Easter 7A
May 21, 2023
John 17:1-11
Acts 1:6-14
INTRODUCTION
On this 7th and final Sunday of the Easter season, we always have the option to celebrate either Easter 7 or Ascension Day. Jesus’ ascension happened 40 days after his resurrection, and 10 days before the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost, and so it always falls on a Thursday. This morning we are celebrating Easter 7, but we will still get to hear a part of the Ascension story in our Acts reading. (Luke’s Gospel also tells this story, so if you want to know more, check there!) The disciples have already lost Jesus once, on Good Friday, and now they watch as he leaves them again, rising up into the clouds before their very eyes. Acts tells us that after this, they devoted themselves to prayer.
And I can see why! I can imagine that the ascension left the disciples with a whole new sense of loss, anxiety, and confusion, left again without their teacher… and that makes our reading today from John all the more meaningful. The past two weeks we have heard from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse, words he shared with his disciples on the evening of his arrest. After he shares these words with them, Jesus offers an extensive prayer for them, known as the High Priestly Prayer, the first part of which we will hear today. It’s a remarkable moment where we get to overhear Jesus’ conversation with the Father, and we are truly drawn into a very sacred moment in the company of the divine.
As you listen, enter into these important moments in Jesus’ life on earth – the Ascension, and Jesus’ prayer for us, and imagine how it would have been to be to be there in person. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In the Christian faith, we talk a lot about eternal life. Those words, “eternal life” roll off our tongues, even though we don’t really know exactly what they mean or look like. We know that we are promised eternal life in our baptism, and that it means being with God forever, and perhaps we hope it means we’re going to some place called heaven someday, where perhaps we will see not only Jesus but also our loved ones who have died and maybe even our pets… but there are a lot of unknowns around this, right, because no one has experienced eternal life and come back to talk about it.
Or have we? Hmm…
Tucked right there in the beginning of Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, Jesus gives us a clear, straightforward definition of eternal life – did you catch it? “And this is eternal life,” he says, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t see any mention here of death, or heaven, or seeing Uncle Joe or Fido again on the golden streets. Eternal life is simply this: to know God. To know Jesus.
Now, in one sense, that does still refer to when we die, because it is then that we will “know fully, even as [we] have been fully known,” as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians. But in another sense, eternal life doesn’t begin when we die. We are experiencing it in part right now. Because already, we know Jesus. Or as John would say, we are in relationship with Jesus; we abide with him.
According to John’s Gospel, this has been Jesus’ purpose throughout his ministry: for us to know God by knowing Jesus. To be in such an abiding relationship with Jesus, that our lives are changed. Throughout John’s Gospel we read these incredible stories of Jesus building these life-changing relationships, and making God known, in various ways, and to various kinds of people. Just look at the stories we heard from John during Lent this year:
When Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at the well, he sees her innermost secrets, meets her in her tough questions, and calls her into relationship. Her life is changed, and she testifies to everyone in town: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”
When Jesus meets a man born blind, he approaches the man with love, spreading mud over his eyes, and then the man not only sees the world for the first time, but he sees God face to face. When his neighbors then cast him out of the community, Jesus calls him in, like a shepherd calling his sheep. The man’s life is forever changed.
When Jesus learns Lazarus has died, he goes to the grave, where he weeps with Mary and Martha. He feels their pain with them. Though Lazarus is so dead that there is already a stench, Jesus calls him out of the tomb. Lazarus is unbound, and the family is restored to new life.
And finally on Easter, Mary Magdalene goes looking for the body of Jesus and, when he calls her by her name, she finds him risen. The trajectory of death and life is changed forever.
Over and over, you see, Jesus comes to people, loves them, has compassion for them, and listens to them. He calls them into relationship. They know him, and are known by him, and by this relationship, their lives are changed. By this relationship, they know God, and they experience abundant and eternal life.
As I thought about this theme this week, that relationship with Jesus changes lives, I wondered, but how does this look today? It’s easy to see when it is a physical Jesus walking around, talking to and healing people. But we don’t have him in the flesh anymore. Furthermore, I have always had Jesus in my life, cradle Christian that I am. So, does my relationship with Jesus continue to change my life? After all, he’s always been there. Does your relationship with Jesus change yours? Are you experiencing, here and now, the eternal life that comes from that relationship with God, from knowing God?
When I hear something “changes your life,” I imagine it like a Road to Damascus experience – a one-time deal with a bright light, the voice of Jesus, and something like scales falling from your eyes. I have not had such an experience, I suppose. But that does not mean, however, that my life isn’t continually changed by my relationship with Jesus.
Jesus told his disciples as he ascended into heaven that they would be his witnesses, so, allow me to witness to you for a moment about how I have seen the knowledge of Jesus change lives.
I grew up with Jesus in my life, it’s true, but I have had times when I have tried to reject him, times when I pushed away, thinking I might be better off without. My enduring memory of those times is of fear, and emptiness. It was a time without grounding. Begrudingly, in each case, I would come back saying, “I’m still mad at you, God. I’m still not sure. But I can’t take life without you. I’d rather be mad at you and in relationship, than without you.” And Jesus, I imagine, nodded knowingly, and received me back with grace. And my life was changed.
Another example: I spoke this week with someone who grew up in a very conservative Christian tradition. Boundaries and rules were made very clear, and there was little room for mistakes. The first time she came to a Lutheran church, and heard God’s grace preached, it was like a breath of fresh air. She said, “Now, I could say to God, ‘I’m mad,’ or, ‘I blew it,’ and instead of getting in trouble, I heard God say, ‘I know. Tell me all about it. I’m listening.’” That gracious relationship with God lifted her burden, made space for her various emotions, and drew her closer to Jesus. And her life was changed.
More than anything for me, when I think of how knowing Jesus changes my life, I think of the word “hope,” because my relationship with Jesus has shown me that an end is never the end, and death always leads to some sort of new life. In all of the endings and goodbyes we experience in our lives – some big, some mundane – I find great hope in knowing that, just as God used death on the cross to bring about new life for us all, God can bring new life out of any death or ending I face. By my relationship with Jesus, I can see that. And that changes my life, on a regular basis. It brings me a profound sense of peace, and grants me endurance, and on the really hard days, it is what carries me through to the other side.
This – all of this – is eternal life, here and now. It is the life that comes from knowing Jesus, from being in relationship with the God of life, who came that we may have life, and have it abundantly.
And that is the eternal life to which Jesus calls us to be witnesses. “You will be my witnesses,” he says, before he ascends into heaven – not, “Will you be witnesses?” but, “You are witnesses,” witnesses to the life he brings. The incarnation is over – Jesus has ascended to the Father, but we are still in this world. So the work is ours now: to love one another, and call each other into community, to show compassion to one another, and to tell the stories of how our lives have changed by our knowing Jesus. To share the good news of eternal life, beginning right here, right now.
Let us pray… Gracious God, you change people’s lives, all the time, by entering into relationship with us. Change our lives, we pray, and make us aware of the ways you are doing it. By your love, draw us into eternal life. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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