Acts 1:1-11
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53
"If
you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you,
what you do not bring forth will destroy you." Jesus, “Gospel of Thomas”
The “Gospel of Thomas” is among a collection of books
from what is known as the “Nag Hammadi Library”, named for the Egyptian town
near a cave in which this collection was discovered in 1945. The story goes that these Gnostic books were
hidden for the sake of preservation during a time in the late 3rd, early
4th-century during which St. Athanasius had declared war on any
writings not found in the established and authorized scriptural canon.
I have read some of the “Gospel of Thomas”, and the
only objection I have is it is only a collection of sayings of Jesus, many of
which can be found in the Gospel accounts we are more familiar with. What is lacking in these “sayings” is
context. We do not know the whole
story.
This is one of the many challenges the Church faces;
quoting the Scriptures without understanding, or at least acknowledging, the
context from which a particular verse came.
Lacking appropriate context is how we can quote the Bible and completely
change the meaning of a text to fit whatever narrative we are comfortable with. Such a practice does not challenge us to
climb. To the contrary, it convinces us
to settle.
There is also another saying. “Once
the soul awakens, the search begins and [we] can never go back. From then on, [we] are inflamed with a special
longing that will never again let [us] linger in the lowlands of complacency
and partial [or subjective] fulfillment.
The Eternal makes [us] urgent. [We] are loath to let compromise or [even]
the threat of danger hold [us] back from
striving toward the summit of fulfillment” ~ John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A
Book of Celtic Wisdom
As we shared last week, it is the Eternal, the
Everlasting we seek and which will only be found in The Eternal Word. We’ve had more than enough of the doctrinal cotton candy which has made us
fat with knowledge and lazy in false comfort but very weak in faith; and I say “weak
in faith” not because we do not claim to believe something but because perhaps
we have learned to believe the wrong things, the things which may satisfy our “itching
ears” (2 Timothy 4:3) but will
do nothing for our troubled souls. It is
the very thing St. Athanasius believed he was guarding against in the early
days of the Church.
The problem with Gnosticism, as the early Church
Fathers saw it, is that too much emphasis is placed on knowledge and not enough attention given to faith. The difference is
that knowledge is something we can
acquire by our own efforts, but faith
is a Divine Gift given from Above. Some
may suggest the measure of faith is in coming to know something for which we lack any tangible evidence, but that
may be putting inappropriate weight on the passage in the Letter to the Hebrews in which it is written, “Faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
That is, we do not know
what is “hoped for” and we do not know
of “things
not seen”, yet we trust that
what has been revealed to us so far is only an indication of even greater
things to come. So it is often said that
within us all is an unspoken yearning
for something we innately desire; to be in fellowship with our Creator. So it stands to reason that if this much is
true, then there is something within us that seeks to be set free. As it is written, “You will know the Truth, and the
Truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The Truth we will come to know … only if we
choose to strive for it, to reach up for the “summit of fulfillment”.
Sometimes we think we know a little too much to the
point that this sense of absolutes in knowledge tends to make us a little too
arrogant for the humility sufficient to keep our souls burning with
desire. This is because once we think we
possess absolute knowledge, we become less dependent on our Creator, the very
Source of our being, and more dependent on our own minds, our own knowledge,
acquired by our own means. We no longer hope for what we think we have already
attained. The search, such as it may
have been, ends prematurely because what we ultimately hope for – our own Ascension – is still beyond our grasp ...
because we chose to settle for “good enough”.
Yet our Ascension will be the only point at which we will finally be completely freed from all
worldly encumbrances, all chains and shackles of cultural norms and inappropriate
temptations which bind us and prevent us from living fully into the Life to
which we are called and for which we are created.
So it cannot be enough for us to know Jesus has ascended into Heaven, and it is not enough to
know Jesus “will
come in the same way you saw Him go into Heaven” (Acts 1:11). There must be
room for faith. There must be room for
wonder, for mystery … for awe; for whatever it is that is within us already can
only be awakened by a sense of astonishment
that is never settled, never quite comfortable, and always thirsty for that
which does not pass with each popular fad but is consistently upward and always
assures us we are on the right path.
It is that which cannot be taken from us, cannot rust
or rot, and whose meaning is not determined by a popular vote, a strong
opinion, a cultural norm, or a US Supreme Court ruling. It is that which always ascends upward and never settles for parallel and certainly never
descends. Adam was created to ascend
upward but when he became distracted by even the created order perverted by a
sense of personal gain and personal pleasure or just wanting to “go along to
get along”, so began his descent. As he
could have been sustained by The Word, he had been judged by The Word for
seeking knowledge instead of living in faith.
He was judged by the very Word which had yet to become flesh but was, as
it is written, “in the beginning with God”.
A Catholic writer (Douglas Farrow) pointed out that “the Ascension is a political statement:
Jesus is the True Ruler, enthroned as King above the earth. ‘Let the rulers of
this world, together with those who are ruled, be placed on notice. And let the people of The Lord take heart and
rejoice!’ (Wisdom of Solomon). He who
reigns on high has told us we are his Body on earth.”
So Jesus’s Ascension isn’t even a religious event with
a spiritual significance, though it must be regarded as a Holy Day of
Obligation. Rather, the Ascension fulfills
the human vocation to become The Father’s Prince ruling The Father’s universe -
and we as “co-heirs” to that very Throne (Romans 8:17) … if we follow Him faithfully upward.
All of this becomes more and more clear for the soul
which finally awakens to the Truth and acknowledges that what is within us is
the hunger and the thirst for righteousness, for salvation, for some measure of
knowledge that there is more but with
the assurance of faith that our seemingly never-ending quest will never be in
vain and will always be satisfied. “Seek,
and you will find. Ask, and it will be
answered. Knock, and the door will be
opened for you.”
From this moment, let us never again “settle”. Let us never again allow our friends and
families and neighbors to “settle”. Let
us strive to awaken what is already within us so we may awaken the entire
neighborhood, the entire town, the entire world! Because even though there is something to
know, we must have the faith enough to realize there is even more and there will
always be more than what is before us.
It is within us not to merely exist but to really live
well and faithfully. No preacher can
awaken the Church; he or she can only sound the alarm. Only the Church can choose to awaken to what
is already within. And when the Church
is fully awake, so will the community it serves awaken. Only then will we continue to ascend to the “summit
of fulfillment”. Only then will we
really live in Christ the Eternal Word.
For now and forever. Amen.
