In terms of the church’s year, today finds us between the Ascension and Pentecost. In terms of the biblical story, the disciples’ Lord and teacher had disappeared from them into the skies. And the Holy Spirit had not yet descended from those same heavenly realms. For the original disciples, the days between the Ascension and Pentecost became a time of limbo, a void of uncertainty, a time of waiting and wondering.
Jesus’ disappearance into the heavens left the disciples and several women on their own. Surely, they asked themselves, “now what?” You can imagine that this was a time of significant anxiety for them. Thus, they locked themselves in an upper room and devoted themselves to constant prayer.
Adding to their anxiety was Jesus’ final words to them at the Last Supper, when Jesus forewarned the disciples of the trouble that they would endure as his followers.
Indeed, the fate that Jesus foretold came to pass for early followers of Jesus as we heard in today’s reading from First Peter: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” (1 Peter 4:12) And more: “Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” (cf. 1 Peter 5:8)
This sounds like events today in our lives of faith. Our current circumstances also, arguably, are a time of trial, of ordeal. Given the heightened animosity on the part of so many in our country toward immigrants and members of the LGBTQIA+ communities, there are times when I feel as though we at Faith-La Fe have a target on our backs. Who knows how this might play itself out among us here in our congregation? And it may be that the people we should fear most are other Christians who claim that our radically public welcome to all is blasphemous.
As the author of 1 Peter suggests, we should not be surprised by the fiery ordeals happening around us today. It’s always been the case that adversaries of various sorts have been prowling around looking for prey.
Amidst these trying times we hear scriptural words of gospel promise, of good news. Here’s what else it says in 1 Peter: “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you….”
And more: “Cast all your anxiety on [God], because he cares for you… And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.” (cf. 1 Peter 14-5:11) Lovely words.
And then there are the gracious words of Jesus at the Last Supper when he prayed to his Father in heaven for his followers: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” (John 17:11b)
These are nice words of assurance. But we need more than nice words, right? It’s like after a mass shooting, all that victims have to go on are “thoughts and prayers.” “Our thoughts and prayers are with you,” our leaders proclaim. Surely, we need more than “thoughts and prayers” during any of life’s trying times….
The good news is that we, in the church, do indeed have more than thoughts and prayers. Amidst our own in-between times, these two thousand plus years between Pentecost and the second coming of Christ, we are not bereft, we are not left as orphans as Jesus also promised in his final teaching to the disciples at the Last Supper.
When we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit next Sunday on Pentecost, we really celebrate the Spirit’s having already come, and we further celebrate the Spirit’s ongoing presence and leading in our life together in the church, propelling us forward to the last day and Christ’s promised return. In short, holy thoughts and prayers among us are accompanied by the powerful actions of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit released the tongues of the apostles at Pentecost to proclaim in the languages of the nations the mighty deeds of God in raising Jesus from the dead. And that’s still happening to this day. The Spirit working through that proclamation led to thousands repenting and being baptized. And people are still repenting and being baptized today. The Spirit’s coming ushered in the new age of the church, the community which devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. These are the very churchly disciplines we maintain to this day, right here, right now.
Through our engagement with the apostles’ teaching, and in our times for fellowship, and amidst our prayers for each other on our prayer lists, and in breaking of bread together at this table, the Spirit opens the portals for us to share fully in all the benefits and blessings of Jesus’ death and resurrection. And through these means of grace, we become the church, the body of Christ in the world today, and thus share intimately in the whole life of the family of God, the Father, the Son, the Spirit.
We get a sense of this intimate, holy-family-interweaving as we overhear again Jesus’ prayer to the Father for his disciples: “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them…. So that they may be one, as we are one.” (cf. John 17:10-11) Such sharing in the Trinitarian family of God is far more than nice words, far more than mere thoughts and prayers.
So, yes, we get thoughts and prayers and much, much more to sustain us in these times of trial. For the words of promise from the scriptures echo through the centuries to our ears, carried on the lips of our beloved siblings in Christ who read the lessons and who preach. Ancient scriptural words come alive again and are embodied in the proclamation of real people, in real time, in real life. In person. In the flesh. These are thoughts and prayers incarnate, made known to us in Christian community, the Word becoming flesh again in our midst.
Moreover, the Eucharist is not just thoughts and prayers, but words and prayers with gifts of creation – bread and the fruit of the vine – which we literally incorporate into ourselves, a re-participation in the Last Supper, a sharing in Christ’s real presence.
Baptism includes thoughts and prayers, to be sure, but the thoughts and prayers of the baptismal liturgy connect with water in the power of the Spirit to generate and forever regenerate new life in us and among us.
Through these means of grace, our faith is enlivened, the flames of the Spirit burn ever more brightly in and among us. And thus, re-vivified, we are sent as Jesus promised in his last words to the disciples recorded in Acts: “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.” (Acts 1:8)
Indeed, we are now those witnesses to the ends of the earth right here in Phoenix, a long, long way away from ancient Palestine. We are Christ’s witnesses when we seek to protect our immigrant siblings. We are Christ’s witnesses who still proclaim welcome and make a safe place for members of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Our witness is embodied in our loving service and advocacy for justice and in our teaching of what it really means to be a faithful Christian today. It’s a witness of resistance to those hell-bent on exclusion, deportation, excommunication, and, alas, worse.
Thus, we are Christ’s countercultural witnesses when adversaries prowl around like lions seeking victims to devour. We resist them firm in our faith. And this for the sake of advancing God’s healing reign among all nations to the ends of the earth as Christ himself restores, supports, strengthens and establishes us and his reign of peace and love. For Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.
