When the apostles had come together, they asked Jesus, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” This is a good verse to remember when people announce a date when the End (the Last Judgment, the Second Coming) will take place.
Then Jesus gives the version of the Great Commission in Acts. (The passage commonly called the Great Commission is at the very end of Matthew -- Matthew 28:16-20, our Gospel on June 19, Trinity Sunday. We will heart Jesus say: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”
The Risen Jesus said to his disciples – and says to us, his 21st century disciples:
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
“you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you”
The Holy Spirit is God present with us, dwelling within us (Paul said our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.) The Holy Spirit gives us strength and wisdom and love to give – in order to follow Jesus on his way of self-giving love.
“you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.”
What does it mean to be Jesus’ witness?
· To tell his story.
· To tell the Good News of God’s saving love for every person in the story of Jesus.
· To tell the Good News in both Word and Sacrament. Baptism and Eucharist themselves witness to Jesus.
· To witness in our lives – in loving service.
· We remember that beginning with Stephen in the Book of Acts, followers of Jesus have witnessed to him by literally laying down their lives for him. The word “martyr” comes from the Greek word for “witness.” If we are called someday to lay down our lives, may God give us courage and faithfulness in that hour. We are all – each one of us – called to follow Jesus on his way of self-giving love, the way of discipleship, which always costs something.
· Witnessing to Jesus can mean telling our own story, of what Jesus means in our lives. Sharing our own journey can help others discover their journey.
When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
In the Hebrew Bible the cloud was one of the great images of the presence and action of God. The Hebrew people were led through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day. The cloud covered Mount Sinai when Moses went there, to be with God. The cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, that first – portable -- ancestor of the Temple in the wilderness. For me it is an especially good image of the presence of the unseen God, who comes to us as Holy Spirit – unseen like the breath we breathe.
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
The followers of Jesus went back to Jerusalem. The list is interesting – it includes the 11 who left of the original 12 disciples, plus the women, including “Mary the mother of Jesus.”
All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer…”
I have a special love for these days of prayer between Ascension Day (June 2 this year) and Pentecost (Sunday, June 12).
When they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
John 17:1-11
Our Gospel today (John 17:1-11) is the long prayer, prayed by Jesus on the night before he died. Introducing this passage, William Temple wrote: “We now come to what is, perhaps, the most sacred passage even in the four Gospels – the record of the Lord’s prayer of self-dedication …” (Readings in St. John’s Gospel, page 307)
In the Fourth Gospel God’s glory is the self-giving love we see in Jesus, above all when he laid down his life for us on the cross.
Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come;”
This is one of three times in John’s Gospel when Jesus said his hour had come. When we think about when it happens, it is always something of a shock and surprise. For it is when the story of his cross had begun.
How is that an hour of glory, let alone the hour of glory? It is in no way a glorification of suffering – it is also the hour judgment when the evil done by human beings to cause suffering is shown for what it is.
But it is the hour when Jesus faced what came – faced evil – in self-giving love. That is the very nature of God – the primary characteristic of God. We see God’s love in everything Jesus did and said, but above all when we see him love completely on the cross.
“ glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
Listen now to Jesus’ prayer for all of us – all those in every generation and place around the globe – all those given to him by the Father.
"I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. "
He prays that we all may be one, as he and the Father are one. The search for unity in the Christian Church is rooted in this prayer of Jesus.
(Raymond Webster)
_________________________________________________________________
The Bible texts of the Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel lessons are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
