Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; I John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19
This is one of those odd Sundays. It’s
an in-between Sunday. This is Easter 7, the Sunday after (does anybody know
what last Thursday was?—the feast of the Ascension), so this is the Sunday
after Ascension Day and the Sunday before Pentecost. We all sort of know what
Easter is about—it’s about resurrection and new life, and we all sort of know
what Pentecost is about—it’s about the gift of the Holy Spirit that turns the
world upside down, but what do we do with this time in-between?
It seems that the Church has this
attraction to the in-between spaces, the threshold spaces, and with good
reason. A) They are liminal spaces, luminous spaces, and wondrous things happen
in these spaces if we will only open our eyes and look and not yearn so much
for what we’ve left nor move too quickly to what is yet to come. And B) We
spend a good part of our lives in the in-between spaces, having left something
behind but not quite having reached what is yet to come.
A good case in point is Holy
Saturday, that space of time after the crucifixion and before the resurrection,
that space of time when death has occurred but the new life has not yet
revealed itself. A time where all we can do is sit and wait, but because Jesus spent that time waiting in the
tomb, we wait with purpose and we wait with companionship. Holy Saturday is not
empty waiting; it is not meaningless. It is anticipatory, pregnant with
possibility, the kind of waiting that bears fruit for having lived so long in
the deep, dark earth.
And today, this Sunday between
Ascension and Pentecost, is another good example. Ron Rolheiser in his book Holy Longing has a chapter on the
Paschal Cycle that lays out the whole paschal pattern in a way that can help us
make sense of our lives. He speaks of Good Friday as the death and Easter as
the new life. Then you have this period of time until the feast of the
Ascension—40 days of time—when you are adjusting to the new life. This is that
kind of two-steps-forward-one-step-back kind of dance. You get it, then you
lose it. You get it, and you lose it. It’s hard to move into a new way of
being; it’s hard to release the old.
And then, Rolheiser notes, that you come to this feast of Ascension. Now, it seems to me that most of us just fly right by the feast of the Ascension having no idea what to do with it; we have no idea how to appropriate it. It’s mentioned in our eucharistic prayers when we “recall his death, resurrection, and ascension.” It’s mentioned in the creed, “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” So, this isn’t a small article of faith; it’s a rather significant one. Now, I don’t know about you, but as soon as I try to make sense of it, my mind goes to a really literal place ending up with something that looks kind of like the Wicked Witch of the West, except it’s men’s feet with birkenstocks dangling from the sky. I am left with questions like, “Where did he go?” And since I can’t answer those, I ignore this article of faith altogether. But our souls miss so much if we do.
What Rolhesier got me to understand is that, in the paschal progression, ascension is absolutely essential to fully claiming the resurrection life that is promised after any sort of death or loss experience. If the period of 40 days after the resurrection is about adjusting to the new life, Ascension is about letting the old life ascend, so that, so that we can receive the new spirit on Pentecost to match the new life we are in fact already living.
And so the feast of Ascension and the
10 days we have from Ascension to Pentecost are really, really important times
for us spiritually. This is the time when we need to let the old life go. Oh,
it may have died quite a while ago, but have you ever noticed how old patterns,
old ways of relating and behaving, old ways of living, have you ever noticed
how old wounds take quite a long time to release. Something could have happened
to us years ago, and we have indeed moved on, but in our minds and in our
hearts and in our souls, that old stuff is still very much alive. Ascension
comes to say, “It is time to let it go. It
is time to let it ascend. It is time to release it, so that you are free to
receive a new spirit, a spirit not shackled to the old, a new spirit to match
the new life that is yours now to live.” If we have not released the old,
there is no way that we can fully move into and embrace and live the new life
that is ours. Our spirit is still looking back, yearning for another time,
another space, another reality. Meanwhile, we miss the present that is right
before us, and we won’t be able to take advantage of the future that is
promised.
A new spirit is coming one week from
today; what do we need to release, what do we need to let go of, what do we
need to let ascend so that we will be ready to receive this new spirit? This
in-between time is not wasted time, it is not meaningless, it is not empty
space, but it is a necessary piece of the journey. God is not going to leave us
comfortless; the Holy Spirit is on the way, but today and in the week to come,
we are given the gift of space. Trust this process enough to let go. Trust God
enough to know that if you let the old go, you will be given something to
replace it with. You will be given new eyes to see the resurrected life that has
been both promised and given. You will be given new ways to move in this new
world. And you will be given a spirit that can keep pace with your new life.
So, don’t shove Ascension off to the
side just because you can’t make sense of it. Your heart and soul yearn for the
movement to which this great feast points. Let your head play with the rather
silly pictures that can come as we think about Jesus ascending to heaven, but
know that deep, deep within you things are being rearranged and realigned. Don’t
shy away from letting go. Don’t be afraid of the space that will open up if you
do. Jesus has prayed, and God has promised, not to leave us with a great big
gigantic blackhole in our soul. A new spirit will come and take up residence
inside of us if we can but make a space for that spirit to dwell. Amen.
The
Rev. Cynthia K. R. Banks
St.
Luke’s Episcopal Church, Boone, NC
May
20, 2012
