7^th Sunday of Easter – Year A

June 5, 2011   

 (Acts 1:6-14, Psalm 68:1-10,32-35, 1 Peter 4:12-14,5:6-11, John 17:1-11)

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

            Before I delve into the texts for today, I wanted to mention that this day also commemorates Boniface, Bishop of Mainz, who was a missionary to Germany and who died a martyr on this day in the year 754.  Reading over his life I thought his story was pretty interesting.  First of all, he was a Bishop in Germany, but he was born in England around 672-675.  He is famous for having gone to Thuringia and Hesse to reform the clergy there who had partly reverted to paganism.  He was also very successful converting thousands of people from paganism to Christianity.  He did this by chopping down some sacred oak trees that the people worshipped.  When he was not harmed in any way for doing that, the people converted and Boniface built a chapel in honor of St. Peter using the wood of those trees.  Things didn’t always go smoothly though.  On June 5^th 754 while he was reading the Gospel on Pentecost Sunday, Boniface was attacked by pagans and killed.  At Fulda, lie the remains of Boniface and the slashed Gospel book that he was holding when he was killed.  You can get on the Internet and see a photograph of the actual book.

            Anyway, I thought it was interesting for today because Christ Church is a congregation with German roots, who just happens to be served by an English pastor, and we are in the middle of building a chapel.  Hopefully the parallels stop there since next Sunday is Pentecost and Pastor Rooney is preaching!  Let Vicar hold the Gospel book!

            Preaching the Gospel can be dangerous, that’s for sure.  We know that.  Some people do not want to hear God’s truth and they get very angry when they do.  Plus, we know that this time of year can be dangerous too.  Prom and Graduation seasons can be deadly times for our youth out there on the roads.  Spring brings dangerous weather too as we’ve seen over the past few weeks.

            This time of year is a transitional season not only in the weather but also in people’s lives as well:  Confirmations, Graduations, and Weddings.  Plus there are always births and deaths.  At these transitional milestones in life we wonder, what will happen next?  What will our lives be like from now on?  We feel a mixture of excitement, apprehension, fear, and sadness.  Moving on can make us feel unsure of ourselves.

            The 7^th Sunday of Easter is a time of transition in the life of the Church too.  On Thursday evening we celebrated the Ascension of our Lord marking Christ’s return into heaven to be seated at the right hand of God the Father.

            The trauma of the events of Holy Week is over.  The excitement and wonder of the Resurrection has faded a bit.  The forty days of comforting appearances by the risen Christ will not be repeated.  For the disciples, Jesus’ bodily return into heaven was a clear moment of transition.  They were faced with the prospect of life without Jesus among them – a life without Jesus as they had known him.  The time for the historical Jesus to walk the earth was now at an end.  A new way of life in God was about to begin.

            For it was necessary that Jesus ascend to the Father so that the Holy Spirit would descend upon the Apostles and establish the Church.  One mode of life with Christ was at an end and a new way of life in the Trinity, fully revealed, was about to begin.  Whereas Jesus (as a human being) could only be one place at any given time, the Holy Spirit could be everywhere at the same time – present and active working to strengthen the Church and preside over its growth.

            Of course, when we are in the midst of a transition in life we may not necessarily want to change and grow.  But those times of transition force us to do so.  Someone who has lost a loved one to death would prefer life as it was previously lived.  A youth may not feel quite ready to go off to college or to the military or to join the workforce.  A bride or groom to be may break into a cold sweat as their nuptials approach.  A new mother and father may wonder how they will be able to care for such a tiny life entrusted to them.        

            The apostles too may very well have wished that the risen Christ would have stayed with them indefinitely rather than have him return to the Father.  Given a choice, I think that they would have preferred that he remain with them – even if it prevented the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

            But they were not given the choice.  God had a plan and new life was being prepared for the Church.  With God’s help, the work of Christ would continue on.  Only now it would be the disciples who would carry the Gospel to the far ends of the earth.  The mission continues and now it is our turn to carry on the work of the master.  The master completed our salvation on the Cross and the whole world needs to hear the good news.

            On this particular transitional Sunday I’m reminded of the story of the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini who in 1922 was diagnosed with cancer.  In spite of his illness he continued to work on the opera Turandot.  Many of his family and friends tried to convince him to rest and not use all his remaining days on an opera he would not be able to complete.  But he continued on – telling his students that if he could not finish the opera that they should.  After Puccini’s death in 1924 his students gathered together the scores, studied them carefully and then completed the opera.  In 1926 on opening night Turandot was conducted by Arturo Toscanini, one of Puccini’s students.  When the orchestra reached the place where Puccini had stopped writing, Toscanini put down his baton, turned to the audience and said to them, “Thus far the master wrote, and then he died.”  The next evening the opera was performed again, but that time the performance included the ending written by the students.

            As the church, we carry on the work of Christ our Master and we do so not only because of Pentecost but also because during those 40 days of Resurrection appearances Jesus established a pattern of his disciples coming together to work and pray and to worship.  Those first Christians continued this pattern established by the Master – and so do we.

            So our reading from Acts is an excellent one to remember during those transitional times in our lives.  Jesus promises the disciples that the power of the Holy Spirit would come upon them and would enable them to continue his ministry.  They believed his words.  They prayed for the descent of the Holy Spirit.  And they waited together - as a community of faith.

            In those in between times whenever we find ourselves caught between Easter and Pentecost, between faith and doubt, between promise and pain, between God’s Already and Not Yet, between true belief and paganism, we imitate the early church.  We believe, we pray, and we depend upon the Holy Spirit to guide us and we continue on.  Like those first believers we are encouraged to be faithful even when trouble comes.  This we do because we follow Christ, or risen and ascended Lord who promises to return to us.  Like those first disciples we gather together as the Church and carry on Christ’ mission by sharing the Gospel and God’s Grace through Word and Sacrament.  This is what the Church is called to do from the very beginning.

            After three years of living and working with Jesus, after the events of Holy Week, after the glory of God revealed in the Resurrection, after the grace of the forty days, the disciples prepared to enter into a new phase of life with God by becoming the Church.  We too follow their lead as active, responsible, Christians who press forward despite the pain and discomfort and the splinters of carrying Christ’s Cross.  We remember to whom we belong and we continue the Master’s work until that day arrives when he returns in all his glory.

            Today, we gather together to hear God’s Work and to celebrate the Eucharist, we pray, we worship God.  We can do all this only through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We continue on because we are never alone.  We are never abandoned.  The Lord is with us – now and always.  The risen and ascended Lord is with us – even during the transitional times in our lives, thanks be to God.  And we rejoice always because we know that Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

 Amen