In the After-Glow of Easter

In the After-Glow of Easter
John 17:20-26;
Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21


It was easy to get caught up in the fervor of all the “Alleluias” on Easter Day. Worship does itself. We know the story, although it is always good to hear it again. We are in the mood for the occasion. It is special, with lilies and tulips, boutonnieres and corsages, new clothes, and visiting family. “The Lord is risen!” trips off our tongues so wonderfully well. And we really do affirm it.

But now it is the forty-third day after the Resurrection of Christ. The Easter exuberance has waned. The flowers have faded and withered. Easter is just a memory. What did we eat and where? Who were we with?

Added to that, the church calendar says that last Thursday commemorates Christ’s Ascension. The risen Christ isn’t with us any more. He’s gone off and left us. And two white-robed men appeared and had the nerve to say to us, “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” (Acts 1:11). Where else are we going to look if not toward heaven? And if Jesus is coming back that way, shouldn’t we be looking that direction?

So not only are we in the dying after-glow of Easter, the one who made it light up so well has left us in the darkness of the world. After all, wasn’t Easter about lighting the darkness? Didn’t Jesus the Christ, God’s only Son, cross the barrier of death and return triumphant not only over what kills the physical body, but also over what snuffs out the eternal spark of the divine image in us? Now he’s up and gone away. What good is a risen Savior if he isn’t with us?

Well, yes, he did tell us that if he went and prepared a place for us, he would come again and take us to himself, so that where he is, there we may be also (John 14:3). I guess that is all well and good, but it sure leaves us in an in-between time, after resurrection and before return. And we have been in this time for ever. Not just “you-and-me” we, but lots of other “we”s – generations of people who heard about Jesus and were blessed because they believed in him even though they never met him face to face. So what are we supposed to do, while we wait, while our bodies give out in the endless waiting for eternity?

The closing words of Jesus’ last prayer with his disciples before he was arrested and crucified helps us to know what to do during this in-between time, this eternal waiting. Jesus prays for the remaining disciples (Judas had already left to make his final betrayal arrangements). He includes the close hangers-on, the women and others, in his prayer as well. Jesus widens his prayer. He prays for the innumerable multitude of people in countless generations who will come to know of him because the disciples will be spiritually compelled to remember him and teach about him after the pain of crucifixion and the shock of resurrection has come and gone.

Jesus prays for a unity, a oneness already modeled by the Son and the Father, a oneness which will be so compelling that the world will know that Jesus was sent by the Father to be with us and to save us and to love us just as God has loved him. Jesus further prays that those whom the Father has given to him will be with him in his place of glory. They will witness his eternal and abiding glory which is the gift of God’s love. In that divine love believers cannot be separated from Christ or from God.

Well, Lord, we are not one, and as far as any of us can see, it isn’t going to happen, not sooner, not later neither.

It’s true. Our eyes don’t deceive us. We aren’t one. And it isn’t for lack of trying. But the oneness which Jesus talks about isn’t human oneness. Human beings will never unify themselves. The power of sin and evil will always thwart every attempt by human beings to be united. There’s a force field set up by sin that keeps us from doing it. It’s all we can do to unite two people in marriage, and we don’t do that very well. One out of two, isn’t that the current average? Fifty percent doesn’t constitute a passing grade. Batting .500 may be fantastic for a baseball player, but the gospel deserves better.

The unity for which Jesus prays comes through divine will and action. The harder we try, the harder we fail. But God brings about the kind of oneness that God desires and affirms. It is a oneness that creates some strange companions in this life’s journey of faith. After all, Peter had no intention of giving the gospel to those pork-eating gentiles of Cornelius’ household or any other house, but God told him it was all right to do it. Saul was the least likely candidate for winning people to Christ, but that’s what God had in mind for him. Let’s face it, we can’t even imagine who all God is planning to unite us with. And if some unchurched people knew who it was that God was going to unite them with, they wouldn’t be very keen either, I’m sure.

The three key concepts which Christ leaves us with – belief, unity, and love – are crucial, and vague. They roll so easily off the tongue. We use them like a giant game of keep-away, tossing indefinable faith in Christ from one to another one term after another, and we little understand what we’re talking about. I don’t purport to know all the ins and outs of those things, and you haven’t the time to sit here until we do figure them out completely. Perhaps brevity will stimulate your thoughts better than completeness.

As far as the gospel-writer John is concerned, belief is always focused in relation to Jesus Christ:  “Those who believe in him are not condemned” (3:18). True belief in Jesus means perceiving and confessing something of the vital – unique – relationship between him and God. Belief also has consequences. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ as God’s Son will do the work which Jesus himself did in the name of his Father. That’s daunting. That’s scary. Through our belief in Jesus, which we proclaimed through baptism, confirmation, and profession of faith, we have taken on the ministry which Jesus himself did. It sets a mind to thinking:  What did I do yesterday, last week, last month that was Jesus’ ministry? Ask yourself that every evening as you prepare for bed, or on Saturday night when you prepare yourself for Sunday’s worship. There’s a set-up for the prayer of confession if ever there was one.

Then there’s unity. No one ever said unity’s easy. Unity is more than the harmony of a single congregation. Jesus said he had other folds of sheep who listen to his voice. John makes no pretense of calling for one mega-church to serve the world. Rather unity is multi-dimensional. Unity has to do with divine-human relations and with human-to-human relationships. All unity is the result of God’s power, and it has a purpose: so that the world may believe that God has sent Jesus. That’s the final outcome of the unity that God is bringing about, universal belief that Jesus is the Christ sent from God. There’s a whopping pile of stuff we need to repent of, stuff that we throw up before potential believers that confuses the true unity which God seeks. Forgive us, Lord.

Like Paul’s big three at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, this threesome includes love. Perhaps only in tennis and the Fourth Gospel can we really be certain what this word “love” means. In tennis, love means zero, no points. For Jesus, according to John, love means to will the well-being of others to the degree that one would give one’s own life for the benefit of others (15:13). That has been his ministry, from day one. “I give you a new commandment:  ...just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (13:34). His words of resurrection greeting to the trembling disciples reflect that love:  “Peace be with you” (20:19). Such love serves as a testimony to “the world” concerning Jesus Christ.

So maybe we haven’t got the energy that we used to have, even 43 days ago when we got up early to go to discover that the world’s entombment of saving grace had failed miserably. The cares of the world weighed like a feather back then. Now their weight has grown to crushing. Yet Jesus’ words are remembered: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

With belief, unity, and love – embodied in us – the after-glow of Easter can and will be strong, warm, and inviting, that the world may know and believe.

The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Used by permission.