Easter 7B – May 17, 2015
St Stephen Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh, PA
The Rev. Maurice C Frontz III, STS
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!
He ascended into
heaven,
and he is seated at the
right hand of the Father.
When
I was younger,
I
had this image of God the Father on his heavenly throne,
and
on his right (which would be left from my perspective)
Jesus
sitting on a lower throne.
Truth
be told, it’s hard to get rid of that image.
I
doubt that it will ever be erased from my imagination
until
I see God face-to-face.
So
if this is not the literal image we are to have,
then
just what does it mean?
We
are saying that Jesus has been given authority.
He
has been revealed as the one who has authority over everything,
not
simply his own, but the Father’s who sent him.
We
have a remnant of this in our language;
when
we say that someone is the bosses’ ‘right-hand man’
it
means that the person is so close to the boss
that
whatever he says is what the boss says.
The
‘right-hand man’ represents authority,
and
speaks with authority.
So
in ascending to heaven,
Jesus
has been given authority over all things.
What
he says, goes.
When
he says, ‘Sins are forgiven,’ they are forgiven before God.
When
he binds the powers of evil so that they can no longer harm us,
they
are bound.
When
he destroys the power of death,
it
is destroyed.
When
he proclaims that the Law which accuses us is set aside,
it
is set aside.
His
ascension to the seat of power
is
the confirmation of his rule over the world.
And
yet it is hard to grasp this
as
we meditate on what we see each day
over
our televisions and our radios and the internet.
I
was thinking about this earlier in the week.
Over
the radio came the sounds of crying women and children
who
were drifting in the Indian ocean,
Muslim
refugees fleeing militant Buddhist persecution in Myanmar.
They
had been in the clutches of human traffickers,
but
there was a legal crackdown on trafficking by the Thai government,
and
so the traffickers had abandoned them at sea.
They
had been drifting for over a month.
The
Thai military did eventually drop food and water to the ship,
but
no government will allow them to land.
After
all, they reason, if they allow some to land,
then
thousands upon thousands of refugees will follow,
and
when will they stop?
Meanwhile,
the boat continues to drift,
full
of rootless, homeless, stateless human beings.
How
do we see Christ’s rule in a world
that
sees this sort of suffering and cruelty?
This
is the most potent argument against Christianity in particular
and
religion in general.
Jesus
cannot be the Messiah
because
he has not brought in the Messiah’s reign of peace.
There
can be no good God in the world
because
no good God would allow such suffering.
We
don’t even see
any
kind of progress toward a just, peaceful, and good world.
No
one can even agree on what that means.
He
ascended into heaven,
and
is seated at the right hand of the Father.
In
our liturgy we sing that Jesus has begun his reign over the world.
The
powers of sin, death, and evil refuse to acknowledge this rule.
But
the Church does.
And
the Church proclaims that these powers cannot triumph,
because
Christ has triumphed over them.
I
look at the saints.
They
did not live in an easy world,
but
they were able to be faithful even in a world
that
did not have evidence of God’s glory.
They
often were in times and places of terrible suffering.
They
were subject to death, like the rest of us.
Oftentimes,
they didn’t even have the luxury
of
living a long life before they died,
but
they were put to death for what they believed in.
This
is not simply long ago.
We
think of Oscar Romero,
shot
to death while celebrating Communion.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, hung in Flussendorf seventy years ago
only
a month before V-E day.
We
think of those murdered by ISIS.
Though
they died, death was not victorious over them,
because
they refused to fear death because of Christ’s promise of life.
I
believe I can see Christ’s reign in them.
I
believe I can see Christ’s reign
because
those who cannot undo what they have done
and
cannot start over,
can
still find forgiveness and hope in Jesus.
I
believe I can see Christ’s reign
because
the spell of evil can be broken
by
the power of his name.
I
believe that Jesus reigns
because
sin, death, and evil end with death.
When
we die,
the
worst has already happened to us,
but
if Jesus is raised from the dead,
then
he can also raise us from the dead.
And
so our death becomes victory.
When
Jesus prays for his disciples,
he
does not ask the Father to take them out of the world.
Instead,
he prays for their protection in the world.
He
prays that they would be joyful
in
the midst of a world that disturbs and distresses,
He
prays that they would be made whole and holy
in
the midst of a world which is broken and sinful,
He
prays that they would be sent
as
messengers of word and deed
into
a world of pain and loneliness
which
doubts God’s love and God’s very existence.
And
so he prays,
and
so God grants,
for
the Church is here.
No,
we don’t see it in perfection,
or
perhaps even close to it.
But
in the Church,
Jesus’
name is known,
to
forgive, to deliver, to save.
The
saints are made holy,
those
whose names we know
and
those who are anonymous.
Even
we are made holy,
and
even though we don’t know how it’s happening,
we
trust that God is working his purposes out even through us.
I
believe I can see Christ’s power and authority among us,
where
his Word is preached and his Sacraments are administered
and
where the Spirit is present.
The
Spirit of holiness, the Holy Spirit,
is
the guarantee of God’s victory.
and
Christ’s reign among us.
Even
in the world,
we
are with God.
And
so, he ascended into heaven,
and he is seated at the
right hand of the Father.
How
do we see Christ’s rule in a world full of suffering?
I believe in the Holy
Spirit,
the holy catholic
Church,
the communion of
saints,
the forgiveness of
sins,
the resurrection of the
body,
and the life
everlasting.
