I can still remember it the day clearly. It was toward the end of our 30 day journey in Israel Palestine. The sun was beating down on us and I’d left my hat at the convent where we were staying. We’d just left the sheltered beauty Dominus Pater which is the place we remember Jesus teaching the disciples the Lord’s prayer. The next stop on the journey was the Mosque of the Ascension.
As you enter the courtyard there is a small chapel and inside it you will find a square box sunk into the ground. In centre of the box, there is rock in it that is said to be the last place Jesus touched the earth before ascending into heaven. Some said they could see the footprint of Jesus still in that rock. I don’t know if it was the heat getting to me, but I looked at that rock and couldn’t see the shape of a footprint and my only thought was, “really?” I think my younger self was less comfortable with good mystery. I missed the point of the place. It is a place to remember something holy – something mysterious. So much of faith is that tension between concrete proof and the great mysteries which are yet to be unraveled.
The disciples are in that same kind of in between in our reading. They aren’t really sure what’s going on. We’ve had 7 weeks since Easter. But for the disciples the timeline is so much shorter. We are still in the 24thchapter of Luke. Verse one has Mary heading to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. She still doesn’t know about the resurrection! As today’s reading begins, the disciples are still talking about the news from Cleopas and how Jesus appeared to them on the road to Emmaus. It is into this conversation that Jesus steps in, and says, “Peace be with you.” (Luke 24:36). Luke writes, “[The disciples] were startled and terrified, and thought they were seeing a ghost.” (Luke 24:37)
Even though Jesus started with offering his peace they still don’t really understand what they are seeing or what is happening. Jesus says to them, “Look at my heads and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Then Jesus asks them if they have something to eat, and like good church people of all generations, they sit down and eat together. And after they eat, Jesus reminds them of that the Messiah is the one who must suffer and die and then on the third day rise. Then Jesus offers them a promise, “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.” (Luke 24:49)
They walk as far as Bethany, Jesus lifts up his hands and blesses them as he is being carried up to heaven. And this is what is so important to remember – Jesus last act on earth is blessing. It is fitting in the book of Acts, the book that tells us about the early days of the Christian community, that Jesus last act is an invitation to be witnesses of the good news. Jesus says to the disciples, “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:7 – 8)
I love that Jesus two last acts on earth are just how we closes worship every week – commissioning – you are my witnesses and benediction – he raises his arms in blessing. These two things summarize our calling as a people of faith. We are blessed and with that blessing in hand we go to bear witness to that blessing.
Luke doesn’t tell us what the blessing is, but yesterday as I watched the funeral for the well know Christian author Rachel Held Evans, I wonder if this blessing written by Nadia Bolz-Webber might be what Jesus says to us today:
“Blessed are the agnostics. Blessed are they who doubt. Blessed are those who have nothing to offer. Blessed are the preschoolers who cut in line at communion. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.
Blessed are those whom no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers. The closeted. The teens who have to figure out ways to hide the new cuts on their arms. Blessed are the meek. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.
Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like. Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried. Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else. Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet.” Blessed are those who mourn. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.
I imagine Jesus standing here blessing us because that is our Lord’s nature. This Jesus cried at his friend’s tomb, turned the other cheek, and forgave those who hung him on a cross. He was God’s Beatitude— God’s blessing to the weak in a world that admires only the strong.
Jesus invites us into a story bigger than ourselves and our imaginations, yet we all get to tell that story with the scandalous particularity of this moment and this place. We are storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God. May we never neglect that gift. May we never lose our love for telling the story. Amen. (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/4f63ddf524ac9f2c23f422a4/t/5cf14dfef9a0200001213a84/1559318017238/Funeral_Liturgy_for_Rachel.pdf)