The disciples were standing on a threshold. As they looked behind them, they could see all the wonderful things that they had witnessed during their time with Jesus. His family members thought about how they had gradually come to realize just how extraordinary he really was. His friends remembered how he had persuaded them to leave their old lives behind to join his troupe. Their feet still hurt from walking all the way with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. Then there was his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and that last meal with him. Thinking of him in agony on the cross still brought tears to their eyes, even though a short three days later, he was alive and among them again. He had spent the time since being raised giving them instructions about what they were supposed to do next. Clearly, they’d misunderstood some of his instructions. When a group of them had gone with him to Bethany, they’d asked him about whether he was finally going to claim his throne, and he rebuked them. If he wasn’t going to finally kick out the Romans and rule Israel, then what was he going to do? What’s more, out there at Bethany they had an experience there was no way to describe. They understood in no uncertain terms that Jesus’ earthly life, his life in some kind of physical body, was over. They didn’t know what exactly had happened, or “where” he had gone, so when they told others about what they had experienced, they just described it in terms of the universe they knew. But what mattered was that they knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Jesus was no longer confined to a visible body, that he was no longer subject to the constraints of time and space. They knew and truly believed that he had come from God, and now he had, in some sense, returned to God. And they guessed that now it wasn’t just a small band of Jews in Jerusalem who could be his followers. People everywhere could be his followers, and he would somehow be present wherever those who knew him and loved him were present. As the disciples stood on that threshold, pondering this new revelation, as they looked backward to all that had happened, and as they looked forward to life without Jesus, they wondered, “What’s coming next? Who will we be?”
My friends, don’t we often feel as if we’re standing on a threshold along with the disciples, looking back to a past we can understand, but knowing that our lives have changed, and not sure what’s coming next? Aren’t our whole lives made up of such experiences? That cuddly infant is suddenly graduating from high school. The vows we took on our joyful wedding day have melted away into a bitter divorce. Our nests are empty. What will fill our houses now? We move from one job to another, from one town to another. We loved our jobs, but now we’ve accepted early retirement. What next? We once could hike ten miles up and down a mountain or play tennis all afternoon, but now no longer. Friends move away, and loved ones die. Our own death beckons. As we look through all these doorways, over and over we wonder, what next?
Perhaps we even see ourselves on a threshold as we contemplate the church. As we look backward, we see the early church with its heroic founders and witnesses. We look longingly at the great cathedrals that towered over European cities. We celebrate those who brought the European churches to this country or founded new native denominations. And surely we look backward with fondness and longing at our parishes as they were a generation or two ago, when our churches often were multi-generational social centers. Our pews were filled on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, energy and excitement poured out of Sunday School classrooms, our youth groups were thriving, our bazaars, rummage sales, and dinners supported our ministries, and there were always plenty of people around, both men and women, to do all the work that the church needed to have done. Now as we look around us, we often see closed Sunday school rooms. All the heads in our half-filled pews are gray-headed. Our youth groups have ceded place to travelling hockey teams and middle-school sports. To make matters worse, we’re fighting with each other, within our own congregations, within our denominations, and even with members of other faith communities. We know the church is changing. As we look backwards, many of us feel as if we’ve lost something precious. Yet we know, just as surely as the disciples knew that Jesus had left them, that the church of 1964 will never come again. And so we wonder, what next?
My friends, just before the disciples began to realize that Jesus had left his earthly existence, something else happened to them out there in Bethany: they were given a promise. They were given the promise that they would receive the Holy Spirit, that Christ’s Spirit would be alive in them connecting them with both him and the Father. They were not to receive the gift of the Spirit solely so that they themselves might become more holy, but rather that they might be equipped to proclaim the good news of God in Christ all over the world. On the threshold between what was and what was to come, the disciples were promised the power that would enable them to step over the threshold into the world and begin the real work of advancing Jesus’ ministry. Not looking up to heaven, not trying to get Jesus to come back to earth, but focusing on the work they would be given to do, they returned to Jerusalem, and waited, praying with the others, for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.
And so it is for us. As we stand on the thresholds of our lives we too hear Jesus’ promise. When our personal lives are in transition, we can look backward, but we can also be assured that Jesus holds, strengthens, and empowers us for whatever comes next. In this time of change and transition in the church, with the disciples, we too can claim Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit. We too can fulfill our vows to him and continue to proclaim the good news of God in Christ. We too can, indeed must, claim the power given us in baptism and be Christ in the world around us.
I’d like to share with you an ancient apocryphal story. It is said that as Jesus arrived in heaven following his ascension, the angels all gathered round to welcome him back and ask about his experiences on earth. They wept over his crucifixion but exulted at his triumph over death and at his demonstration of God’s great love for humanity. Finally someone said, “So, Lord, now that you’re no longer physically there, who will continue to share the good news?”
The Lord answered, “I had eleven really close friends. Plus I had a lot of other followers, both women and men. I’ve charged them with getting the word out.”
“Oh, they must be extraordinary people, the best people you could find on earth!”
“No,” said the Lord, “They’re just average, ordinary folks. Nothing extraordinary about them.”
“But are they up to the job, Lord?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure,” he answered.
“You can’t be sure, Lord? What if they fail? What’s your backup plan?”
Jesus answered quietly, “There is no backup plan.”1
Yes, friends, there is no backup plan. Jesus has entrusted his mission to us. Just as he did on the first Ascension Day, he continues to charge us with carrying his ministry forward. He depends on us to proclaim the good news, to teach, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, and advocate for those who have no one else to advocate for them. Having left his earthly existence, he depends on us to let ourselves be filled with his Spirit and work together to bring his reign closer. Writer Ray Stedman reminds us that the Ascension presents us with an “incarnational mandate.” He tells us that, “The good news does not come by means of angels. It is not announced from heaven by loud, impersonal voices. It doesn’t even come by poring over dusty volumes from the past. In each generation, the Gospel is delivered by living, breathing men and women who speak from their own experience. Most of us seem to require models that we can follow. In the same way, God’s love must somehow become visible and personal before it is caught by others. There is a strong personal element about the Gospel which cannot be eliminated without harm.”2
We look backward. Then we step over our own thresholds, in both our personal and our church lives, perhaps with fear and uncertainty. We may not be sure what our future will look like, or where God is leading us. But if we take seriously Jesus’ promise to the disciples as he was leaving them, we can live hopefully into the future. We can trust that Jesus will fulfill his promises to us and enable us to continue to proclaim the good news and minister in his name.
1. Adapted from David Leininger, “Clouded Vision,” Tales for the Pulpit (Lima OH: CSS Publishing, 2007, 94.
2. Synthesis, June 2, 2011, 4.
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