Big Moments in Community – Luke 24

A text – Luke 24:44-53

24:44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you–that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
24:45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,
24:46 and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,
24:47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
24:48 You are witnesses of these things.
24:49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
24:50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.
24:51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.
24:52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy;
24:53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

A reflection:

Here is a story believers know pretty well: the ascension of Jesus, surrounded by his disciples. But if you try to picture it happening, it is quite mysterious. Jesus, who walked with his followers, teaching as he went, might have just been going out for another such teaching day. Of course this is Jesus after his resurrection, the miraculous Jesus who died in front of many onlookers, was buried for a weekend and then, after an earthquake, vanished from the gravesite and began appearing to people here and there. This is the risen Jesus, teaching his disciples, opening their minds to the scriptures, the whole community of them sitting and walking together, united around this amazing Son of God.

Then they get a little way away from Jerusalem, as far as the small town of Bethany. Mary, Martha, and the also risen-from-the-dead Lazarus live there. Perhaps he wanted to give them a final blessing and wanted them to witness the ascension, too. This was the community of people on earth whom Jesus loved and lived with and who nourished him with companionship. Then while he was teaching and blessing them, Jesus suddenly withdrew from them, or vanished, or – what other mystery-filed verb can you think of? Then he was no longer present with them in his body as they had known him.

If the Triune God is a community of three inseparable holy beings, existing from before creation together, then when Jesus became flesh, taking the form of a human being, it must have been a sudden and lonely existence for him, being without the Father and the Holy Spirit all the time. Jesus was drawn to others. He created community wherever he went. He wanted the disciples to have one another as well. So it seems fitting that Jesus would ascend back into the Holy Trinity from the town in which his closest people lived and ate and learned together. Especially when he was leaving his earthly, bodily form, he knew all his favorite people would need one another.

Jesus wants us to have community, too. Especially when we are working on a mission he sends us on. So see your friends. Eat together. Encourage one another. Be community together. You will do your best work that way for the Kingdom of God.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for placing us in community. Help us to spend as much time as we can in the company of those you have sent to us to encourage us, to play with us, and to make us our best selves so that we bear fruit for you.     Amen.