The 7th Sunday of Easter - From Ascension to Pentecost: A Liminal Time

The Gospel of John contains Jesus' “high priestly prayer” spoken before he was arrested and crucified.  A portion of this prayer by Jesus to God for his disciples was read this morning. It contains these words addressed to God: “But now I am coming to you . . .”

In our liturgical year we celebrate 40 days of Lent (not counting Sundays, but including Holy Week) and 40 days between Easter and Ascension (counting Sundays) and 10 more days until Pentecost.  Much of this liturgical time could be looked at as “liminal.”  Do you have favorite words—words you just look for opportunities to use?  “Liminal” is such a word for me.

“Liminal” refers to a transitional state, for example, walking through a doorway to another room.  In fact, its Latin root “limen” means “threshold.”  As it has been drawn into English, it has come to describe being in-between two different states of being.  For example, adolescence is a liminal state between childhood and adulthood. It may also refer to in-between situations and conditions that are characterized by the dislocation of established structures or the reversal of hierarchies. For Jesus and for the disciples, Jesus' resurrection and his ascension could be described as liminal situations or conditions.

At the cathedral on Saturday a former Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, preached at the service to celebrate all the years of ministry of our cathedral congregation in that stately neo-gothic building, soon to be closed.  The texts for the day were texts describing Jesus' departure from his disciples and from our world—the texts for Ascension Day, this past Thursday.

He described what I would call a liminal moment when the Christ—God-made-flesh: crucified, died and risen—had appeared to them in his resurrected form.  Christ comforted them—“fear not, I will send you the spirit of truth” and challenged them—“go into all the world and preach the gospel.”  Then on the 40^th day, he withdrew from them and, as our theology explains it, returned to the God-head from whom he had come.

Bishop Griswold described a medieval carving he had seen with the disciples reaching out toward a very large pair of feet—all you could see beneath the clouds.  This carving was theology made physical—a fairly risky thing to do—and rather humorous in this case.  Imagine what might have happened had the disciples actually gotten hold of Jesus' feet!

The truth is, of course, that liminal states are usually risky and uncertain. Despite Jesus' having prayed for Godly protection for them, the disciples must have been at a loss. Did they feel abandoned by their teacher and friend—the Messiah for whom all Israel had hoped—whom they had known and followed and loved?  When he told them to wait for the coming of the Spirit, how firmly did they trust Jesus?  How long must they wait? And how would they know when they received what he promised them?  By allowing Christ to ascend away from them, while keeping the faith that even in his absence Christ was not abandoning them, the disciples entered a liminal place.  Bishop Griswold called this their narrow gate to the future.

Jesus taught that the path to God is through a narrow gate, and narrow gates are difficult to negotiate.  Without Jesus' returning to the God-head—going first so to speak—humanity's estrangement from God may never have been healed.  Because he now understood the realities of human life, Jesus' ascension to God brought together the human and the divine in an entirely new way.

Another retired Bishop, Martin Shaw of Argyle and the Isles in Scotland, wrote a short poem that uses the slip-stream (that pattern of air around an airplane wing that allows it to fly) as a metaphor for Christ's ascension and humanity's changed state.  Here is what he wrote in a poem he called, “Be Lifted.”

The rising of The Man creates
The Slip-stream of Love
Into which we are gently
Summoned; fearful though we are
And yet obedient to that drawing
Into the Oneness that has always
Been promised in
The Silence of God.

One of our Ascension hymns, written by Charles Wesley, describes this same theology, albeit with more traditional images . The final verse of “Hail the day that sees him rise” also describes humanity's liminal state transformed into God's presence:  “Lord beyond our mortal sight/raise our heart to reach thy height,/there thy face unclouded see,/find our heaven of heavens in thee.”

Our Christian hope can be traced to how Jesus' followers handled the narrow gate of his absence.  The 10 days between Ascension and Pentecost—of which seven are left—can be used to meditate on how the disciples came to understand that the physical absence of Jesus led to the great gift God's presence through the Holy Spirit.  With their understanding came their empowerment.  Now without fear and with joy, they could share the hope they had gained.

Let us pray: O God, may we, in the midst of this liturgically liminal time, gain insight into how You work in all the thresholds of change—all the narrow gates—of our lives.  What will You send us at these times?  And when will You send it?  Strengthen us to keep watch, for Pentecost is coming! Amen.