Rogation Sunday

 
These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might
have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer;
 I have overcome the world.
 (St. John xvi. 33) 
 
Today, we find ourselves on the Fifth and final Sunday of the Easter Season. Today is called Rogation Sunday because our English word is derived from the Latin word rogare, which means to petition, ask, or supplicate. The tradition of Rogation Sunday hails from the 4th century and was standardized in the Latin Church by Pope Gregory in the 6th century. It was originally a Roman festival called Robigalia, which comes from robigo – meaning wheat rust, a grain disease, from which pious pagan farmers prayed for deliverance. What was for pagans a day devoted to petitioning the false gods for help against threats to the harvest, was taken up and used by the Church as a day for appealing to the one true God, the source of spiritual growth.

In Medieval England, this took on a practical form. The priest would lead his people out of the church, through the fields, and around the parish boundaries in a solemn procession. They carried the cross and banners, sang the Litany, and prayed for God’s blessing on the crops, asking Him to protect the wheat and barley from disease, drought, and storms so that there might be a plentiful harvest.
 
This Rogation theme flows directly from today’s Gospel. Jesus tells His disciples: Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. (St. John xvi. 23) As His forty days of Resurrection come to a close, and His Ascension approaches, Jesus prepares His followers for a new way of being with Him. No longer will He be present with them in the flesh. Instead, He will be with them through the Holy Spirit. The whole purpose of the Incarnation was to restore human nature, reconcile it to God, and to reopen the way to Heaven.

Jesus continues: Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. (Ibid, 24) What is this joy? Christian joy descends from Heaven in Jesus Christ, redeems human nature in Him, and lifts our lives back to the Father. In Christ we discover who we truly are, creatures made to live in joyful union with God.  Neither sin, death, nor Satan could break Christ’s perfect union with the Father, and He desires to share that same unbreakable union with us.

Christ is moved and defined by the Father through the Holy Spirit for our salvation and joy. True joy is not found in bodily health, temporal happiness, or earthly success, all uncertain and impermanent. True joy is found only in union with the Father, through Jesus the Son, by the presence of the Holy Spirit. To become true sons of the Father who are made to do His will, we must be born inwardly anew through Heaven’s power, wisdom, and love.
This coming Thursday, Christ ascends back to the Father. To share in His joy, we must follow Him in spirit and in truth so that where He is, there we might be also. (St. John xiv. 3) Yet Christ’s Ascension profits us little unless we ask the Father for the Grace to live in Him under the Holy Spirit’s rule. Salvation and joy are not ours by natural right but come by Grace and by choice.

In stillness and quiet, we must study the life of Christ to discern where He came from, what moved Him to live and die for us, and to where He has returned. Everything that Christ did flowed from the Father’s will. I came forth from the Father. (Ibid, 28) That is why He must now leave us in the flesh, to send the Holy Spirit and establish a new spiritual way in our hearts. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. (1 St. John ii. 15) The Apostles had to release Christ in order to receive Him in the Spirit. ‘Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.’ (St. John xv. 19) Jesus chooses us out of the world and desires to bring us back with Him to Heaven.
Christ has overcome sin, death, and Satan –the world– through the Holy Spirit. If we would share in His victory, we too must be moved and defined by the same Spirit. ‘If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.’ (St. John xvi. 7)      

Therefore, we must not only hear [God’s Word] but be doers of it. (St. James i. 22) If we only hear but do not live it, we quickly forget who we are and what we are made for. Only by living the Word can we enter the perfect joy for which we were created. Living the Word sets us free and gives us true spiritual liberty. As the Collect for this Rogation Sunday prays: O Lord, from whom all good things do come: Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same. (Collect: Rogation Sunday) The liberty that leads to eternal joy begins in the mind. By the Holy Spirit, we must ask for the Grace both to think what is good and, by God’s merciful guidance, to put it into action.
Practically, this means that we must be conscientious askers. Every day this week, let us pray the Rogation Collect slowly and then list before God one area of our lives where we need His holy inspiration and merciful guiding. Let us choose one thing that we might do differently, one act of obeying God more fully, one person whom we must forgive, one moment of self-sacrifice, and ask the Holy Spirit to give us the freedom to do it.

As we contemplate the glorified Christ, we see God’s perfect model for human life. We ask the Father to form the same goodness in us so that we might be kept unspotted by the world (St. James, i. 27) and overcome the world through faith. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. (1 John 5:4)
By believing in Jesus Christ and receiving His Holy Spirit, we can become overcomers. In Christ, through faith, we can overcome the world and all its sorrows –seeking not earthly rewards, but the strength and perseverance to defeat our sin and live for God. In this way we may at last attain the joy for which we were created, the joy that Christ has purchased for us forever.
Amen.
©wjsmartin