Father, may they be one, even as we are one, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me… I desire that they…may be with me where I am… St. John 17:20-26
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Church’s Easter calendar follows the chronology laid down by Saint Luke in his Book of Acts, which says that after Jesus’ death and the discovery of his empty tomb by the disciples, Jesus appeared in many ways to his disciples over a period of forty days. On the fortieth day, which in this year’s calendar was this past Thursday, Jesus appeared and in the disciples’ sight ascended into heaven, as a cloud received him out of their sight. That same cloud, which is no cumulus or cirrus but rather the biblical shekinah cloud of God’s presence and glory, is the cloud involved in Jesus’ Second Advent which we hear and sing of next Advent Sunday.
The Church lives in the meantime, between Jesus’ first and second Advent, as time presses forward towards its end. The risen, glorified Lord has ascended into highest, or if you will, deepest, heaven, into the heart of the Godhead. But how are we, in the meantime, to know the presence of Christ?
When I was a boy devoted to the person of Jesus, I did not like to hear the passages from the Gospel in which Jesus tells his disciples that it is good for them that he go away, for if he does not go away, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, will not come. I thought: Heaven gets Jesus; we on earth get the Church instead; that is a poor trade. Years later at Yale Divinity School I heard a fellow student voice the same complaint.
Now I see the goodness and necessity of Jesus’ bodily withdrawal. Had he not gone away (ascended), the Church would have forever remained a small circle focused inward on the risen Lord, overwhelmed by his glory, unwilling and unable to move away from it. Instead, Jesus ascended, and he sent in his place the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and that little inward-turning circle was filled with power, turned outward, and driven to the four corners of the earth, and through generations and ages, bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ even to New York City’s corner of Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street.
God knows we still need physical, incarnate signs of the Body of Christ, even as Jesus reigns in heaven. We know what some of these are. First, there is the Word of God written, particularly the Gospels and writings of the Apostles which comprise the New Testament of the Holy Scriptures. There are then the Sacraments of the New Covenant of Christ – Holy Baptism, the Holy Eucharist we are celebrating now. Or Confirmation by the Bishop which we celebrated two weeks ago. There are also the more personal intimate sacramental rites such as the anointing of the sick and confession of sins. [I recall my own first use of confession as a seminarian. I felt the presence of Christ’s forgiveness as immediately as the various people in the Gospels such as the woman at Jesus’ feet.]
There is one other sign of Jesus’ presence that is given the greatest emphasis of all by Jesus and the apostles who heard, saw and touched him. That sign is love, manifested among his disciples. Love one another, said Jesus, as I have loved you. This is his “new commandment,” given the night before he died. It is greater than the universal golden rule, which says to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Greater love has no man than this, said Jesus, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, he continued, if you do what I command you. “This I command you, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Ancient Greek has three words for love where English has one. Eros is erotic or romantic, passionate love. Philia is soul-mate love, friendship, kinship of spirits. Both of these are important, and humans have a God-given need to give and to receive sincere gifts of love in these forms. But there is a third word, agape, which dominates the New Testament and which means self-sacrificing love. This love is embodied in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who defined this love once and for all and said, love one another as I have loved you.
Yesterday here, at a wedding, as we often do, we heard read the famous passage on love, agape, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, with its immortal phrases. But it was not originally written for marriages; nor was it an abstract poem in praise of love. It comes straight out of the Apostle’s Corinthian file with the heading, “Conflicts”! Behold, I show you a better way, he writes: love, self-giving love, agape. Churches which manifest this kind of love are communities which refresh us with the presence of Christ, communities which make us of good cheer, for they like our Lord have overcome the world. It is always timely, particularly now, to rehearse ourselves in the basics of this most fundamental love. Following the Apostle, this love, agape, is most essentially a matter of the expression of good will. Love, agape, caritas, he says, is patient and kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it is able to forgive and to ask for forgiveness; it does not rejoice at the wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.
Furthermore, love never ends. Faith and hope are fulfilled, in the end, when we see the ascended, glorified Lord in the heart of God. Love, however, will be absolutely necessary to enjoy that sight and vision of the Lord, because God is love. Without love we could not bear, we would dislike, the very sight of God.
Let us train ourselves, as individuals and as a church community, in this love. We have much to learn, but if we try, we can grow. It is not always sentimental or romantic, but it is the most beautiful thing in the world. In today’s Gospel Jesus prayed that we would be one, one in love, as he and his Father are one, so that the world would believe that the Father had sent him. On that basis, he went on to pray his desire that we would be with him in his eternal glory with the Father. May our beloved parish be a place where the presence of Christ is known in the beauty of holiness, above all in the grace of love, and where those seeking the Kingdom of God may find sustenance and refreshment on their way.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
