seventh Sunday of Easter

There’s a rumour going around St Mary’s, I don’t know if you’ve heard it? It’s been whispered quietly for many years; a secret has been spread around here, passed on to one another… have you shared it with someone? The Rector’s in on it and I picked it up from someone a while ago and confess I passed it on and I know some of you have too.  Are you in on the secret? You know what I’m talking about? Not sure?  Let me tell you?

The secret is that Jesus is the Messiah, he is high and lifted up and sits at God’s right hand, taking all his human experience with him – and that’s what we celebrated on Thursday this week on Ascension Day. As I sat in church on Ascension Day at St Mary’s, Holy Island, my eyes were drawn to the Ascension window above the altar. With the early morning sun streaming though the stained glass, the glorified Jesus, ascends through the clouds to sit at the right hand of God the Father, with the disciples looking up in awe and wonder.  It’s a beautiful image. To be a Christian is to be in on the secret, Jesus Christ is the Messiah; he is glorified and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father. More than that; to be in on this secret is to have it written on your heart, central to our lives and thinking. There are two sides to this though: the other side of this great secret is that a Christian is called to suffer. Why? Because you can’t have Ascension Day without Good Friday, Jesus couldn’t be glorified without suffering on the cross. The transforming of Christ’s suffering is part of the meaning of Christ’s glorious Ascension.

I think of a visit to communist Estonia in the late 1980’s, before the iron curtain came down. I was amongst a group of Christians sent by Crosslinks, a missionary organisation, to take bibles to Christians who weren’t allowed to own or read them. Our Estonian sisters and brothers took enormous risks, often suffering imprisonment and beatings to obtain and read a Bible. I met a man who had been imprisoned and treated very harshly for teaching children to read and study the Bible.

Suffering may seem small for you and I compared to this, or to the sufferings of Christians in other parts of the world such as Pakistan, the Sudan or the Congo and other places that you may hold in your prayers. For us here in Stafford it’s likely to be the pressure and stresses of contemporary life that thrust us into conflict with the world; the pressure to conform, to seek pleasure, wealth and power.

But there is deep suffering in living as though Jesus is the worlds true Lord and Messiah; because Christians are called to be counter-cultural: to swim against the tide, to go against the grain, to be a square peg in a round hole, to play out of tune with the world’s orchestra, not to be just a bit quirky or odd but to be set apart from those around us. We are called as Jesus’ followers to be radically different. To be taught by the Holy Spirit to play in tune with God’s hidden music.

In our gospel reading today Jesus is praying. The prayer known by scholars as “the last discourse” or “the priestly prayer”. We know that Jesus prayed, the gospels tell us “Jesus went off to pray” but we don’t very often get to hear what he prayed.  The exceptions are when Jesus gives thanks to his Father in Mathew 11.25-27 and when Jesus prays at Lazarus’ tomb in John 11.41-42  (which incidentally read very similarly to the passage we’re looking at this morning and some point out that this passage is John’s Lord’s prayer – you may like to read the passage through and compare them sometime this week- makes a good Bible study).

So what is Jesus’ prayer? It’s a farewell address.  Jesus knowing his hour of suffering has come and he prays first a celebration, then a request and thirdly a prayer before he goes away away. Jesus celebrates what he’s accomplished; he’s carried out and spoken the words his Father gave him in the last three years and he’s shared his task and his words with the disciples. Then Jesus makes a request; he asks that he may be glorified and lifted up to sit alongside God the Father, to the place the Messiah was due. When Jesus takes his place in full humanity he is exalted over the entire world and the “age to come” begins, the age the Jewish prophets had longed for and taught people to hope for.  This was to be the time of new life, a new age, not just in quantity (that is for eternity) but a life with a new quality. A life not just to hope for after death but a quality of life to be lived now in this present time, in and through the crucified, risen and ascended Jesus.

But that’s not all …you and I are invited to join in and to live this life today! It’s a life all who believe and trust in Jesus share. Wonderful isn’t it?

The last part of the prayer we read today is concerned with Jesus going away. He is leaving the disciples and returning to God the Father. Jesus knows his followers are at risk, that they will suffer, just as our brothers and sisters in Estonia suffered and as we too can suffer. They were vulnerable, as are we.

Jesus’ response is to pray for their protection. That they might stay at “the true centre” as Neil Richardson, a contemporary theologian puts it. The disciples were given to Jesus by God to teach and to care for, and Jesus now hands them back to God for safe keeping. The disciples are people who have been called out of the world to be radically different, cleansed and turned around by Jesus’ call on their lives and his teaching. What the disciples needed more than anything was to be prevented from falling back into the world’s way of doing things, to stay at “the true centre”, remaining distinctive, countercultural and radically different from those around them. 

Jesus calls God, “Holy Father” and says that he has been set apart – or made holy (it’s the same meaning) and so too have his disciples been made Holy, set apart from the world. And so have all people who love and trust Jesus, you and I are set apart, made holy to live counter cultural lives for God. But living like this is costly. It’s the other side of coin of being glorified, high and lifted up. Remember, you can’t have Ascension Day, without Good Friday; glory and suffering are inextricably linked.

But you might ask, that’s hard, what happens if we don’t live holy lives, set apart for God? If we don’t live from the true centre? When a church looses its cutting edge and ceases to be countercultural, what happens? A church that does this finds it hard to differentiate between the good, the bad and the indifferent. It ceases to be immersed in the world or involved in God’s mission in the world. And a church not involved in God’s mission is likely to create its own culture, a religious ghetto. By moving away from the true centre, it’s no longer distinctive or counter-cultural, it no longer seeks to point others to God: instead it swims with the tide, goes with the grain, is a round peg in a round hole, plays in of tune with the world’s orchestra and is indistinguishable from the world. Worst of all, Christians who move away from the true centre cease to long to be taught by the Holy Spirit to play in tune with God’s hidden music.

The reality for us, for me and you is that we live partly or intermittently from the true centre.

The glory of God is not found in large congregations or grand ancient buildings or counted by footfall through a building or by new people coming to church. God’s glory may be found in these, but most of all God’s glory is found in the sacrificial, self giving pattern and inspiration that comes from Jesus’ death on the cross that each of us are called to follow, living from the centre.   

So today, as we reflect on the ascension of Christ, we are reminded that as followers of Jesus we too are set apart to be holy and to live countercultural lives to reveal God’s glory and suffering to those around us. Sound daunting – you bet! And it would impossible if we were left by ourselves.

From Ascension Day for nine days, Christians are encouraged to set aside time for prayer. To pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit whose coming we celebrate on the day of Pentecost. If we’re to be radically counter-cultural as Christians, to live from the true centre, then setting time aside to pray, drawing closer to God in the power of the Holy Spirit is a good place to start. So I offer a suggestion; why not make a commitment over these next nine days to spend more time in prayer, seek to deepen your relationship with God. If you already have an established pattern of prayer, that’s great. If you haven’t maybe you’d like to come and join us praying at the service of Healing, Rest and Peace on Thursday at 1.00 here in the Lady Chapel, or if you can, come to a mid-week Eucharist or quietly at home, find somewhere where you and God can talk together. Where you can seek to draw closer and be filled with God’s spirit to love close to the centre, to be taught by the Holy Spirit to play in tune with God’s hidden music. Now that’s a secret worth passing on!