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On this Sunday after Ascension Thursday and before the Feast of Pentecost we follow the example of that first Christian congregation, consisting of the eleven disciples and Jesus’ brothers, together with the women and Mary, Jesus’ mother (Acts 1:13-14).  That little band, hardly more numerous than those of us gathered here today, met together in the upper room in Jerusalem, that same room where Jesus had presided at the Last Supper on the evening of his arrest (Mark 14:15).  They were making the first novena: a nine-day period devoted to prayer and spiritual purification.

The Christian movement began at a time when the Jewish people believed that God was about to bring history to a close, to ransom his chosen people by destroying their enemies, the hated Romans, and to usher in the eternal kingdom of the elect.  Christians too were caught up in this expectation, and that explains the disciples’ question to Jesus, just before his Ascension: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”  (Acts 1:6).  Jesus brushes the question aside: “It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his authority”  (v.7). 

Those anticipating the end of the world thought there were tell-tale signs of the coming of this event, and there are Christians today who seek, in much the same way, to second-guess God.  But, as Jesus says in another place, “The kingdom of God does not come through observation” (Luke 17:20). 

In the church of Thessalonica there were those so convinced of the imminence of the end that they had actually stopped working.  Paul’s response was brief and to the point: “Let him who does not work not eat” (2 Thess 3:10).  Our longing for God’s coming must not lead us to neglect our duties in the present. 

In John’s gospel, as Jesus declares that his hour has come and that his own work is accomplished, he passes on to his disciples the continuation of this work: “I have given them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them”  (John 17:8).  Once Jesus has ascended to the Father, we are his only representatives: “I am no more in the world, but they are in the world” (v.11).  From that point on Jesus has no hands but ours, no lips but ours.  The healing and comfort which he came to give can now only be given through us. 

This is an awesome responsibility which we have all received.  We are nothing less than God’s co-creators: the world which God made is now entrusted into our hands.  What will we make of it?  The end of all things, which the early Christians expected, could suddenly come about in a disastrous and horrific way if we do not take responsibility for God’s world, which is also our world. 

June 5, 2011

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