanity through the Holy Spirit in the Church. Humanity is embodied in the life of God.

This is such deep mystery that we can’t look at it without confusion. In the Ascension, the Triune God has not only brought the Christ back into in the inner dance of the Trinity, the seat of divine love from which Christ came. The Triune God has brought the Incarnate Jesus into the life of God.

Jesus doesn’t lose his body when he ascends, leaving it lying on the ground. That’s all we know. We don’t know what that truly means in the life of the Trinity. But Jesus, the Christ, crucified and risen, still bearing the scars of his torture and death, was carried into the life of God. Human life in some way has been brought into the life of God for eternity. And surely even God is changed.

You see why it’s a waste of time to look anywhere for God, other than amongst us?

In the Ascension God made the Church possible. We are literally the body of Christ, the Incarnation, in this world. We’re not witnessing to something that happens “out there,” apart from us, when we speak of God’s love and grace and salvation and healing. We witness it with our very bodies and hearts and voices and hands.

And somehow, in ways we dare not try to imagine, in the Ascension our humanity lives in the heart of God. We are so joined to God that nothing can separate us.

Today’s not a day of farewells and absence. It’s the day when humanity and the Triune God fully join together in the new creation God is planning, in the healing of all things God so deeply desires.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen