Tags
Acts of the Apostles, apostles, ascension, Christianity, Episcopal Church, Faith, Gospel of John, Gospel of Luke, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, pastor, Pentecost, Romans, Shekinah
Saying “goodbye” can be really tough. I can remember the summer I spent completing my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Brooklyn Hospital in New York, we spent about a month on what we called “termination.” Termination referred to the end of our summer program, and saying “goodbye” to the other chaplains with whom I had served that hot and difficult summer, but it also referred to the challenging and emotionally wrenching work of saying “goodbye” to our patients. Some of those goodbyes were to individuals who had come into the hospital for surgery or some other procedure and would soon be going home. Other “goodbyes” were shared with individuals who would not be going home, whose earthly journeys would end at Brooklyn Hospital. That summer in Brooklyn was tough, but ultimately rewarding and important in my formation as a pastor. I learned then the importance of being able to say goodbye and to let go. When we consider the end of life, and saying “goodbye” to someone we love, we have to remember that the end of this life is also the beginning of something new; or, as we say in our funeral rite, life has changed, it has not ended. For those who are alive in Christ, death ultimately has been defeated—but this mortal body will pass away. We must be willing to let go…
In our passage from Acts we read that after Jesus had told his disciples to go and be his witnesses, “as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” The best comparison I have for one aspect of their experience is that of when we release a helium-filled balloon and stand there watching it ascend up into the clouds until it is out of sight. I can imagine the apostles doing the same, standing there, watching as the cloud—which we can understand as the Shekinah cloud spoken of in the book of Daniel. In Daniel the Son of Man appeared before the Ancient of Days, arriving on the Shekinah cloud of God’s glory. This cloud appears again here in Acts to take Jesus back from whence he came. And so the apostles I imagine are standing there, amazed, as the cloud climbs higher and higher and higher up into the heavens, until they can no longer see it. This is their goodbye to the earthly Jesus.
Apparently they remain there for some time, because we next read that angels appeared to them with a question: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” The message implied here is, “Stop gawking, fellas, and get back to work!”
Luke does not record for us the emotional impact of Jesus’ departure on the apostles. The verses that follow tell us simply that they returned to Jerusalem as Jesus had instructed; and they continued in prayer and supplication, and attended to the work of adding a new apostle, Matthias to replace the departed Judas. And, of course, they awaited the Holy Spirit.
That is what is really important here. You see, the apostles needed for Jesus to go, they needed to have their “goodbye” and mark that end of their ministry. That end represented a new beginning. Jesus had to go away for the spread of the Gospel and the work of the church to continue. Listen to what Jesus says during his Farewell Discourse—or the “long goodbye”—in John’s Gospel, chapter 15: “it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate [the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you…when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak of his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Jesus has to go so that the Spirit can come to us. That is why some say we live now in the “Age of the Spirit,” because it is God’s Spirit who is active and alive in the world today. But for that age to commence, for the Spirit to come, Jesus had to leave. There was an end that lead to a new beginning.
For the apostles the days had ended when they were connected to a flesh and blood Jesus. But consider what would have been the case had Jesus not have ascended. Even in his resurrected body, Jesus would have been able to be at one place in one time; he was still restricted to a large extent by his physical embodiment. The disciples, likewise, were bound to that flesh-and-blood Jesus. In his ascension, and with the gift of the Spirit, the disciples were then linked to the same God but a Jesus who was not bound by physicality. They were now linked to someone who is forever independent of space and time. The same is true for us. While none of us knew the flesh and blood Jesus, we too, like the disciples, are linked forever to our God who is forever independent of space and time. And it is that God who commands us to be his witnesses in the world, witnesses to the testimony of the apostles and witnesses to the work of the Spirit in our own lives.
So we have this end, and the beginning. The apostles did not leave this scene heartbroken; Luke, in the gospel that bears his name, tells us that after the ascension the disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the Temple praising God.” They were filled with joy because “they had a Master from whom nothing could separate them anymore.” When the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, an indissoluble bond was created between Creator and created. The connection established by grace through faith between God and us can never be broken; as Paul wrote to the Romans, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The bond that binds us to God is the seal of the Holy Spirit.
Finally, in the ascension and in the Pentecost event to come, the disciples were to find they had a friend and an advocate in heaven, as well as a comforter and an advocate on earth in the person of the Holy Spirit. Surely it is the most precious thing of all to know that in heaven we have a great high priest, Jesus, who intercedes for us constantly, acting as our mediator and advocate with the Father. The same Jesus who died for us and rose again awaits us in heaven; he has, as he told his disciples, gone on ahead of us to prepare a place for us so that one day we might join him there (John 14). So that when we have to say our “goodbyes” here on earth, when we pass through that veil that separates this life from the next, we can do so in the anticipation that we will have a glorious “hello” with our Lord and all the saints who have gone before us. It is important for us to be able to say goodbye, and to let go, because in all our endings we will find new and exciting beginnings. Amen.