Lake Edge United Church of Christ

Just before entering Jerusalem at the time of the Passover, Jesus had stood with his disciples atop the Mount of Olives. On that day, which we remember as Palm Sunday, everything changed for Jesus surely, and for his disciples. Prior to this they had been together in Galilee, off the beaten path, away from the centers of power and influence. The remarkable works of healing, teaching and exorcism that Jesus had been doing had attracted local attention, but he was almost certainly beneath the radar of the religious leaders in Jerusalem and the political leaders in Rome. But when he came down off the Mount of Olives and into the city, his disciples waving palm branches and celebrating him as the Messiah, the one who comes in the name of the Lord, everything changed immediately. Jesus was beneath no one’s radar any longer. No one could remain neutral, he either had to be celebrated or stopped, depending on your desired outcome. But perhaps for just a moment or two, as they sat together atop the mountain, they realized just what was happening. What had been was at an end, and something new, and as yet uncertain, was about to be born. As is the case with every time of transition, it was a moment of exquisite hope and longing, of fear and trembling.

This morning’s story finds them back atop the Mount of Olives, and once more in that delicate, pregnant moment of transition. The disciples of Jesus have been having amazing experiences for some weeks now, moments in which Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had seen crucified, appeared to them as risenfrom the dead, resurrected into new life. Now, though they perhaps do not yet realize it, they are having this experience for the last time. It is altogether fitting that they be on the mountaintop, that place where, symbolically and literally, heaven and earth meet.

“Is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom of David to Israel?” the disciples want to know. They’re still hoping for a political answer for the oppression of the people. Left unrecorded is what else they might have been thinking: “Who could stop you now? You’ve triumphed over death itself. Rome has already done its worst to you and you have risen victorious… Why not finish the job now? The disciples clearly sense that they stand at the end of one thing and the beginning of another. They are eager for the end of Rome and for a new birth for Israel. They see that the old is finished, but what they cannot see is what the new actually will be about.

And so, Jesus tells them. “When the Holy Spirit is given to you,” he tells them, “you will be my witnesses, not only in Jerusalem, but in the countryside, too, and in Samaria and the homes of other strange peoples, to the very ends of the earth. You’ll tell everyone about me, and my reign, which is bigger and more powerful than any merely human nation or endeavor.” And then, as they watch, he slips mysteriously away, rising and ultimately disappearing from sight in the mists of the clouds. Lest they miss the fact that the old is finished, a couple of messengers are suddenly present. What are you looking at, staring off into heaven? He will come again; you needn’t stand around waiting with your mouths open.

And the disciples, knowing that their world is now pregnant with possibility, return to the room in the city where they had been staying, awaiting what was soon to come, the gift of the Holy Spirit. And they dedicate themselves to prayer, and to patience.

Their experience of this time of transition illumines our own, for we are often in transition ourselves. For some, this morning is a time of transition because the time of confession has been taken with great seriousness. When we confess a sin, we declare our desire to have an old way end. Confession is the declaration of the end of one way of being. We do not always know how we’ll do things differently, but once we’ve confessed and sought the forgiving love of God, we’ve entered a time of transition,we’ve come to the mountain top, where old and new, heaven and earth, the sacred and the ordinary meet. Hear, all of you who have confessed and seek a new way to be! The Spirit will be given to you, and you will be empowered to live in new ways. Wait with patience and with prayer for the gift of that which is to be.

For others this morning this is a time of transition because of changes that have come, sometimes unbidden, into their lives. Some are facing changes at work, or at home, in a relationship or with a family member. Things do not always stay the same, even if we might wish that they would. Changes come upon us and we find ourselves lamenting the loss of what is old, cherished, and familiar. Added to the distress of lament is anxiety about what is to come, for often the end of the old becomes clear long before that which is to come. And so we sit, filled with a mixture of feelings, the past finished and gone; the future not yet upon us. Hear, all of you who have had change brought into your life! The Spirit will be given to you, and in the future which is not yet clear will find God present to you in ways that will transform you and lift you beyond expectation.

And for all of us, this is a time of transition and change because the season of Easter is coming to an end, and the day of Pentecost is just around the corner. For weeks now, our worship has been built upon the stories of resurrection, as we look to the experience of the original disciples for guidance in our own lives. And these stories have caused us to wonder and filled us with hope and plunged us deeply into mystery. We are thankful for them. But now the focus of our common worship life shifts, as we anticipate the gift of the Holy Spirit, and accept the promise that Jesus made, that when we gather in his name, the Spirit is present among us. And so we rightly prepare ourselves for the ever-new experience of the Spirit stirring within us and moving among us. We can’t be sure what the Spirit will do with us and through us in the days ahead, but we can already sense that new enthusiasms are stirring here at Lake Edge, and that the blessings we’ve already known and received will be multiplied by the presence of the Spirit.

With the first disciples, we go to the mountain, for transition is upon us. And with them we gather in this sanctuary, entering into patience and prayer, as we wait with expectation for the gift of the Spirit, as Christ calls us into ever new paths of service in his name.
Amen.