Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
It's about 20 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. The Church is already experiencing questions about its doctrine and practices. In today's reading, the church is dealing with the major problem of whether to impose circumcision and observance of the Jewish law on its Gentile converts.
Rev 21:10-14, 22-23
Revelation is an Easter book because it focuses on the Risen Jesus and our final victory over sin and death. In this passage, the author uses such phrases as "heavenly Jerusalem" or "new Jerusalem," to describe the Church in its glory at the end of time.
John 14:23-29
Bishop Untener's Homily
The many symbols in this ceremony - the baptismal water sprinkled upon us, the laying on of hands, the anointing with chrism, the bread, the wine - will speak clearly to us, and I simply want to provide one image that I hope will be helpful. And I want it to be something we all remember, whether we're one of the youngsters receiving Confirmation and first Eucharist, or whether we're parents, grandparents, friends of those receiving these sacraments.
The image is this: There are two kinds of space voyages. One is when a spacecraft is launched into space - there are no astronauts aboard, and it is designed never to come back. Some years ago, Voyager I and Voyager II were launched, and they traveled farther than any spacecraft has ever gone, to our most distant planets, and now beyond the solar system... and they're still going. They will never return. They send data from a distance, but they're going, going, gone. They will never come back.
The other kind of space voyage is one we're more familiar with - a spacecraft that is launched into space, and later returns to earth. We sent astronauts to the moon, and they came back. We still send astronauts to the space station, and they come back.
Sometimes our image of Jesus dying, rising and ascending to heaven is more like that first kind of space voyage, the kind that never returns. Jesus dies, rises, and ascends to the right hand of the Father, and never returns. He sends occasional signals... from a distance. There was even a song with that title, "From A Distance," and it conveyed that very image. The refrain went:
God is watching us, God is watching us,
God is watching us, from a distance.
Oh, God is watching us, from a distance.
But we just heard Jesus say in the Gospel, "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our dwelling with them. We heard Jesus say, "I am going away and I will come back to you."
When we think of the dying, rising, ascending of Jesus, we have to think of the "whole circle." The "passover" of Jesus didn't end with the arc of his ascension upward. He promised to be with us through his own Spirit. "I am going away and I will come back to you." We have to complete the circle. He did come back, to stay. He did it for the early members of the Church at Pentecost when he poured his Spirit upon them. He does it to us at Baptism and Confirmation. Jesus, through his Spirit is within us, around us. We can't see him, but we can't see radio waves either, even though they're in the air all around us in this building right now.
But there's more. Jesus invites us to join him in that circle - in his going through death to the Father and still living here on this earth. That is exactly what we do at Eucharist. When the gifts of bread and wine are placed on the altar table, they represent us on that table. And in the Eucharistic prayer, the action of Christ, in his dying, rising, ascending is made present to us. We join with him in going to God... in giving ourselves entirely to God. In one of the Eucharistic prayers we say: "Accept us together with your Beloved Son." Jesus takes us with him. And we continue here on earth as new people, transformed... daughters and sons of God... living a different kind of life.
But there's more. Jesus gives himself to us as food for the journey. In Holy Communion we receive the Lord himself - body, blood, soul, and divinity. In one sense it is a fuller presence because we can see it. The bread and the wine are the body and blood - the fullness - of Jesus. We take him in our hand. We hold him in the cup. And we become part of the Body of Christ.
All of this sounds too good to be true. For some, it may be hard to believe. But, these beliefs don't come out of thin air. They come from the lips of Jesus. He said, "I am going away and I will come back to you... and I will send the Spirit... and the Father and I will make our dwelling with you." He said, "Take and eat... this is my body. Take and drink... this is the cup of my blood."
These truths are not complicated, hard to understand. Nor are they really all that hard to believe. It's just that they're hard to remember - to remember what we're doing when the gifts of bread and wine are brought forward, what we're doing in the Eucharistic prayer, and what we're doing when we come forward for Communion... to remember who it is that we hold in our hand when we take the bread and take the cup. And it's even harder to remember all this when we leave here and go into the world of our lives.
I pray that these youngsters will never forget this day. Most of all I pray that they will never forget what they do at every Eucharist, and never forget the Lord's presence within them every second of every day of their lives.
And I pray that you and I, all of us, will do that too.
Originally given on May 20, 2001