When Jesus is Gone
Sermon — May 17, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings
Today we celebrate the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the Sunday after the Ascension; the Sunday after that day, forty days after Easter, when Jesus rose into the heavens and disappeared from his disciples’ sight.
Imagine being one of Jesus’ disciples on that first Ascension Day, two thousand years ago. The last six weeks have been pretty crazy. You’d first come down to the city of Jerusalem for Passover with a group of friends who’d spent the last year following this remarkable man named Jesus as he traveled around Galilee. You’d heard him preaching about the coming of what he called the kingdom of God. You’d seen him do things you couldn’t explain. You’d come to believe that there was something special about Jesus. Surely he was going to be the one to restore the kingdom to Israel. Surely he was going to be the one to lead his nation to freedom.
But then you’d been there among the crowd when that dream was shattered on the horrifying day that we call “Good Friday.” You’d seen him arrested and betrayed, put on trial and put to death. You’d seen the hope of a better life for your people disappear.
And then, in the most amazing miracle of all, you’d seen him rise again. You’d not only heard about the empty tomb, he’d actually appeared to you and your friends, many times, over the course of forty days, and he’d continued to speak about the kingdom of God. He’d told you, and the other disciples, to stay put—not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of God to be fulfilled.
Imagine how exciting it would feel to be part of a movement on the rise, when the pivotal moment of decision has come. Surely Jesus has gathered you all here in the capital city for a reason. And so you ask him, “Lord, is this the time? Are you finally going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) Are you finally going to ascend the throne and lead us to victory?
And Jesus says: That’s none of your business. Okay. “But you will receive power” (yes! finally!) “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This is great. Jesus is making sense. He’s got a strategic plan. It has three bullet points, so you know it’s a good plan. The kingdom of God is going to spread from the city of Jerusalem where you are right now, to the surrounding countryside of Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.
And then, as the last words of this mission statement still linger on his lips, Jesus begins to rise into the air. He passes through a layer of clouds—and he’s gone.
If you’ve been following Jesus around for a year then you’ve seen him do some strange things. But this has got to be the strangest thing he’s done. And as you gaze up, speechless, at the sky, waiting for him to come back down and start to put the plan into action—or at least conclude the meeting with a prayer—suddenly two men appear (in dazzling white robes of course) and say, “Galileans! Why are you standing there, looking up at heaven?”
Talk about gaslighting. The man just flew away into the sky! What do you mean, why are we standing here looking up at heaven? But the two men say that “this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the saw way as you saw him go.” (Acts 1:11)
And that’s all the explanation that the disciples are going to get. So they go back to Jerusalem, and they stay there, like Jesus told them to, and they pray.
This story leaves the disciples hanging between two worlds. Between the past when Jesus was with them, and the future when the Holy Spirit will come. Between the world in which they had a leader to follow and the one in which they’ll become the leaders of the Church. Between what they thought they knew about what it meant for Jesus to establish the kingdom of God—and what they would come to learn about what the kingdom of God really meant.
And I always love the stories in the Bible that leave people in these in-between places: the stories of Advent, as Mary anxiously awaits the birth of her first child; the story of Holy Saturday, when Jesus has died but not yet risen and the disciples sit and wait by the tomb; this story that we read on the Sunday after the Ascension, when Jesus has left the disciples alone, standing, speechless, staring up at the sky.
On the Seventh Sunday of that first Easter season, two thousand years ago, the disciples prayed alone. Jesus had gone away. He had promised that the Holy Spirit would come—but that didn’t happen until the next week, on the Day of Pentecost. Not today. Today, the disciples are alone, dealing with the confusing grief losing Jesus for a second time, all too soon after hearing the joyful news of the Resurrection. Now they finally understood what Jesus had said, in his prayer at the Last Supper: “now I am no longer in the world—but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.” (John 17:11) And this has been true for every disciple of Jesus, ever since Ascension Day: he’s no longer in the world, but we are in the world, and the world in which we live feels an awful lot like the in-between world of that first Ascension Day.
We don’t feel like the disciples did when Jesus was walking among them. And on most days, we don’t feel like the disciples did when the Holy Spirit filled them on Pentecost. If you do—thank God, and don’t let me get in your way. But most of us spend most of our lives in that in-between time, that post-Ascension pre-Pentecost time, when Jesus has gone away and we’re waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. And—while it’s certainly not my place to “know the times or periods” that have been set by God’s own authority, as Jesus would say, it often feels like the arrival of the peaceable kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed is more than a little delayed. We live in troubled times, and the truth is that we always have.
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you,” (1 Peter 4:12) Peter writes to a group of his fellow-Christians two thousand years ago. And you know what? Even in this beautiful springtime, even on these joyful Easter days, all around us, people are going through ordeals. You may be going through one yourself. A personal ordeal, a family ordeal; a neighborhood or a national ordeal; there’s a reason that one of the most popular quotes to attribute to the wise people of the past is “be kind, for everyone you meeting is fighting a hard battle.”
I wish this weren’t true. But it is. And Peter’s response is not only to acknowledge that these faithful and beloved people are going through an ordeal. It’s to reassure them it’s not their fault; it’s the human condition. “Don’t be surprised,” he says. This is what we should expect, because we still live in an in-between time, when God’s kingdom has not yet come. And for me, it’s always come as a relief to be reminded, when I’m going through a fiery ordeal, that I’m not alone.
And in fact, none of us are alone. If you’re hearing these words, it’s because you’ve chosen to do what those first disciples did when they saw that Jesus wasn’t coming back down. You’ve come to a holy place to be with one another and to pray. You’ve come to sit among people who’ve experienced some of the same things, who believe some of the same things, and who certainly have many of the same questions about the world. And whether you come and chat long past Coffee Hour has ended or you slip out the door before the Postlude ends or you are listening online—you’re a part of the community of this church, a part of the one Body of Christ. And when you find yourself in the midst of an ordeal, staring up speechless into the sky, waiting for Jesus to appear—you aren’t waiting alone.
Because we do live on the other side of Pentecost. We do receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. From time to time, we do encounter Christ, even though he’s ascended into heaven and left the earth behind. Sometimes it’s when we sit inside a quiet church in prayer, or when we reach forth our hands for a little piece of bread. Sometimes it’s when we see how green the leaves are on a spring day; when we hear a kind word from a stranger or share our struggles with a good friend.
We don’t even see God clearly in these moments. Jesus is still hidden behind the clouds. But even though Jesus has ascended into heaven, he sends the Holy Spirit again and again to earth. God shows up in our lives: in big ways and in small ways and in ways we don’t even recognize. And again and again, we find ourselves “restored, supported, strengthened, and established” by the grace of God; “To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:11)
