Ascensiontide and Whitsuntide 1999 Sermons, The Anglican Catholic Church

Ascensiontide and Whitsuntide Sermons, 1999

The Rt. Rev. John T. Cahoon, Jr.
Acting Metropolitan, Anglican Catholic Church
Bishop Ordinary, Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic States
Rector, St. Andrew and St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Catholic Church Alexandria, Virginia

Whitsunday, May 23, 1999
Ascension Day, May 13, 1999
The Sunday after Ascension Day, May 16, 1999

Whitsunday, May 23, 1999

Whitsunday celebrates the occasion on which the Holy Ghost came down upon the disciples. Jesus promised to send them a comforter -- a strengthener. At the ascension, he told them not to rush off home to Galilee, but to wait in Jerusalem until he kept his promise - until they received power from on high.

Pentecost was a Hebrew spring festival which took place fifty days after Passover. The Jews believed that God gave the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai at Pentecost, so by the time of Jesus Pentecost had become a celebration of the Law. The disciples had no intention of being anything other than Jews, so they were celebrating this Jewish festival when God appeared among them as a rushing mighty wind and as tongues of fire.

Whitsunday is a peculiarly Anglican title for this holiday. The custom in the Mediterranean world was to have baptisms at Easter. It was too cold to dunk people in the river in England just then, so it was much healthier to wait fifty more days until Pentecost. The newly baptized wore white robes, hence the name White Sunday - Whitsunday.

A fourteenth century English monk speculated that the day was called Whitsunday because it was the day on which God endowed the disciples with wit. I like that explanation too - maybe even more.

The most striking manifestation of new wit on Pentecost comes in what happens to St. Peter. In the gospels, Peter is Jesus' favorite foil. He is big and loud and loyal and headstrong, but he never quite seems to be able to figure out for himself what is going on around him.

This morning's epistle records what happened to the disciples on Pentecost. The wind and fire were accompanied with a new ability to speak in languages they had never learned. Jews who had come from all over the Mediterranean world to celebrate Pentecost were amazed when the uneducated disciples were able to praise God in languages they had never known.

The more cynical observers said, "These babbling men must be drunk." Peter said, "Tbese men are not drunk the way you think - it is only nine o'clock in the morning" (not always a compelling argument). Peter went on to say, wittily, that what was happening was the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy made centuries before in the Book of Joel.

The Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit (the words mean exactly the same thing) appears in the world first at the creation. During the Old Testament period God gives his spirit to certain people to perform certain tasks for certain lengths of time. We talk about that phenomenon in the creed, when we say that the Holy Ghost "spake by the prophets." It was God's spirit who literally inspired - breathed into - them to tell them what to say.

Joel said that one day God would pour out his spirit upon everyone - he would make it possible for everybody to have as much of his power as he wanted any time he wanted it. St. Peter got up on the first Whitsunday and said, "God is now fulfilling the promise he made through Joel ... Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

The wit the spirit gave St. Peter to interpret the Scripture and to preach was so powerful that three thousand people turned to Christ that day and were baptized. Peter was different from what he had been.

I am sure one of the reasons many of us have such a tough time with the Holy Ghost is that we cannot visualize him. We know what it means to talk to a father or a son, so we can generate mental pictures of them - but a ghost or a spirit is quite another matter.

Jesus says the Holy Ghost is like the wind. You can see its effects on people, but you cannot tell where it is coming from or where it is going. It is like trying to see the wind as it moves the branches of tree - you can see what it is doing, but you cannot see it.

Today's collect takes ideas from what Jesus says in today's gospel, and prays first that we will allow the spirit to help us make good decisions and then that we will rejoice in the strength he gives us. The way to make good decisions - as the collect puts it, "to have a right judgment in all things," is to learn God's standards from the Bible and then try to apply them to the actual situations we face every day.

The Bible is the Holy Spirit's work. The Holy Spirit motivates us to study the Bible and helps us learn from the Bible and apply the Bible's insights to all the decisions we face.

And the Holy Ghost is also the one who keeps us tied to Jesus - by the spirit we live in God and God lives in us. And as the spirit helps us know we are one with Christ, we also know that no bad decision or horrible event can ever separate us from him. He dwells in us and we in him.

So let us thank God today for the holy wit which God bestows upon us by his spirit - the same spirit, as today's preface puts it, "whereby we have been brought out of darkness and error into the clear light and true knowledge of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord."

The Collect: O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle. Acts ii. 1

The Gospel. St. John xiv. 15.

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The Sunday after Ascension Day, May 16, 1999

Jesus begins what he has to say in this morning's gospel by telling his disciples to look ahead into the future "When the Comforter is come." This selection - like so much we have read since Easter - is taken from Christ's farewell address to the disciples at the Last Supper. One of the main purposes of his address is to tell them that he is going to go away from them. He knows they will be sorry about that, but he tries to assure them that in the long run they will be happy. His going away means he can send them the Holy Ghost, the Comforter - the Strengthener.

The Sunday after Ascension Day is near the midpoint of the first novena - a novena is a nine-day cycle of prayer. On Ascension Day, three days ago, Jesus told the disciples to pray for the Holy Ghost to come down. We know the Holy Ghost is going to arrive next Sunday on Pentecost - what we Anglicans call Whitsunday.

