As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church
Holy Wisdom Church
I'm leavin' on a jet plane/ I don't know when I'll be back again. For some reason, while thinking about this feast and the scripture passages from Luke’s gospel and Acts, these lyrics from that old song kept coming to mind. John Denver; Peter, Paul and Mary and many others sang that song. It is about a departure with no return expected. Many of us may have experienced that special fascination of watching a plane take off from an airport, rise into the sky and fly away, slowly shrinking to a small speck and then disappearing from view. And if the plane also had a friend or loved one on board, the emotions around that departure can become quite intense. We may not know if we will ever see that person again. Or we may know that we will never see that person again. In which case, feelings of loss, grief, sadness, disappointment, estrangement and abandonment may arise. My guess is that the apostles at the Ascension had some of the same feelings. The icon of the feast shows their confusion and fear.
Back in January 2007 at Br Elias funeral, I spoke about our loss: “The reality of his departure from us will sink into each one at a different time and in a different way. In our house, we may have begun to get used to his absence over the past year since he was away most of the last 12 months in hospitals or rehabilitation centers, but still he was at the other end of the telephone, he was there when we visited him and he did fight to come back and be with us for a few weeks despite his deteriorating health. But after today, when we gather to pray in church, he won’t be there, when we gather around the table for meals, he won’t be there when we gather to relax in our recreation room, he won’t be there either. And we will know it and we will feel it and we will feel the emotion of that loss welling up inside and we will cry. And that’s ok. It’s grieving. It must be done. We must cry over the loss of Brother Elias even as we celebrate the life that was with us but is now with God.”
After the funeral, Fr Alexis Vinogradov came up to me and said that as Orthodox we understand that even though he died he is still with us. And I said that is well and good but what I meant was that physically he is no longer with us. But of course, when someone is no longer with us physically, still we do feel that person’s presence in other non-tangible but real ways. We can be reminded of the person’s humor at recreation, or of their cooking at meals or of their presence in church during services. They can return in dreams and at times we may simply feel their presence in the room even though physically they are not there. This is the mystery that Vino was talking about and it is at the center of this feast. Indeed, the beginning and end of the paschal season is marked by this mystery. At Pascha Christ returns from the dead, only to depart again at the Ascension. Remember at the beginning of the paschal season Christ told the apostle Thomas, blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe. And here at the Ascension, Christ is telling the apostles that he will not leave them orphans, he will send them the holy spirit; even as he disappears from their sight. So this leaves them and us with the call to believe in something we cannot see. And we are asked to do this at the very time that we feel abandoned.
This feast is about more than Jesus and the Holy Spirit. It is about our connection to that realm into which we will all pass. The Ascension is both separation and preparation. We are being prepared to receive the unseeable Holy Spirit. The Spirit that is God’s presence everywhere, in all things and in all living beings. That spirit is in every one of us. That spirit is what carries us to Jesus, to the realm beyond this physical world. The icon of Holy Wisdom behind the altar has the mandorla, the image of uncreated light and the passageway to the realm of Kairos time. The same mandorla is depicted in the Ascension icon on display in the narthex. In that icon, Christ, though further removed from us in the image, is at the opening created by the mandorla, going before us preparing the way as he said he would. The Spirit moves between both Chronos time [the time ticking in our present physical world] and Kairos time [the realm of timelessness] and is the conveyance that brings us God’s presence and indeed the presence of all those who have gone before us and ultimately conveys us to God.
So how does this feast help us to deal with abandonment, [separation, broken connections, departures]? By reminding us that no one is abandoned or lost. Not only does God remember all but God brings all together. We experience that reality every time we feel God’s presence and indeed the presence of others. The laws of the physical world may rearrange the pieces of this earthly puzzle, but in that realm beyond our reach, all the pieces are put back together as the fulfillment of God’s plan. No one is lost. No one is left abandoned.
Christ is in our midst!
