by Pat Lee
(Based on John 17:1-11; Acts 1:6-14; 1Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11)
Today is the ‘Sunday after Ascension’, when Jesus was taken back up to heaven. Suddenly the disciples find themselves on their own. But, are they?
In the reading from Acts it seems that the disciples still have missed the point of why Jesus came. They are asking him if he is going to restore the kingdom to Israel; but Jesus tells them that that is not for them to know, because it is the Father who gives that authority, not him, and, besides, he knows that he is about to leave them.
He has just been telling them in the previous few verses that they are to stay in Jerusalem where they will receive ‘the gift of the Holy Spirit’, which he had previously promised them – an indication that he will not be staying. So, it seems to me that they are still not aware that Jesus is about to leave them.
He tells them again that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on them, so that they will be able to be witnesses there in Jerusalem, but also throughout all Judea, Samaria and right “to the ends of the earth”. (Which now includes us.) He’s not saying it directly, but he is telling them that they will be carrying on the work that he himself started here on earth, because he is leaving.
While they are standing there contemplating what he has said, Jesus disappears from their sight. I wonder how long it took them for the ‘penny to drop’? Well, it took two men dressed in white to come and stand before them and explain that Jesus had gone back to heaven. So, I wonder what was going through their minds then?
I can imagine myself in a similar situation where my mind would have been working overtime with questions like, “What do we do now? How are we going to manage without him? Who is going to teach us?” So, the eleven disciples return to Jerusalem, to the upstairs room, and join with Jesus’s mother and various others, where they pray – the most sensible and logical thing to do.
When I read today’s readings, my first thought was, “Where to start … How do I find something new and challenging to say?” So, what was the most sensible and logical thing for me to do? Pray.
Writing, and especially reflection, does not come easily to me, to which my English teacher at school would very happily testify if he were here. I struggled at school with English, especially writing essays. So, how do I cope now? Through prayer. Because over the years of my Christian walk I have learnt that I can’t trust myself; but I can trust my God. It’s about knowing how to trust and depend on his help when you need it. It’s about what the disciples had to learn and to do, now that Jesus had left them.
In 1 Peter 4, Peter says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” This is a lesson Peter and the rest of the disciples had to learn, just as we do. Peter was an uneducated fisherman before he met Jesus. He had a lot to learn. He was hot-headed and often spoke before he thought. Jesus had to rebuke him several times, but in the Scripture I just quoted we can see how far he had come in those three years of guidance he received from Jesus. He learnt how to trust him and follow his example. He learnt that he had an ability he didn’t even know he had.
Peter became a great orator (which we will probably hear in the Acts reading next week). That would have been unthinkable three years before. He became “the Rock” that Jesus said he would be.
We need to remember these verses when the going gets tough in our lives, and when we don’t know where to turn or what to do. We need to pray just like the disciples did in that upper room when Jesus had left them. That was their best and only choice.
The Gospel reading has Jesus praying to his father. Interestingly, this is not at his Ascension, but is, in fact, at the Passover meal he shared with the disciples prior to his arrest and crucifixion. Jesus is praying out loud in front of them. He is praying for himself and for them. The things he puts forward in this prayer are those things he came to earth to do, and did.
Firstly, he prays for himself. This is not a selfish prayer but one that pointed people past himself to the Father. Jesus’s work was the work of the Father, and was aimed at giving people eternal life. The Father and the Son enjoyed joyful fellowship before Jesus even came to earth, and that is what he was going back to. That is what he wants the disciples to experience as well, joyful fellowship with him and the Father. It’s in Jesus’s relationship with his Father that he is glorified, as we have seen in his ministry, because he did everything the Father asked him to do. The Holy Spirit was being sent to the disciples so that they also would be able to do the things that Jesus did, through the power of the Spirit.
Secondly, he prays for the disciples. Jesus’s prayer was that his disciples be instruments and reflectors of what came from the Father through him, and that they might enjoy the unity that he, the Son, had with the Father. Jesus did not count himself as being equal with the Father, but ’emptied himself’, taking on the form of a servant, having been born as a human being.
The relation of Father and Son as distinct persons was and is the model for unity. William Temple said, “This unity is something much more than a means to an end – even though that end be the evangelisation of the world; it is itself the one worthy end of all human aspiration.”
What does all this mean for us today? For those of us who have a personal relationship with Jesus, it means that we too can carry on with doing God’s work through the power of the Spirit. When opportunities arise, have the courage to speak about our faith and what it means for us. It means that when tough times come, we do not need to be anxious, worried or overly concerned about how to deal with them. We need to turn them over to God in prayer and ask for his help; because that is what he wants us to do.
It means that the prayer Jesus prayed for the disciples on that night of the Passover also applies to us. Jesus was asking the Father to protect us by the power of his Name because we belong to him too.
Bishop Bruce Gilberd put it this way in his book One Thought for Today: “We need to harvest meanings from our experiences. After Jesus’s resurrection, the first disciples did just this, they harvested fresh and profound meaning from the three years they spent with their Master.”
Amen
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