In the stories of the resurrection in The Gospel of Luke, when the risen Jesus appears to the disciples, the disciples are lost in incomprehension.
On the afternoon of the day the tomb was discovered empty, two disciples who are walking to Emmaus are talking about all that has happened, Jesus joins them on the way, and they do not even recognize him until he joins them for an evening meal, and he breaks the bread for them. Then, later, after they rush back to Jerusalem to tell the others what they have seen and Jesus appears in the room with them all, instead of welcoming him as risen, they imagine it’s only a ghost they are seeing.
In both stories, Jesus chides them for their unbelief, and assures them that his death and resurrection, and their continued life and mission in the world are all part of the good working of God.
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Reflection
Sometimes the best place to be is beyond having everything under control. It’s not the easiest place, and not somewhere you’d want to be all the time. But sometimes the holiest and most life-changing, soul-transforming place you can be, is where things fall apart, you’re not in control, and you know it.
“Stay in the city,” Jesus said. “There you will be clothed with power from above, and the good news of new life will be known and proclaimed by you, beginning in Jerusalem.”
Would anyone but the risen Jesus have been able to convince the disciples to go back to Jerusalem, and to wait there for their new beginning?
In Galilee, things had gone pretty well. Up in that northern province – home where they had family and friends, and life was familiar, things with Jesus had gone fairly well. Following him, they had taken some first baby steps towards a new way of being, and things had gone fairly well. With him teaching and healing the people, feeding and forgiving those in need, together they had sown little gardens of new life and love, and gathered scattered communities of healing and hope. They felt a certain confidence.
Jerusalem, though, was where it all fell apart. Within days of arriving in the city and setting up shop in the Temple – to do there what they had done in Galilee, Jesus was quickly and easily arrested, put on trial and put to death. He was hung on a cross outside the city with other criminals. And the movement he began and that they were part of, was hung out to dry on the hill of Golgotha.
And now, with the disciples still reeling from his death, the risen Jesus – Jesus raised by God from the dead, tells them “Go back to the city. Stay in Jerusalem. It is there you will be clothed with power from above. And The Way of new life will be proclaimed by you. Beginning in Jerusalem.”
Have we – have you, have I – ever known and ever been in a place like that? In a Jerusalem of things falling apart, and of knowing you are not in control?
It comes to all of us in times of loss, bereavement and grief. Not every time someone dies; some losses we take in stride fairly well. But then there are other times, when it seems like the world falls apart, nothing is manageable, and you just ache for not being able to make it better. You know you can’t go back to what was. But neither do you know how to go ahead, or if you even can. All you know is the loss, the loneliness, the longing and regret, the guilt and remorse, the anger and the sadness – none of which you are in control of, or have answers for.
A hard place to be – but sometimes, too, the most holy and the most soul-transforming of places.
In my own time of grief – I’m still only a little more than half-way through the year of firsts since Japhia’s passing, I already can’t count the number of you and of others who have proven to be, and who have taken the time to be ministers of grace to me, precisely because you’ve been through it yourself. Having made this unwanted, unwelcome journey in your own life, you have come to know the presence and the power of God in ways that make you now able to show a new depth of compassion and care, a new level of understanding and empathy, and a new breadth of patient and hopeful faith. And what you give to me, helps raise up – yes, raise up, as in “resurrect” the hope that I, too, will grow by this and through this into a fuller human being and a truer child and servant of God.
It’s not an easy place to be – this Jerusalem where things fall apart, and you know you’re not in control. But sometimes there’s no place more holy to have to be in, and to have to wait.
Great sorrow and loss of other kinds can also bring us here. The onset of age and life-changing weakness. Disability and loss of livelihood – loss of control of one’s daily life and life functions. Maybe an accident that leaves you impaired and far less in control – far less a self-sufficient person than you were before.
Or it could something even bigger than personal tragedy that lands you or others in dark Jerusalem. Cycles and systems of poverty and economic injustice. Structures of racism, ageism and other kinds of prejudice. A tragic and senseless shooting in a school. Or political upheaval like revolution, tyranny, war, or invasion and the horrors, atrocities and devastation of life that come with it.
Sometimes we just grow tired of it – weary of all the bad news. We’re tempted to tune it out. Stop watching. Start doing something else more enjoyable, more pleasantly engaging, more happily distracting. Go back to Galilee.
And we need that. We need to keep our balance. But part of that balance is also to be willing to meet, and to hear Jesus – the Jesus risen by God from death and to new life, telling us to go back to the city, to stay in Jerusalem, to let ourselves feel what’s fallen apart, and wait … wait … wait to be clothed with the power of God, the power of The Way, the power of a holy spirit greater than us, engaging us and our lives as it broods and breathes over and into the world as it is. A Spirit that draws us into broadened connection with others around us, deeper feelings of interdependence, greater understanding of what it means that we are not alone, and greater willingness to act out of, and live into, and with what we have to offer, to be part of the unity and the flow of God’s love for all in the world.
According to the Gospel of Luke, the disciples went back to Jerusalem happily and hopefully. Having met the risen Jesus – raised up by God from death to new life, and knowing that things falling apart is not the end of the world or of God’s love in our life, how could they not? Not be willing and ready to go back to that place of their own powerlessness, to know the power of God in their lives, too?
The world is full of people living in Jerusalems, where things fall apart and life becomes unmanageable. Where you know you can’t go back to what was. And you don’t know how to go ahead towards something new and good.
The world needs people – God needs people, who are able themselves to be in those places of powerlessness and lack of control deeply enough and honestly enough, to be raised up by God as witnesses to the promise and the power of new life and a new way of being in the unending flow of God’s eternal love for all.
The thing is, there’s no control over how and when it happens. No step-by-step guide by which we can control the outcome. That’s kind of the point!
What there is, is the risen Jesus. And his gracious call to us. And our willingness to go back to Jerusalem, wherever and whatever that is at this moment. And to stay there, where things fall apart and we can’t fix it. Until we are clothed in new ways with the promise and the presence of love, and we know what God would have us do next – or at least right now, to be part of the flow of his love for all in the world.
Praise be to God.
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