Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 12, 2024

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26+Psalm 1+1 John 5:9-13+John 17:6-19

To the followers of Jesus, it must have felt like the good times were here to stay. Jesus had been executed, which felt like the end of the world, but then he had risen from the dead which was the best day ever. Initially bewildered by this, it would be understandable that over the forty days that followed it might feel like old times again, hanging out with their friend. And when he invited them all to walk with him over to Bethany from Jerusalem, I can imagine that they were excited - the band was back together, on the road again, wandering around the countryside with Jesus.

But that's not how things turned out. As he is telling them that they are to stay put until "receiving power from on high," he starts rising up from the ground until he is hidden from sight. And as they stand there staring into the sky, jaws hanging open, the two men in white ask what might just be the silliest question in all of scripture: "Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" I mean, where else would they be looking?

But this question also jolts them back into reality. Maybe they didn't understand what happened, but Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem, and that is where they headed, and they spent the next ten days there. They had a little business to take care of in choosing a replacement for Judas the Betrayer, and they chose one from among the followers - about 120 of them, according to our text - all of whom had been with Jesus from the time of his baptism by John up to now. The lot fell to Matthias, and he is the only apostle not appointed by Jesus and selected before the coming of the Holy Spirit, and about him nothing else is said in all of scripture. Anyone who tells you that the life of an apostle is about attention and glamour, just remember Matthias the Apostle.

Other than that piece of business, all that we know about the ten days that followed are what Luke tells us, which is that the disciples were in the temple in Jerusalem praising God.

Whenever I am at a family gathering, we often reminisce about our childhoods growing up together in a tiny little town in Eastern North Carolina. Many of the stories are at my expense as the baby of the family - and yes, no matter how old I am, I will always be the baby to them - and sometimes we will recollect things that our parents or grandparents said to us or wrote to us that have found a place in our memory banks. Maybe we didn't fully understand some of those things when we were younger, but now, they resonate a bit more clearly.

So, I can imagine that the disciples of Jesus, during these ten days between Ascension and Pentecost, talked a lot about their times with him and the things that he taught them, the healings he performed, the laughter around the dinner table. And maybe one of the things they remembered most clearly was that last time, before everything went so horribly wrong, when he had shared a meal with them and washed their feet, and then prayed for them.

This is the part of John that we read a few moments ago. Jesus, knowing that his time with them is coming to an end, does not rant and rave and despair. No, he prays. He doesn't pray not to suffer; he prays that God will protect them. He knows that it is time to return to God, and he prays that they will have joy. "But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves" (John 17:13). 

As these disciples huddled together after Jesus ascended into heaven on the Mount of Olives, surely they took courage in knowing that the last thing Jesus did when they were together before his arrest was to pray for them and to pray that they might share in his joy. And he is sending them into the world as witnesses of all they have seen and heard. Challenges will come, for sure. Danger and violence and contempt will greet them as they travel into the regions of the Roman empire, but, like Jesus, they did not despair or pray to be delivered from that. They held onto his joy.

When my mother's health was declining and she was not getting enough nutrition, there were times I would visit her when I would bring her some of her favorite foods to encourage her to eat, breaking off small pieces of chocolate and placing them in her hands or steadying a spoonful of grits and helping her guide it to her mouth. At those times, I would wonder if she was remembering when she did those things for me when I was a toddler. Our lives had come full circle.

Jesus has been "feeding" the disciples,  nurturing them in the ways of God's reign, and now it is their turn to do the feeding, to encourage and nurture and exhort and share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Those men in white told them not to just stand there, but to do something. God's reign is not up there somewhere; it is here. They - and we - hold the spoon now. We have nourishment for those living in despair and hopelessness, in violence and trauma, in joy and in sorrow. For tornado victims in the Midwest to children in Gaza to women in Israel longing for the return of their children to those who have endured devastating flooding in Brazil to those of our neighbors living right here who are lonely and lost.

Don't stand looking up into heaven for Jesus to come take care of things. Jesus said, " As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world" (John 17:18). So, take up your spoon. We have been sent into the world.