Sermon for May 16, 2021 - The Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B, The Rev. Elise A. Feyerherm

Full circle

I have a distinct awareness these days of having come “full circle” – perhaps you have too. Another COVID spring. A new round of graduations in less-than-ideal circumstances. Perhaps it is a condition of our existence that we are always, in the midst of every present moment, thinking back to “where were we this time last year.” But this year it has seemed especially so.

Full circle. This sense of having come back to where we have been before, after a long journey, a long year, can hit us in a lot of different ways. It can appear around the corner like a clearing the woods on a hike, when we discover that we’ve actually been walking in circles. Now where do we go? Full circle. It can hit us like a brick wall that looms suddenly in front of us when we thought for sure we would be able to climb over by now. Mass shootings in Providence. Unrest and violence in Palestine and Israel. Brutality and oppression in Colombia. Illness and death of epidemic proportions in India. What, this again? Full circle. 

Coming full circle isn’t always full of dread. This year, even in the midst of another COVID spring, this point on the circle looks different, more hopeful, more normal. We see a way off the merry-go-round. Coming full circle can be more like a spiral staircase than a hamster wheel.

And so it is, on this seventh Sunday of Easter, with Jesus. If we look closely at the scripture readings, at where we are in our liturgical year, we see that Jesus himself is coming full circle. This past Thursday we celebrated Ascension Day – when the resurrected Jesus “ascends” into heaven. The Incarnate Word that is God and that descended to earth to take flesh in Jesus of Nazareth has, we proclaim, come full circle, seated at the right hand of the Father. In the gospel reading for today, Jesus says to God several times, “I am coming to you.” “I came from you,” Jesus says, and now, having manifested the truth of God’s love, I am coming back. Full circle.

We forget the importance of Jesus’ full circle, just as we often slide right over Ascension Thursday in our eagerness to get to Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit. But it’s there in the creeds every Sunday – he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. I find myself wondering, why does this matter? What does this last part of the full circle accomplish?

One way in which we might talk about Jesus’ return to the Godhead comes from Jesus himself – he tells his disciples elsewhere in John’s gospel that “if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you” (16:7). In this way of framing things, Jesus’ departure is not an abandonment but a making room for a new kind of mature, Spirit-filled life for his disciples.

That, I believe, is true. There is another part to the process, however, that is often overlooked, and it’s that part of this full circle that I want to explore. When Jesus returns to the Father, the Eternal Source of all that is, he is bringing his resurrected and glorified human nature back to God, from whence it came. 

You might wonder, as I do, so what if Jesus’ humanity is glorified in the Ascension – Jesus may have ascended into heaven, but I am stuck right here on earth! What does this have to do with me?

This is where our theology comes in. And as you probably know by now, I am one of those people who believes that the creeds and the theology that flows from them are eminently practical – they make a huge difference in our lives and our actions. So here goes.

When the divine Word became human, it took flesh in a very specific human person – that of Jesus of Nazareth. Human persons are unique, one of a kind. That’s just the way we come – in our world, we can only experience human nature as specific, unique instances of that nature. But we also know from experience that we participate in something we can identify as human nature – something mysterious and also concrete which we all share. We are individuals – and we are all one, bound to one another, created together in the image and likeness of God. What God has joined together, let no one put asunder.

When God became flesh in Jesus, it was also this mysterious and wondrous human nature that was united to God. All that is human in its created glory, was united to all that is divine. In Jesus, in that unique and irreplaceable human person, the Divine Word was born, lived, taught, suffered, died, was raised from the dead, and…ascended, returning to its Source. And that matters not just to Jesus, but to us.

The glorified human nature of Jesus becomes ours through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. When we are united with Christ in baptism, we share in that mysterious and life-giving grace, and the gift is repeated and strengthened through the Holy Eucharist. So even though it feels distant, perhaps even unrelated to us, we do participate in that full circle with Jesus. 

Exactly how does it happen? I’m not sure. Grace is a mysterious and perplexing thing. But I know it is real – I have seen it in the life of the Church, the Body of Christ, over and over again, not just in our lifetime but over thousands of years. Our human nature comes home to God, is filled with God, transfigured by and into God. Full circle. 

Ascension is a narrative image of St. Augustine’s intimate prayer, “Our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in you.” This is something of what I think Jesus means when he prays to God that his disciples may be “sanctified in truth.” You may not be a fan of the word “sanctified” – it may have a ring of sanctimoniousness, self-satisfaction, superiority, to you. But I know that is not what Jesus means. When he prays that his followers may be sanctified, he is praying that their lives, and ours, may be opened up, freed to manifest the fullness of the image of God that has been ours from the beginning of creation. Free, as the characters on the old children’s TV special used to sing, “Free to be you and me.”

Free to love one another without fear. Free to accept our unique gifts. Free to lay down our privilege for the sake of others. Free to take risks in the name of justice. Free to let go of all that keeps us from following Jesus. This is what it means to be sanctified in truth.

And all this is possible because Jesus has come full circle. He came from God, dwelt among us, and took all of our joys and sorrows and strength and pain back to God, where new possibilities for all of us are born.

The next time we wonder whether Jesus’ ascension makes any difference, we may remember this. Jesus has come full circle…and he has brought us with him to God. That’s a circle we can celebrate and explore with joy.

Let us pray:

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.