Learning To Let Go
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This passage both challenges and comforts us. It challenges us to do two things: 1) let go of our need to know a specific timeline of God’s work in the world 2) hold on loosely to our images and depictions of Jesus, recognizing that we can never fully capture the essence of Jesus. And yet the passage comforts us by letting us know that even as God calls us to do the hard work of advocating for a world of justice and equality without knowing when the work will end, and even as God reminds us that Christ is so much bigger than our limited imaginations, God is with us. God accompanies us and empowers us. God does not leave us alone.
I venture to say that many of us look at the pain, violence, and messiness of the world around us and ask, “God when will the fullness of your kingdom-a kingdom built on equality and justice be here?” I am a type A personality-I like to have a schedule and know what is next, but I imagine that even if you are the complete opposite of me and are more spontaneous that the question of, “when God,” isn’t far from your mind either.
The world is scary and while some positive changes are occurring on a local, national, and global scale-some other things continue to get worse. As a queer, nonbinarish, Puerto Rican, my question about when the kingdom of God will be fully realized is not just about me wanting to have a schedule of what is next, but it has to do with life and death.
In the US, more and more states are creeping toward fascism. Politicians aren’t even pretending to hide their desire to implement white Christian nationalism and create a nation where Black and brown people are forever second-class citizens, where trans people are eradicated, and where queer people of all types are forced to live in fear and hiding. I want God to answer my question with a specific date and time because I am scared. And I know I am not the only one.
So many of us are afraid and have good reason to be: in addition to continued oppression and violence towards Black, brown, and queer people, most of us are struggling with inflation and the inability to both feed and shelter our families, with the inability to access adequate healthcare without going into massive debt, with the ramifications of climate change, and with a nation that idolizes guns. Our fears are well founded and our demand for specifics from God is understandable.
And yet, God refuses to give a specific date, at least to me. If God has given you a specific date for when justice and equality will reign, please let me know. But despite not giving us a specific time frame, God does not leave us hanging. In Acts, Jesus tells the disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
For those of us living now, the Holy Spirit is already upon us. The Holy Spirit, on a daily basis, empowers us to deal with the unknowns and the injustices that we continually face. The Holy Spirit is what gives us the courage to continue to fight for a just world even in the midst of continued oppression.
God does not give us a specific date and perhaps that fact has less to do with God’s unwillingness to tell us and more to do with the reality that we, as humans, work with God to bring about the fullness of the kingdom and too many of us, like the violence and oppression of the status quo.
But God, through the Holy Spirit, strengthens us and inspires us to do the right thing: to let go of our need for power and dominance. God inspires us to imagine and work towards a new and better world. Now with all that being said, that’s still not going to stop me from continuing to pester God about when the kingdom of God will arrive. But perhaps I’ll be a bit more patient when the answer isn’t as clear-cut as I would hope.
Going back to the Acts passage, I wish we had a bit more details. What exactly did Jesus’ followers think after Jesus just goes back up to the sky? Were they in reverent awe? Were they scared? At least one person would have had a similar reaction to me stating, “Gone, again, Jesus, really?”
I for one can empathize with the idea of the disciples feeling frustrated and anxious over the sudden disappearance of Jesus. Yes, they witnessed his resurrection, but still, the impulse to hold onto Jesus is strong and understandable.
The disciples had clear hopes, wishes, and expectations for what the Messiah was supposed to say and do. And while in many ways Jesus fulfilled those expectations, in many other ways, Jesus was a disappointment. And even after Jesus is resurrected and spends some more time with their followers, there’s still a disconnect between who the disciples want him to be and who Jesus is. Holding onto the resurrected Jesus is a way to help them bridge the gap between what they hope for and what they are experiencing.
We have a similar disconnect. We have all these ideas about Jesus based on thousands of years of theological debates, on our own cultures and experiences, etc. And I am not here to debate whether our images of Jesus are right or wrong. Instead, I advocate for us to be able to recognize that our images and representations of Jesus, cannot and do not represent the fullness of Christ.
We can admit that we have cherished ideas and representations and still be open to the idea that Christ is so much bigger than what we can imagine. We can say: these images of Jesus are meaningful to us and still be open to having those images be changed as we learn new information.
As humans, we struggle with questioning the when and how of God’s action in our world and in our need for stability and control we create images of Jesus that seem unmoveable. God calls us to let go of our need for a specific timeline of when things will get better and also to let go of our need to put Christ in a manageable and controllable box.
And if God calls, God equips. God does not leave us floundering alone, but God empowers us to work with God to implement the fullness of the kingdom of God. And as we hold onto our images of Christ loosely, we are shown that Jesus is so much bigger than we can imagine. We do not walk this journey of faith alone.
Image: Pink and white background. Text: God calls us to let go of our need for a specific timeline of when things will get better and also to let go of our need to put Christ in a manageable and controllable box.