• Acts of the Apostles 16: 16-34

Drawn to the Roman colony of Philippi in Macedonia by a vision, Paul and Silas and their companions get themselves crosswise with local, powerful interests.  Paul had commanded a “spirit” to come out of a girl owned by those who exploited her for her supposed powers of fortune telling.  They seized Paul and Silas and dragged them before “magistrates,” accusing them of disturbing the peace by proselytizing.  The mob joined in the accusations.  Without a fair trial, “the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.”  The authorities put them in high security jail.  At midnight, there was “an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken….”  The violence of the earthquake released all the prisoners, including Paul and Silas.  Their jailer was so distraught, he was ready to take his own life.  Paul reassured him that all had stayed in his jail.  The jailer, filled with gratitude and wonder, fell in front of Paul and Silas and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  Their response is direct: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ….”  Paul and Silas “spoke the word” to the jailer.  The jailer took them home, washed their wounds, fed them and he was baptized.

• Psalm 97

The psalmist’s initial vision is of God enthroned, surrounded by fire and smoke.  Lightning and earthquakes emanate to earth.  This spectacular display precedes God’s ultimate priority: justice.  But this justice is not like “idol worshipers” or “other gods.”  This justice has already echoed in the “villages of Judea” and with all who “love the Lord, and who hate evil.”  God protects such souls, so rejoice!

• Revelation to John 22: 12-14, 16-16, 20-21

John the Divine’s vision reaches its dramatic conclusion: Jesus enthroned speaks– “I am coming soon…”  and will payout justice according to each person’s “work.”  Once again, Jesus declares he is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  He pronounces a special blessing on “those who wash their robes….”  Jesus identifies that he was the one who sent the angel to give testimony of this amazing revelation to the churches through John.  Jesus announces that he is both the “root” and the “offspring” of David.  The spirit and “the bride” together say “come,” the church responds “come.”  And all who are “thirsty” should now come to drink “the water of life as a gift.”

• John 17: 20-26

Having focused on the well-being of his disciples after his departure (17: 6-19), Jesus’ lengthy prayer in John’s narrative now turns to “those who will believe in me through their word….”  Jesus raises a startling prospect– that all of those who follow in the future will know an intimacy with the first followers as close as Jesus knows with the Father!  And, thereby, “may they [all] also be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.”  The “glory” given by the Father to the Son is now shared with those “whom you have given me….”  Going further, Jesus now prays “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

It is worth repeating for emphasis that in his Acts of the Apostles Luke seems to be drawing direct parallels between the treatment and fate of Jesus by religious and political authorities with the treatment of the early church. Like Jesus, Paul and Silas  are brought before the Roman authorities on trumped up charges and jumbled accusations of disturbing the peace as religious and political troublemakers.  Like Jesus, the charges stemmed for very public displays of a power of healing.  Like Jesus, Paul and Silas are stripped, beaten and thrown in jail.  At midnight (the poetic opposite of noon on Good Friday), there is another earthquake, which this time throws open the prison doors.  Luke tells the story of Paul and Silas so we see them becoming “christs.”

John’s gospel establishes an astounding claim: the entire enterprise which Jesus began is handed over to not just those who knew him before his departure, but to those who will come in the future to believe based on the “words” of those who were eyewitnesses!  Luke/Acts and John’s gospel are bequeathing narratives.  They demonstrate the intention and methods by which Jesus, with the blessing of the Father and the empowerment of the Spirit, sets in motion this movement called the church as a gift to the world by which God always remains potentially present to the world.!

Jean-Luc Marion considers in depth the significance of the departure of Jesus at his ascension.  In his Prolegomena to Charity, Marion writes:

“…the withdrawal of the Ascension makes the disciples come into a perfect, though, paradoxical presence in Christ.  Paradoxically for this presence no longer admits any sensible support and, for outsiders, reduces to pure and simple absence.  Perfect, precisely because this presence no longer consists in seeing another, even the Christ, loving, like him, in him, according to him, actually loving, dying, and returning to life.  Presence: not to find oneself in the presence of Christ, but to become present to him (to declare oneself present, available) in order to receive from him the present (the gift) of the Spirit who makes us, here and now (in the present), bless him like he blesses the Father– until and in order that he return.  The highest presence of Christ lies in the Spirit’s action of making us, with him and in him, bless the Father” (p.145)

Paradoxically and crucially, the voluntary absence of Christ’s presence presents a new opportunity: for individual women and men “to become present to him.”

As did Jesus in his teaching and healing, all conventional boundaries are erased in the church.  The likely and the unlikely, the proximate and the distant, the faithful and newcomers, those with first-hand experience and those with secondary experience through the “words” of the old-timers, all  participate in the same “glory” that flows between the Father the Spirit and the Son!  “All who love the Lord” are eligible to become “christs,” mimicking/embodying his words, his deeds, his hardships and his victory!  And, each in her or his own way, bringing  justice, healing and peace in unique ways and at spcific time and places in her or his unique history.