Immeasurable Knowledge

“Immeasurable Knowledge”

Ephesians 1:15-23         Luke 24:44-53

Seventh Sunday after Easter, Year B, May 16, 2021

First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho

Andy Kennaly, Pastor

          We lived in Montana when our boys were young.  One of our family Saturday adventures was skiing.  While our oldest son took a lesson, I had the other two on the beginner slope.  Our middle son was two years old, and he was almost as short as his skis were.  I had the tips of his skis hooked together to help hold a wedge shape as he learned to stop, turn, and maneuver.  To maintain physical contact so he wouldn’t take off, I stood on the backside of a hula hoop while our son was in the middle of it, holding the front edge.  This way, he was contained in this circle, and I could control the direction and speed, kind of like a steering wheel.  It took a couple seasons for him to get the hang of it and to muster the courage to go outside that circle of comfort provided by the hula hoop and my close proximity.

He had another source of comfort: a plug in his mouth, a binky, a pacifier.  He sure liked to suck on that plug, and somewhere I have a picture to prove it.  All the while, I also had our youngest son, his little brother, in a backpack.  While on the front, I’m using a hula hoop with one son, on the back, I’m carrying another.  When he wasn’t sleeping, the son on the back was paying attention and the next year he got his turn on skis.  The first run, he flips the hula hoop up and says, “I do it myself!”  Off he goes.  A couple runs and he has it all figured out.  At some point, our family gets together and rides up the chairlift, the bigger hill.  I remember the distinct feeling as we entered a new chapter in life on that first run down the mountain when all our boys skied independently.  No hula hoop, no bungies on the tips of the skis, and they didn’t need the pacifier anymore.  My role shifted because they didn’t need me in the same way.  They’ve been skiing ever since, and now they are the ones who show patience towards me as I ski around the jumps.

A young family comes and goes.  We don’t ski on that mountain anymore, but the mountain is still there.  It was there before we lived in that area and it hasn’t moved.  That big mountain will be there long after our family fades into the generations.  The mountain existed long before skiing was a sport, and it will outlast culture’s current iteration.  Maybe it’s brother mountain who shows the greatest patience as people come and go.  Yet even brother mountain was formed by pressures of continental proportion, shaped by glacial ice sheets as geologic time unfolds.  Even mountains are created, and Deep Time has cosmic expression.  The Earth takes her place in a larger, galactic drama.  God, who is beyond time and holds time, shapes it all in and through Christ.

Last Thursday was Ascension Day.  40 days after Easter.  Jesus was crucified.  Christ arose three days later.  Jesus died; Christ arose.  Remember that Christ is not Jesus’ last name.  Christ is a title, a larger identity.  Christ is the very first thought of God, the expression of who God is, shown through created matter.  The life and ministry of Jesus shows us the fullness of Christ, then 40 days of Resurrection appearances gave the disciples a new glimpse at the power of God, the depths of grace, and a taste of immeasurable knowledge as the Risen Christ opens their minds.  The disciples were gifted with mystical faith, experiential faith.  On Ascension Day, the Risen Christ ascends, and leaves the disciples who now must relate in new ways.  Yet they are changed, less disciples and becoming apostles as they enter a new chapter in the spiritual unfoldment of humanity.

Last Tuesday at the evening study on Alternative Orthodoxy and the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, Richard Rohr pointed out “five passages of scripture that were emphasized by the first Franciscans as they lived into the reality of the Christ that existed from the beginning of creation.”  (A 5-Session Study workbook, page 57).  The first chapters of Colossians, Ephesians, John, 1 John, and Hebrews.  These passages, including the one we read this morning from Ephesians, are hymns that “all say that the Christ existed from all eternity.”  This is the “Cosmic Christ.”

In Ephesians, Paul prays for God to give the believers in Ephesus a “spirit of wisdom and revelation as [they] come to know” God.  God gives this, yet how is this wisdom and revelation perceived?  Paul the mystic reminds them, “With the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which God has called you, what are the riches of God’s glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of God’s power….”  The eyes of our heart enlightened.

Ascension Day moves us from visible, tangible presence into a spiritual knowing, a perception of the heart.  God’s power is at work in Christ; Christ that existed from the beginning of creation, and is active, through on-going expressions of revelation.  It’s our hearts that perceive Christ as things are made known.  In this sense, this reality is something we live into, a wisdom that is gained, experiential knowledge from a lifetime of participation with God who is made known.

How amazing it would have been to share in those resurrection appearances, first-hand, with the disciples.  The Risen Christ coming through locked doors, sharing broiled fish on the beach, showing wounds on his hands and feet and inviting his followers to put their hands in his side.  Resurrection happens and life is transformed.

But then comes Ascension and the Risen Christ departs.  According to Luke, the followers are filled with joy, they continually worship God in the temple, and yet it is some time before Pentecost, 10 days before the promised gift of the Holy Spirit comes in a unique way.  The Resurrected Christ has gone.  The Holy Spirit hasn’t come, and the disciples worship their way through this ambiguous time.

This in-between-time is important.  Sometimes it feels like we’re on our own and the world is stacked against us.  Yet if Reality is Grace then the universe is benevolent.  Perceptions can be mislead, making us think our experience is the only accurate definition of reality; our comprehension and the input from our senses become the limit of our experience.

This is why those 10 days are important.  Even though we have times of isolation, we are never alone.  Even though our mind can’t wrap itself around life’s complexities, we are gifted with faith and still part of Christ’s continual unfolding.  Even when it feels like the apocalypse, like the end is near and we can’t take anymore, we’re reminded that apocalypse is another way of saying what Paul prays for: a revealing, revelation, the made-known-ness of God’s purposes in ways that bring fulfillment.  Nothing is lost, nothing destroyed.  The next thing comes because all things are in Christ, and Christ is in all things.

Next week is Pentecost and people of the church traditionally symbolize the fire of the Holy Spirit by wearing red.  It’s as a people the church exists; together, we are Christ’s body, the fullness of him “who fills all in all,” a gift to the world.  Christ’s glory fills the sky; may our hearts also shine the radiance of Love’s gift.  The joy of the Lord fills the post-Resurrection world; may our eyes be windows into souls transformed.  Faith carries us through in-between times when all we have, it seems, is a promise – that God’s gift of the Holy Spirit is our comfort and advocate.  And as we give thanks for the Christ, present since the beginning of creation, and for Jesus, the full incarnation of God made personal, may the humble, vulnerable love of God continue to be our joy.  Peace and every blessing!  Amen.