Ascended Yet Very Present

This Ascension week means more to me than usual.  I’ve already mentioned I am paying more attention to the Rogation Days, and I prayed the Litany yesterday morning as part of that.

But also lately my thoughts have turned to Jesus being both ascended yet “very present” as a favorite Psalm (46) says.  In both his divinity and his humanity, the ascended Christ now intercedes for us in Heaven before the Father.  Yet at the same time he is very present by the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Sacrament (a subject I may touch on soon), and just by being so omnipresent!  

This all is “too wonderful for me. . . . I cannot attain to it.” (Psalm 139: 6)  Although it is right and edifying to think on Jesus being both ascended yet very present, it is beyond what I can think or even imagine.  At the same time it is profoundly comforting.

During this time when we may be all the more aware of both our need of Jesus’ “very present help” and his intercession for us, may this Feast of the Ascension especially comfort and bless you.  

The Prologue of the Passion: John 13:1-3

Last night, the second lesson during Evening Prayer was from John 13:1-11.  Once again, I heard a passage that has impressed itself upon me in recent years, the first three verses of that chapter.

I do not know if these three verses are technically a prologue.  I suspect they are not.  They are in a different form than the famous Prologue at the beginning of St. John’s Gospel.  But these two passages do serve a similar purpose.  Both passages are intended to help the reader/hearer to understand the significance of what is to follow, especially to begin to comprehend Jesus in the midst of the events St. John narrates.  So I hope I am not far off the mark in considering John 13:1-3 the Prologue of the Passion.

These verses are St. John’s transition into the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  And he reminds us emphatically that the Jesus who was about to suffer and die was not another mere man, nor another prophet, nor even another martyr.  Nor was he to stumble unawares into what he was about to suffer.  “The Father had given all things into his hands, and … he had come from God and was going back to God,” and Jesus knew it.  He was the very Son of God who was willingly about to suffer and die for us.

How this passage has most impacted me in recent years is how it serves as an introduction to the most immediate event, the foot washing.  Jesus knew he was God, and he knew the agony he was about to suffer.  And, yes, he knew Judas Iscariot would betray him into that.  Yes, Jesus would wash Judas’ feet, too.

I know if knew I was about to be betrayed into great suffering and death by one sitting with me, the last thing I would be thinking about is washing anybody’s feet, much less his.

But Jesus’ love for his disciples was so great – he “loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” – that he performed this task that is both deeply humbling and deeply significant.  The Son of God, who had “all things” in his hands – and was about to take his life into his hands and lay it down for the world – humbled himself to wash the feet of his disciples, even of the one who would betray him.

I think this is one reason St. John is very methodical in describing the foot washing, particularly in verses 4 and 5.  John is letting the gravity of Jesus’ act of love and humility sink in.

But how can we comprehend this?  No matter how much we meditate on these verses and on Jesus Christ Himself so acting as a servant, and that when he was about to suffer, it remains one of those many mysteries of God too wonderful for us to comprehend.

But St. John and the Lord who inspired his words nonetheless desire for us to mediate on this and on the rest of his Passion for our good and for his glory.  Let us do so as we conclude Passion Week and enter Holy Week.

The Gospel for Easter Tuesday and Scripture

The Gospel Lesson for Easter Tuesday from Luke 24:36-48 gives great insight into the priorities of Christ. Here Luke writes of the first appearance of the risen Christ to the Eleven. After Jesus patiently lets the disciples know it was really him and calms them down a bit, what does he then do?

And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures . . .
Luke 24: 44-45 KJV

Since Jesus himself was and is “The Word,” it is remarkable that the first thing the risen Christ teaches the disciples is . . . scripture, the written word.

One would think the very presence of the risen Christ, the living Word, was enough. Yet Jesus saw fit right away to teach the disciples from the scriptures.

And even before that, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus spent an afternoon teaching two crestfallen followers from the scriptures, as Luke wrote in 24:13-35, the Gospel for Easter Monday. Remember the risen Christ only spent 40 days on this earth before the Ascension. Yet he clearly spent a lot of that time teaching scripture!

