Pastor Message
June 2010 - IT IS UP TO US!
Last Thursday evening, May 13, Trinity Episcopal Church and Trinity Lutheran Church came together for a joint worship service to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus Christ to the right hand of God following his resurrection from the dead. The Ascension of our Lord doesn’t get near the press of Christmas or Easter and is often overlooked, but it is an event that has great significance for the people of God, whether we are Lutherans or Episcopalians. On May the 23rd, we will observe the festival of Pentecost which celebrates the pouring out of the Spirit of God upon the disciples, giving them power and courage to confess Jesus Christ to the world. It was after Pentecost that the Disciples (meaning followers of Jesus) became the apostles (a word that means people who are “sent”).
These two festivals, the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost, drive home the same point only in different ways. Both of them make it clear that it is now up to us to continue the work of Jesus. In Acts 1:8, the final words Jesus spoke to his followers were, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And then Jesus left. He was taken up into heaven. The message is crystal clear. By his ascension, Jesus was saying that from now on, I am not going to be here in the flesh to do the works of God that I have been doing for the last 33 years. If they get done, you are going to have to do them. You are the ones who are still here, and it is up to you.
Pentecost makes the same point. God poured out the Holy Spirit upon the disciples just as he had promised, and they were filled with that Spirit and they sprang into action, preaching and confessing Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. Jesus didn’t just give that spirit as a decoration, or just to make people feel warm, fuzzy or energized. God gave his church the Spirit of God, the same spirit that had come down upon Jesus at his baptism, so that they, so that WE would be fully equipped to continue the work of Jesus. It was a clear message in fire and thunder that now this work was up to them. Or, as we would say it today, this work of God is “up to us!”
I am leaving for a 3 month sabbatical on the first of June. I will be back at Trinity by the end of August. It will be my first Sabbatical, coming after only 36 years of ministry. I am so very grateful to the congregation for granting me this experience. However, I must confess that as it draws near, I have some anxious moments thinking about how things will go if I am not here to do my part. I ask myself if everything will be taken care of? (what I am really worried about is whether everything will be done the way I would do it?) But then I think of the two stories I just talked about. If Jesus could leave for a time and trust that his friends and colleagues would rise to the occasion, how much more can I be confident that all of you, my Christian friends who are here on the scene, will do just what those first disciples did, and claiming the power of God’s Spirit, continue the work of our Lord Jesus Christ in this place.
I pray that this will be one of the lessons that will be relearned through this sabbatical; the lesson of Ascension and of Pentecost. Jesus Christ has poured out his Spirit upon us, just like he did those first disciples, and so, where ever we find ourselves, we know that the work of God in this place, or that place, is up to us.
Pastor Gary
