Pinky swear, cross my heart, my lips are sealed, let’s shake on it, speak a vow, sign a contract – these are all things we say or do when we make a promise. Some are professional level promises and others are more personal. A friend of mine shared that a friend of hers sent her a photo of a contract she found in her daughter’s room. It was a contract between the two women’s daughters… a best friend contract. It included things like “I promise to be your best friend even when you act crazy in public.” The two daughters are moving in together this fall and have decided to hang the contract, newly framed, in their apartment as a constant reminder of the promise they made when they were twelve.
Life, of course, is full of promises – promises made and promises broken – it can be a wild ride. Given the proliferation of promises in human life there is little wonder why the Bible has so many of them in the stories we find there. Same story – promises made and promises broken. It’s just part of the human experience, none of us are immune to it.
Today, we focus on the story of Jesus’ Ascension… it’s a story that we tend to touch on briefly or at all in our liturgical life mostly because I tend to avoid preaching on it. Now, in my defense it is a mid-week festival day (kinda like Maundy Thursday without the food) so it takes intention to focus on it on a Sunday. It also happens to be one of those funny (not funny haha but funny huh) post Easter resurrection appearance stories that are hard to explain so most sound minded ministers tend to sidestep it.
But this week, as I half heartedly read the story (as I had zero intention of actually wrestling with the passage), something snagged my attention – as it does sometimes with scripture – actually it was two somethings: the words promise and blessing.
The last chapter of Luke is jammed packed, covering the entire resurrection story which seems to happen over the course of one day. After the women find the tomb empty early on Easter morning, the resurrected Jesus spends the next few hours popping in and out of the disciples’ lives. He shows up on the road to Emmaus, then there’s the mention of his appearing to Simon (although we don’t get the details on what happens there), and now he appears again in Jerusalem, asking for snacks and assuring his followers, his closest friends, that they don’t need to worry, this is all part of the bigger plan. The divine plan. Then he leads them back to Bethany and eventually starts to float away in a very Mary Poppins-esque way. But before he goes he does two things: 1. He tells them that he is sending to them what God has promised to send – the Holy Spirit. And 2. He blesses them.
To know that the resurrection is grounded in God’s promise of being with us always, through the Holy Spirit – is a powerful thing, friends. This knowledge lets us move past the part of resurrection that we maybe struggle with so that we can actually embrace what it means in our everyday, ordinary lives. Commentator and preacher Karoline Lewis put it this way: “There are a lot of empty promises that make up our lives, but resurrection isn’t one of them. And some days, perhaps many days, all we need is one promise we know won’t be broken to make it through… Resurrection is often relegated to a belief of the church to which we simply comply and that which we by rote confess. We go through the motions each Easter, each time the creed is said, but how often do we stop and say that resurrection makes a difference for how I live my day to day? What might it feel like to know that the promise of resurrection is mine now? I think that’s in part what Jesus is praying for, for the disciples to be able to hear that his resurrection is a promise to believe in.”
The Resurrection says that through God’s love and presence we find new life – not just eternal life after all this earthy business of living is said and done, but new life right here, right now. God’s resurrection promise is that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, things can get better: hearts can heal, relationships can be mended, forgiveness can be given and received, hope can thrive, peace can be established, faith can be nurtured, the hungry can be fed, the lost can be found. This promise is grounded solely in God’s abundant grace, which truth be told is a good thing because if it is left up you and I alone, well, we’d likely make a mess of it. I suppose that God might have an inkling of that particular fate if it were solely left to us, which is where the blessing part of the story comes in.
Nadia Bolz Webber wrote about Luke 24 saying “when I read the whole chapter you know what stood out for me for the very time? It wasn’t the angels and the magically disappearing and re-appearing Jesus, and it wasn’t even him floating up to heaven, what stood out to me were all the words used to…describe Jesus’ followers… Here they are (in order): let’s see if you relate to these at all: perplexed, terrified, disbelieving, amazed, eyes closed, hopes dashed, foolish, astounded, hearts burning, startled, thinking they were seeing ghosts, frightened, doubtful, joyful, wondering, witnesses of repentance and forgiveness, worshippers of God. I take that to mean that THE disciples who were with Jesus when we walked the earth then sound about as impressive as WE disciples who walk it now. I find that list deeply comforting.”
And it makes the blessing Jesus offered as he ascended integral to this ministry that we’re called to, and this body of Christ we are invited to take our place in. Last week we gave space to how families can be complicated. Being in relationship with others is risky business. But in the very moment that Jesus leaves this physical world he raises his arms and hands and blesses them. Luke doesn’t give the words he used, but I like to think that it might be something close to this:
Blessed are you who keep going when the road is hard and when it’s too hard to let others help. Blessed are you who are brave enough to life your prayers to God – the ones filled with gratitude, the ones filled with anger, the ones filled with doubt and fear and sorrow, and the ones filled with love – lifting them all knowing that God can take whatever it is you are sending out. Blessed are you who rely on hope when all things feel broken, who share your hope with others when they are despairing, and who open yourselves to the hope of those around you when yours has run out. Blessed are you who hold fast to this resurrection promise – God’s promise that we are not alone, that grace and hope surround us.
Maybe it was something like that… while we can only guess at his actual words what we can know is that he kept blessing as he ascended. And in his ascension place he is still blessing us, showering on each of us, the exact blessing that you need in your life in this moment. May you feel that today… may you feel the presence and power of that blessing falling upon you now and always. Amen.