If Jesus put so high a priority on scripture and on the teaching and learning of it, then we are surely inconsistent (at the very least!) if we claim Jesus as Lord, but then either neglect scripture or downplay its authority. The clear priorities of the risen Christ himself give no room to those who say things like “We don’t believe the Bible; we believe the Christ behind the Bible.” Nor does it allow the hubris that we know enough scripture already and have no need to be digging into it much anymore, or just do not have the time.

No, if we really believe in the risen Christ and follow him, we will not only believe the Bible, but will be diligently studying it.

Jesus and the Bible

I thought about titling this post “Brilliant Minds Think Alike.” For this morning, I’ve been working on a back-up sermon for my parish, a sermon for me to give in case my rector cannot preach. And in it I make the point that one cannot divorce Jesus from the Bible. To warm up to my point, I remember an episode from my Presbyterian Church of years ago:

One time I heard a preacher say, “We don’t believe the Bible; we believe the Christ behind the Bible.” Well, that preacher was wrong. And, by the way, I told her so after that service. Which wasn’t exactly appreciated. But, regardless, she was wrong. If you believe Jesus, then you believe the word that he believed in. One cannot call Jesus Lord and then in effect say Jesus was wrong to trust God’s word as authoritative, so we won’t believe God’s word as authoritative. But there are people who try to get away with this somehow.

In the draft sermon, I continue:

Beware of those who divorce Jesus and the Bible. The result is not the real Jesus, but a pet Jesus who reflects our inclinations rather than God’s. To the politically radical, a pet Jesus is radical; to hippies, a pet Jesus is a hippy; to surfers a pet Jesus is a surfer dude.

Now Jesus may have been radical; he may have had long hair; and he most certainly walked on water like surfers only dream of. But Jesus is much much more than that. Yet if we fall into the foolishness of divorcing him from God’s word, our Jesus will be as small and as distorted as our desires. Our Jesus will not be the real Jesus.

Well, just a few moments after working on those words, I see that Matt+ Kennedy has made a very similar point over at Stand Firm. If we are left to our own inclinations and perceptions, then . . .

One person's Jesus is meek and mild another person's Jesus is Almighty and King and Lord. One person's Jesus is all about non-violence and another's is making whips out of cords. One person's Jesus says that its okay never to go to church because worship takes place in the heart another person's Jesus says go to church every Sunday. There is the emergent Jesus, the inclusive Jesus, the social revolutionary Jesus, the peace and justice Jesus, the green Jesus, the gay Jesus, the straight Jesus the Republican Jesus the Democrat Jesus, the baby Jesus...name your politics, name your movement, name your preferences, name your passions and there is a Jesus for you.

The remedy?

But you don't have to stumble around and wonder, guess, speculate about who God is and what he is like. He speaks. He speaks to you and to everyone else directly and clearly. God has answered that question. When you read scripture, when you come face to face with God's own self-revelation, then you know who God is.

The point is clear. If you seek to know Jesus, to know God, then don’t rely on just your own perceptions. Seek to know His word.

And not just because Matt+ and I say so. ;)

Easter Monday: The Road to Emmaus

The Gospel Lesson for today, Easter Monday, is my favorite post-Resurrection account, the Road to Emmaus, Luke 24:13-35.

One reason I like this account so much is it reveals so much of the personality of the risen Christ. In a way, he’s playful with the two disciples as he talks with them on the road about Himself while concealing his identity from them. At the same time, he's intent to teach and prepare his followers.

Like other post-resurrection accounts, it shows Jesus’ priority to just be with his disciples. He had only 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension, yet he spends an afternoon and an evening with these two. In St. John’s account, he has breakfast with his disciples by the seashore . . . and doesn’t say much during the meal. It seems he mainly wanted to be with them.

Indeed, one of his prayers between the Last Supper and Gethsemane asked “that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am.” (John 17:24) And from John 17:20, we see that he prayed this not just for his disciples at the time, but for us as well!

Doesn’t that go to the heart of why he died and rose again for us? He did it so we can be with Him and He with us . . . forever.