Reflection by Deacon Russ for Feast of Ascension

According to some people, the Ascension of Jesus represents the biggest mistake Jesus ever made. What he did was left us. And he put the Gospel and the life of the Church in the hands of man and left us in charge. Looks like a big mistake.

There's an old story that, after Jesus ascended into heaven, all the angels raced around to meet him and to hear how things had gone. And Jesus told them about his birth, his life and preaching, his death and resurrection, and how he saved the world. And the angels said, "Well, now that you are back here, how is your work going to be continued? What is your plan?" And Jesus said, "Well, I gathered a group of people who believe in me and love me, a group of human beings, and they're going to continue the Gospel and the Church." The angels looked at him in shock and then said, "Well, what will you do if it doesn't work, if they mess up?" And Jesus said, "I have no other plans."

The apostles were it! We're it! And the apostles don't know what to do. They remember some words of Jesus, and they go to this upper room to figure things out, and to hope that his words might be true and that something might happen. But for the moment you have to appreciate that they are in the "in-between time." They're between the Ascension and Pentecost - between loss and promise…..and they're confused. And the scriptures show us how they handled that, and that's important because all of us at one time or another are exactly there - between loss and promise, between things that you have lost and things that have not yet unfolded.

In the past year, many of us have been in the “in-between times” with the pandemic. Many were sick and hospitalized. Some died. Churches were closed. Important times with family and friends were no longer possible. We struggled to get vaccine appointments, the sign of hope. We stayed away from stores and restaurants and vacations. And when we did go out, we wore masks. We were indeed “in-between.”

Those of us who, as parents, took our son or daughter away to college the first time won't forget the tug at our heart, the feeling of "losing" that child; the worry that he or she would be happy and do well. The "in-between time."

Those of us who have lost a job know what being in-between means. You can be vice-president of a company one day and lose your job the next day. I know. I went from being a college administrator to being unemployed to selling TV's and washers at Sun TV. And all of a sudden all those things that seemed important are stripped away.

And perhaps worst of all - even worse than death in many ways - is suffering through broken relationships, whether it's a divorce, or the break-up of a friendship, or estrangement from a child who's living a life that you don't agree with.

So, you see, this "in-between time" of the apostles is something that you and I know from our experience. Will I ever get better? Will this mental or emotional or physical illness ever leave me? Will I ever be free? Will I ever feel successful again? We all know those questions.

The scriptures suggest three things to do, the things that the apostles did. First, they gathered in prayer. They didn't know what to do except that they had to pray for guidance, even when it was difficult to pray. And I imagine it had to be. Their leader was gone. He had promised the Spirit, and the Spirit had not yet come. They didn’t know whether they had a future as a sect or a religion, or whether they should just split up and go back home. But they prayed. So that's the first thing on how to handle the "in-between times."

The second thing is interesting - look for and savor the message of simplicity. When we have loss, things are stripped from us. If you lost your job, your name on the door is stripped from you. Suddenly, you're without identity. Sickness strips the ability to come and go as you will. Broken relationships, a divorce, physical or emotional illness, death - all these losses ultimately strip you. When things are stripped away, as bad as that is, it has a tendency to force us to go down to the bare-bone values of our life. We are forced to say, "What are the values I really want to live by?" What are we basically, when all is taken away? You take away my house, my car, my income, my health, my friend; what really counts? Basics….back to the basics. The "in-between time" is a graceful moment for answering that question. Every loss forces us into looking at what's really important.

And the third thing is to live in the seedtime of hope. Jesus says, "If you go there, the Spirit will come upon you." Those of you who are planting this weekend know that you drop the seed in the ground, and you can look every day as kids do, and nothing's happening. But something is happening. Unknown, invisibly, something incredible is happening, something you could watch with time-lapse photography. What's happening is that the seed is dying. But in the very process of dying, as it must die, the shoot comes forth. That's hope!

So those of you who are in the "in-between time," or will be - and everybody will be - just be patient with the dying, but have hope for the future. Next week we celebrate Pentecost. The Spirit is coming again. The pain will leave and the promises will be fulfilled. Take these three things - prayer, simplicity, hope . . . and live in the promise of the coming of the Spirit!

If you have a brief faith reflection on today’s reading that you would like to share, please send it to me at deaconruss@holyspiritunoh.org.