The Re-set button

Thumbnail image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

Clare L. Hickman

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale

May 16, 2021—Ascension

Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53     

          It had been forty days since the great shock of the Resurrection. Forty days in which Jesus had moved through locked doors, appeared in their midst, surprised his followers when they gradually recognize his presence. Forty days in which they had him back: not exactly like before, when they all traveled together from town to town, with Jesus healing the sick and casting out demons and consorting with all the wrong kind of people. But still, they must have had hopes. It could go back to the way it was, surely.

          Then the Ascension put the lie to that.

          He’s going. In fact, he’s already gone. Leaving them slack-jawed, and more than a little unsure as they returned to Jerusalem as he had commanded, to await the Holy Spirit. Ten days, they had. Ten days to contemplate life as The Jesus Followers, without Jesus actually walking around with them. Ten days to imagine what it would be like to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. Ten days to feel excited and terrified and woefully unprepared to go out and proclaim repentance and forgiveness to all nations.

          We don’t hear many details of those days, but it must have been quite a time.

          It was a time in which everything needed to be re-imagined. Unlike the Crucifixion, which made it seem like it was all over, the Ascension made it clear that the Jesus Movement was just beginning. But it would clearly look very different from the band of disciples traveling around with Jesus the wonder-working rabbi.

          Who would they be, without him there, literally walking beside them? And why on earth would anyone listen to them?

          It was a time of radical redefinition for the disciples: the chance (the need!) to rethink everything. Because there was no real rut to be stuck in, and everything they carried with them, would be something they CHOSE to bring. It was a time of open questions, full of uncertainty and possibility: What had they been, and what WOULD they be, going forward?

          Our current situation in the Late Pandemic might well give us insight into what that’s like. After all, we have been given the rare experience of putting large parts of our previous life on hold, for long enough that there has been a reset of sorts. An article by Arthur Brooks in the Atlantic is not alone in suggesting we now take some time to ask ourselves two questions: “What did I dislike from before the pandemic and don’t miss?” and “What do I like from the pandemic times that I will miss?”[i]

          After all, it’s not hard to think of things we miss from pre-pandemic times. But the current moment offers us a marvelous chance to seriously consider what we haven’t missed at all, and ask ourselves which of them we could possibly NOT return to. People who brought out the worst in you, or just brought you down. Habits or activities that were draining rather than life-giving. Routines that stole time in ways that you hadn’t even noticed before.[ii] Write them down. Interrogate them all seriously, and ask what can be left behind, or at the very least be modified?

          And then there’s the list of things to keep. The pandemic has forced many of us to go deep, or broaden ourselves. We’ve perhaps discovered new interests or new reserves for keeping ourselves company. And the inability to meet in person has encouraged many of us to strengthen our contacts with friends and family across the world.

          We just might know ourselves better now. We’ve learned what we truly need to thrive (perhaps from the lack of it), and have a deeper appreciation for the kinds of connection that feed our souls. And that’s knowledge that can guide our re-set, as we consider how we will put things together in a new way, as we emerge in the coming year.

          What will we leave behind? What will carry us forward?

In many ways, these are the questions the disciples were living with in those days following the Ascension. Some things they didn’t have much choice about: Jesus wasn’t going to be traveling with them the way he once did. And they themselves would be scattered, following Jesus’ command to go to all nations. So they needed to think what to bring with them, from before. What was it that had drawn them to him in the first place? What truth was it that filled them with so much hope? And how could they take up the power he promised, and persuade people to lift up their heads and catch sight of the kingdom of God?

          It would all be new and different, and a whole lot more difficult, without Jesus there in person to draw the crowds and perform the signs, without him there telling stories, and drawing people into conversation so effortlessly. Somehow, they would need to adjust to him being present with them in a whole different way. And would need to feel that presence so strongly they could make him present to other people: to everyone they told his story to, as they went on their travels.

          Which is, of course, what happened. After he ascended, not only were they filled with the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, but they also discovered that Jesus was still with them somehow. With them in a new way, that reminds me of something Episcopal priest Barbara Crafton once said about the way her parents remained with her, after they died.

          “Both my parents have been present to me in new ways since they left this life: more flexible, very mobile and quick, able to come into my heart even before I think of them.  My memory of them is composed only of the past, and it is rich, but my experience of them now is definitely in the present: they are around.”[iii] [I don’t even need to pick up the phone.]

          The connection she describes is mysterious, but some of you might recognize what she’s saying. And in time, the disciples came to recognize the living presence of Jesus amongst them, to feel the connection that remained … constant now, ever and always as near as breathing …. different and yet in a way stronger.

          Strong enough to send them out. Vivid enough that they told the story to others, people who hadn’t even met the earthly Jesus, and they too somehow knew the presence of Christ and recognized it as a glimpse of God.

          The Ascension was the re-set, the point at which the disciples set the example for all the followers of Jesus who would come after them. Because we too are given this same task—not just for our post-pandemic reality, but in our life as followers of Jesus—to assess what we know and what we have, what’s crucial to God’s kingdom and what can be left behind; and then to walk out into the world.

We will not be alone. Strangely, powerfully, mysteriously: Christ will be with us. The source of divine love and power will be with us. May we know it to be so. Amen.

[i] Arthur C. Brooks, “A Once-in-a-Lifetime Chance to Start Over: It’s time to prepare for a new and better normal than your pre-pandemic life,” May 13, 2021

[ii] ibid

[iii] Barbara Cawthorne Crafton, http://www.geraniumfarm.org/dailyemo.cfm?Emo=408, © 2005