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The Seventh Sunday Of Easter
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Scripture citation(s): Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20; John 17:20-26
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20; John 17:20-26
✛
The Presence of Christ in Works of Love
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In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The last ten days of Eastertide traditionally have been called Ascensiontide, following Saint Luke’s description of the time after Jesus’ death on Good Friday and resurrection on the third day. Over a period of forty days Jesus presented himself alive to his apostles after his passion by many proofs while speaking of the kingdom of God. At the end of this time Jesus told the apostles to stay and wait in Jerusalem, to receive “power from on high,” the Holy Spirit. While they looked on, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud received him from their sight as he ascended into heaven.¹
This past Thursday was Ascension Day, forty days after Easter Day. Next Sunday is the Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth and last day of Eastertide. Following an old custom we extinguished the Paschal candle after the Gospel on Ascension Day, signifying the cessation of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to the twelve apostles and the nine days of waiting for the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.
It helps to view the whole Paschal Mystery – Christ’s passion and death, his empty tomb and resurrection on the third day, his many appearances and then his ascension into heaven, and finally his self-replacement by the Person and power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s pentecostal descent inaugurates the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole world, carries the Paschal Mystery through time and space, and eventually reaches and incorporates us into Christ’s Body, which is his Church.
In today’s Gospel from Saint John, Jesus, just before his passion, prays that his disciples and those who believe in him through their word (that is, us) will be one, just as he and his Father are one, so that the world may believe that the Father sent him. Thus Paul and Silas, in today’s swashbuckling story in the Acts of the Apostles (our first reading), take Christ’s Gospel to Europe, to Macedonia. And, more mystically in today’s Epistle, Saint John hears the Lord’s invitation to enter the heavenly city in his Revelation, to behold the glory of the Holy Trinity from before the foundation of the world and even to the end of time.
These glories are not only long ago and far away; they are here and now. Jesus’ Ascension is an ever-present reality, the same yesterday, today and for ever. He presides over the world, he holds it in his hand, he judges and repays all in justice and in truth according to their deeds; he also saves from their sins all who believe and trust in him; and above all, if we wish to be his friends (as he calls us to be), he commands us to love one another as he has loved us.
For three straight Sundays the appointed Gospel has concerned Jesus’ commandment to love. If this seems repetitive, it is meant to be, for God knows we are forgetful and dull of hearing. When Christ commands us to love one another as he has loved us, he means that we are to “lay down” our lives. This entails setting aside our self-absorption for concern for the other person; denying our self-will in order to hear God’s word and obey God’s will; silencing our own noise to listen to another’s cry.
Loving is not the same thing as liking. Jesus first of all speaks of an act of the will more than a feeling. His command to love is primarily ethical and religious, not aesthetic. He himself sets the example: While we were still enemies [of God], says St. Paul, Christ died for us, reconciling the world to himself. Herein is love, says St. John, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave himself for us, the propitiation for our sins. You did not choose me, said, Jesus, but I chose you. God in Christ takes the initiative, makes love’s first move, towards us. If we are to be his friends, we are commanded to love similarly in response – to hop to it and do the works of love.
This love involves deeds much more than feelings. Loving deeds may very well in due course brings our feelings into line; and if so, bravo and hallelujah. But we are commanded to love our enemies, which is very far from liking, far above feelings of fondness and affection. We are to pray for those who persecute us, to bless those who curse us, to do good in any case. For if we love only those who love us, what credit is that to us, said Jesus; even the heathen do the same. But if we love our enemies, we begin to resemble our heavenly Father, who makes his rain to fall and sun to shine on the selfish and unjust as well as the just and generous. We are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is.² So we have a gritty spiritual battle on our hands. We are enlisted by the love of Christ to beat down Satan under our feet. Christ’s battle overcomes evil with good. The Apostle writes, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirty, give him drink. For by so doing, you heap hot coals on his head.”³ Who knows, you may win him; he may turn into your friend.
The Church herself provides us with many opportunities for works of love. We could start by loving those around us who annoy us, our “un-friends.” Here it helps to think of love for what it is in its highest form, charity: This begins by willing the good for the other person; this means killing our malice, replacing ill will with good will. The grace of Christ overcomes our sinful desires to climb over one another, to put one another down, to bite and devour, to get and grasp, to acquire and possess. Our hands are changed from claws and fists into the fingers and palms of tender mercy and loving-kindness. This is the basic training for the soldier of Christ. The love of Christ involves a renewal of the mind and heart which fosters all sorts of newfound courtesy, kindness, graciousness.
When genuine love is in evidence in the Church, we experience the presence of the living Christ through the power of the Spirit. We are one, as the Father and the Son are one. This is what the Lord means as he prays, “that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹Acts 1:1-11
²St. Matthew 5:43-48
³Romans 12:12-21
