Grieving is the most powerful part of love. It leaves us tattered and full of the Spirit, it changes us, it leaves us with the power that parts the waters.
Sometimes there are these times of stillness, in between times, in that nowhere on the way to somewhere.
Lately I’ve been remembering this one day, right after college, I was driving up to D.C. to start an internship, and I stopped at a friend’s house along the way, in N.C., and we spent a day floating on a lake.
I remember just floating there in the summer sun, with a friend that I would never see again, though I didn’t know it then, it was such a wonderful slow day.
I had always gone from one thing to the next with no real down time between. That day, I was just simply there, I was nowhere else, didn’t have to be anywhere else, just a day on the water with a friend.
A still place. There are days like that in the Christian year. Holy Saturday is that. The day between Good Friday and Easter, between crucifixion and Resurrection, a day where the universe slowly spins down its momentum, the descent into death weighing on things.
Another time is right now, in the ten days between Ascension and Pentecost, between Jesus leaving and the Spirit arriving, where we pray that we not be left comfortless. Waiting. A still pool of water in the sun.
The Ascension story only appears at the end of Luke and then again at the beginning of Acts. The Epistles make reference to it.
In John’s Gospel Jesus speaks directly about it three times, and he alludes to it numerous times, as we hear today when Jesus says he is coming to the Father.
But in John the event itself is not recorded.
Rather, John ends with Jesus cooking breakfast on the lakeshore for the disciples. They talk about things.
Then Jesus and Peter go walking and they talk about the disciple who will tell the story of the Gospel that would become the Gospel according to John.
That’s where it ends, with Jesus and Peter walking off in the early morning light, talking about telling the story of Jesus. The assumption, I think, is that only Peter comes back from that walk. The Ascension happens off stage.
It was a still place, in the morning sun by the water. A morning walking with a friend, that he would not see again, though he didn’t know it, until that day comes where all things are fulfilled.
It’s like when Elijah and Elisha go on their last walk, and Elijah is taken up in the great fiery chariot and whirlwind.
Elisha reaches up to the sky yelling out, “Father, Father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” until he can no longer see him. “Father, Father!”
Then he tears his cloths, picks up Elijah’s mantel and asks, “Where is God?” He then parts the waters of the Jordan river, tattered, grieving, and full of the Spirit. Where is God indeed. The power of love and grief overflowing with the Spirit of God.
John’s Gospel is like that, it has that same sense of loss with the gifting of an incredible power. That is what we hear today from John. In John’s Gospel Jesus must leave so that the disciples can share in the same closeness with God the Father that God the Son shares in.
And Jesus has to let go of his friends so that they may receive the gift, the incredible power. It is a hard thing. We hear that in Jesus’ prayer today about leaving. Jesus tells the Father that he better take care of his friends. It is like another dying so that others may live. It is like Jesus can hardly breathe to utter the words.
Jesus loves them so deeply, he is tattered and grieving and full of the Spirit as he prepares to leave them with the incredible power.
The power of God’s intimate closeness. Grieving is the most powerful part of love. It leaves us tattered and full of the Spirit, it changes us, it leaves us with the power that parts the waters.
These in between times, these still pools of water in the sun.
Between closing down and opening up.
Between leaving and arriving.
Between loss and picking ourselves back up.
Between saying good bye and asking where the hell is God in this mess.
These times have an incredible power.
In this time between the departure of the Ascension and arrival of the flaming wind of Pentecost.
In this time between the world crashing to a standstill and waking up again angry and tattered.
What will we do with it?
It is an incredibly powerful time, tattered with loss, full of the Spirit that parts the waters.
What will we do?
A time of stillness, on the water, in the sun with a friend that we will soon never see again. Where is God indeed.
Grieving is the most powerful part of love. It leaves us tattered and full of the Spirit, it changes us, it leaves us with the power that parts the waters.