I don't want to rush past the Ascension just yet - this is, after all, the Sunday after the Ascension, not just the Sunday before Pentecost. We shall have plenty of time to think about the implications of Pentecost when it finally arrives.

Just after the section of his Last Supper address which is today's gospel, Jesus continues with words we heard as the gospel two Sundays ago. He says that when the Holy Ghost has come he will show the world that it was wrong about what is right - in the King James' words, "he will reprove the world of righteousness."

Jesus goes on to say that what proves the world has been wrong about what is really right is that, I go to my Father, and ye see me no more." The world thought Jesus was wrong, so the world killed him. But what proves that Jesus was really right is the Ascension - when he "goes to the Father, and they see him no more."

It was certainly possible to claim that the Resurrection was faked. Maybe Jesus didn't really die on the cross. Maybe the disciples just stole his body and said he had escaped the grave. But faking an ascension would be a far taller order. Who could possibly rise from the earth and enter the cloud of the presence of the Almighty except God himself? And if the one who went up is God himself, then he must have been right after all - and he must still be right - and so we (and the world) are well-advised to pay attention.

A second significant implication of the Ascension is pointed out in the Proper Preface for the Ascension octave. It says that Jesus "after his most glorious resurrection manifestly appeared to all his Apostles, and in their sight ascended up into heaven, to prepare a place for us."

That is an allusion to yet another part of Jesus' farewell address. He says, "Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not true, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also."

Those are some of the most comforting words in the New Testament - so it is no wonder that the Prayer Book appoints that they be read at funerals. Jesus is telling us that one major purpose of his ascension is to get our places in heaven ready. And if he bothers to go to heaven to get our places ready, we can be confident that he will come back to get us to take us up to those heavenly places so we can be with him forever. As the preface concludes, "that where he is, thither we might also ascend and reign with him in glory."

Yet another purpose of the Ascension of Christ is to complete the cycle of Old Testament sacrifice. God told the Hebrews to sacrifice animals as thank offerings and as propitiatory offerings to take away sins. The most important sin sacrifice came once a year, when the high priest carried the blood of the atonement offering into the holy of holies in the temple at Jerusalem.

The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that the holy of holies in the temple was just an earthly shadow of the real holy of holies which is the throne room of God in heaven. It says, "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."

So in his ascension, Jesus presents God with the blood of his sacrifice of himself, just as the high priest presented the blood of the atonement offering. Because Jesus is both the priest and the victim - both the one who offers and the one who is offered - his sacrifice is perfect and not repeatable. God requires no more blood sacrifices.

That is why we make the point in the creed that Jesus is sitting down at God's right hand. He can sit down, because his priestly work is done. He doesn't have to stand at any sort of altar any more. He pleads his sacrifice for us as our mediator and advocate.

Quoting again from Hebrews, "Seeing that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

So as we look forward to the coming of the Holy Ghost the Comforter next week, let us continue to rejoice in Christ's glorious ascension. He has shown the world who is really right. He has finished his sacrificial work as our great High Priest. He has gone back to heaven to get our places there ready. If it were not true, he would have told us.

The Collect. GOD, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only 0 Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle. I St. Peter iv. 7.

The Gospel. St. John XV. 26 and part of Chapter xvi

Ascension Day, May 13, 1999

One of the most consistent storylines in the Bible is what we might call "smart Jew makes it big in the Gentile world." Think of Old Testament Joseph - sold by his brothers into white slavery in Egypt, Joseph rebounds to become the chief administrative and financial officer in the Egyptian empire -answerable only to Pharaoh himself.

Then think of the wily Queen Esther - chosen in a nationwide beauty pageant to be the consort of the Persian emperor, Esther exploits her physical charms and her considerable brain power to protect her Jewish people from a holocaust of ethnic cleansing.

It isn't even too far-fetched to see Jesus, in a rather larger way, as typical of the same pattern. He is the Jewish messiah - the fulfillment of specifically Hebrew prophecies -- yet he becomes the God of the most pervasive world-wide religion in hwnan history.

Tonight I want to consider another Biblical character who follows the same pattern - Daniel, the fourth Major Prophet in the Hebrew Bible. Born in Israel, Daniel is deported to Babylon in the sixth century B.C., and his life extends into the next great epoch of Middle Eastern History - the dominance of Persia.

Daniel's book contains several familiar scenes - first his preservation in a den of lions and then the episode of the mysterious writing on the wall, which condemns an imperial host at his own banquet. Daniel was a visionary - a dreamer, much like Old Testament Joseph. And it is Daniel to whom we credit the Old Testament prophecy of the Ascension of Christ which we celebrate this evening.

Tonight's epistle and gospel - both written by St. Luke - tell the story of the Ascension from the earthly end of it - the blastoff point, if you will. Jesus and his disciples go out to Bethany on the Mount of Olives, and Jesus takes off up, up, and away into a cloud in the sky.

But Daniel's prophecy gives us the view of the Ascension from the other end. He sees the conclusion of what begins on the Mount of Olives. Daniel reports his vision of the conquering hero returning from battle to receive a crown and other spoils from the proud king who sent him out.

The proud king is, of course, God the Father. Daniel refers to him as the "Ancient of Days' - the old one. Jesus is called the "Son of Man" - the human one.

Let me quote this wonderful passage to you in the incomparable King James Version: (Daniel is speaking) "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened...