May 17, 2026
The Seventh Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Acts 1:6-14 ~ Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36 ~ 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6:11 ~ John 17:1-11
“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” (Acts 1:11)
At the end of Luke’s gospel, the risen Jesus leads his followers out to Bethany on the Mount of Olives and is carried up into heaven. We are told that the disciples then returned to Jerusalem with great joy and spent their time in the temple (Luke 24:50-52). If Acts is part two of Luke’s Gospel, and scholars affirm that it is, then Acts opens with a short recap of the resurrection appearances of Jesus before his Ascension. Luke Part One does not include the part about the appearance of angels asking them why they were staring up into heaven where Jesus had just disappeared from sight. These figures in white assured them that he would return. Don’t just stand there with your mouths hanging open. There’s work to be done!
This morning, we did not hear from Luke Part One. No, we heard from John, and in John, there is no description of the Ascension. This really isn’t so surprising since John isn’t interested in telling a chronology of the life of Jesus. John’s project is to portray Jesus as God incarnate, the Word made Flesh, present from the beginning of time. He was the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation for all humankind.
John can be hard on those of us who like a good story, but for those who want to understand the significance of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, you won’t do any better than the Gospel of John.
And yet here we are in today’s reading, right back at the Last Supper, the night before Jesus’s arrest. Jesus is offering what has come to be called the High Priestly Prayer. In Chapters 13 through 16, Jesus gives a farewell address to those gathered, promising to send an Advocate, telling them that he is the true vine, promising that he would be with them even when not physically there anymore. This prayer in Chapter 17 is a prayer commending those he loves to God’s care and protection. But why this part? Why today?
Part of it has to do with the nature, the intent of John’s account. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus’s identity and purpose was not truly revealed until the resurrection and ascension. Sure, he had stated his purpose and certain folks like the demons certainly knew who he was, but his glory comes at the end.
In John, it is evident from the beginning. There is, I suppose, no need for an obvious Ascension because who he is has been explicit throughout. “In the beginning was the Word” is how John starts his telling of this.
You may have noticed over the past couple of weeks during which we have heard Jesus’s final words of instruction and encouragement that time and space are not exactly linear. Jesus tells us that there are many dwelling places in God’s house and he’s going to prepare a place for us, but then he also says that he abides in us. He says they will live forever, yet they already participate in the eternal life that he promises. He says he is going to be glorified and immediately turns around and says that he already has been glorified.
There is a certain brand of faith that says that if we live right here on earth, we will receive our reward in heaven. John seems to be saying that heaven is within our grasp right here and right now. The Spirit is with us. Christ dwells within us. We are grafted to the vine, participating in the life of Christ. Not in some far-off heaven, but now.
We only read the first part of John 17 this morning when Jesus begins by praying for himself that he would be glorified. Most of the middle section is Jesus praying for the disciples, for their protection. The chapter ends with Jesus praying for all who would believe because of these gathered there with him, and that’s all of us. We are, in a way, part of the story then as much as Jesus is part of our story now. When Jesus says, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:11), he isn’t using a future tense. He is stating a present reality for the disciples and for us.
Step back for a moment and see that in this short passage from John, Jesus uses some form of the verb “to give” nine times:
- Those whom you gave me…you gave them to me. (17:6)
- Everything you have given me… (17:7)
- The words you gave me I have given to them… (17:8)
- I am asking…on behalf of those whom you gave me… (17:9)
- Protect them in your name that you have given me… (17:11, 12)
- I have given them your word… (17:14) (comes just after the end of our reading)
Our God is a God of generosity. Our God is a God who gives. It is God’s nature to give. God gave us everything – all that is and ever will be, in all its abundance and glory and multiplicity. God did not create us all vanilla (and thank goodness for that!). One of the beauties of our own Episcopal tradition is that we celebrate our diversity, from Anglo-Catholic to Evangelical and everything in between, but we are one. Unity in diversity. And no, we don’t always do it so well, but Jesus is saying that it is so, even when we fail to fully live up to it.
For forty days following the resurrection and until his Ascension into heaven which we celebrated on Thursday, Jesus surely said many other “final words” to the disciples, like tend my lambs and feed my sheep (John 21:15-16), peace be with you (Luke 24:36), I am with you always (Matthew 28:20). But here in John, on this side of his Passion, like a parent giving those last words of encouragement to a child, Jesus is telling his disciples that they are not alone, no matter how hard things get; they are loved no matter what; they are one because they all belong to him, and he and God are one. They are participants in his glory. And nothing in all creation can separate them – or us – from that Love that is God in Christ. These may be Jesus’s final words to them, but they were Good News then, and they are certainly Good News now.
The English poet Malcolm Guite has a beautiful poem called Sonnet for Ascension Day in which, while referencing the Matthew, Mark, and Luke version of the Ascension, also references that collapse of time and space that we find in John, that all the future is held in the present in the glorified Christ.
We saw his light break through the cloud of glory
Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.
We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,
Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,
His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed.[1]
In my sermon on Ascension Day, I told a story about how all of creation was pulled up to heaven as Jesus ascended. You could also say that in John’s telling, we were all pulled into Christ’s glory just by being chosen and appointed to bear fruit that lasts. At its heart, the Ascension was necessary because as long as Jesus physically stayed with his followers, they stayed close to him. Now they – and we – are unleashed to share Good News wherever we are because the presence of Christ is ours at all times and in all places through the power of the Spirit. My friends, let’s not just stand around looking up into heaven waiting for some future glory when it is ours for the asking. Bear witness to the presence of Christ with us and in us here and now.
[1] https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/a-sonnet-for-ascension-day/