Grace United Methodist Church Sermon

“Ascended!?”

Sermon Transcript for May 24, 2009

Celebrating the Ascension

Pastor Andy Kinsey

“When he had said this, as they were watching, He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of sight.”

Acts 1:9

Prayer of Preparation

O God, may your Holy Spirit open up the treasures of the risen and ascended Christ as we listen for your Word of life and truth. Amen.

The Message

Many persons here may have gone to a university or college where one of the hot-button issues among students was the lateness of a professor to class: if the professor was late, students could leave and the class was cancelled. The question, though, was, how long do you wait?

At one university the custom was ten minutes. If a professor was late ten minutes, the class was cancelled.

Well, at this particular university a professor arrived early one morning for a 9:00 a.m. lecture. He placed his hat on his desk and went to the faculty room to get a cup of coffee. Before he knew it, it was 9:10 a.m., and, by the time he got back to his classroom, the students were gone.

The next day he let his students have it. “When my hat is here,” he fumed, “I’m here!”

The following day the professor arrived at 9:00 a.m., whereupon he was met by the sight of 28 hats on 28 desks – and no students!/1/

Today we celebrate the Ascension of Christ – the day Jesus ascended into heaven to sit at God’s right hand, the day Jesus says “I am no longer here physically with you, but I am really here, with you, to the ends of the age” (Acts 1:1-11, Matthew 28:16-20).
Actually, on the church calendar, Ascension Day was on Thursday, forty days after Easter, in keeping with the Scriptures where, after his death and resurrection, Jesus appears to his followers many times over a 40 day period. During this time, Jesus teaches and reassures his disciples about the purpose for which he came and to remind them that their mission is not to restore the kingdom of Israel, as they thought, but to wait in Jerusalem until they received the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-20). Jesus instructs the disciples that they would become his witnesses, in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That’s when Jesus is then taken up into heaven, and that’s what we celebrate today: the Ascension of Christ.

Teaching Doctrine

I don’t know if you have thought much about the Ascension lately. I have a feeling it is not a doctrine on everyone’s top forty! However, it is good to remind ourselves that throughout the year we do as a church touch upon the important teachings and themes of the Christian faith.

For example, beginning with Advent, we look at the doctrine of Christ’s coming and final coming, and during

Christmas, we celebrate the Incarnation, or God becoming flesh in Jesus, and then,

Epiphany, when we come together to begin a new year, celebrating God’s covenant with us through Holy Communion, and taking time to renew our commitment to Christ by reaffirming our Baptism, focusing on the uniqueness of Christ, and then…

Moving into Lent, when we remember Christ’s sacrificial love on the cross, learning again of God’s great love and forgiveness

And then to Easter, when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, giving us life eternal, breathing new life and hope and peace into the troubled world.

And then there is Pentecost with the birth of the church…

All of these themes and teachings – these doctrines as we all them – we learn and relearn as we move through the year together, not to mention how we are to live our lives as Christians.

The Ascension

And so, today, as we move from Easter to Ascension, we come to the time when Jesus is “exalted to the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33).

In the resurrection, Jesus is liberated from the bonds of death; now, in the Ascension Jesus is restored to the presence, power, and majesty of his Father in heaven. It is a theme we read throughout the New Testament.

For example, in the Letter to the Hebrews, we read that Jesus is the “great high priest who has gone through the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14, 9:11-12). “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).

Or, as we read in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: “God exalted Jesus to the highest place, and gave him the name above every name” (Philippians 2:9).

Having come down to earth from heaven (from God) to redeem us, Jesus now returns to heaven (to God) to intercede for us. He came down to earth from heaven in great humility, showing us the way; now he returns to heaven in triumph and glory, having accomplished all that was necessary for our salvation./2/

That’s what we believe. That’s what we affirm when we share the Apostles’ Creed, or the Nicene Creed. That’s what the New Testament communicates.

And yet, contrary to all our attempts to paint this scene on canvass or to portray it on film, the Ascension of Jesus is not so easy to capture: no matter how hard we might try, our artificial renditions just never quite look right. Jesus is either too handsome as if he has not been crucified, or he is too faintly comical as if he was never human in the first place.

Therefore, the meaning of Christ’s Ascension is not that Jesus went up into the clouds like a pulpit on a string. Rather, it is that as God’s one
and only Son Jesus reigns over all things. Jesus Christ is the victor over sin and death. Once he wore a crown of thorns now we wears a crown of gold./3/ Amen!

And so, as God’s people we rejoice on this day in a way that would be incomprehensible if all we believed was that Jesus went sailing up into the sky. In fact, in reading our passage from Acts, the angels warn against such an interpretation when they say, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven?”

That’s not where you are going to find Jesus. The place to look for Jesus is right here and now in the events of the earth, in history. The place to look for him is in the face of the person next to you. Don’t look up there look down here, next to you, across from you, behind you. Jesus is closer to you than you might think!

It’s also another way of telling the apostles they have work to do. They have a witness to make. They have a mission to carry out.

But the disciples are still awestruck about Jesus no longer being with them. They are not quite sure what they are to do. Jesus is gone, taken up into God’s own life, and seated at God’s right hand. Now what?

Saying Goodbye

I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of saying goodbye to someone you loved for the last time, but it is not an easy thing to do. Knowing that you may never see the person again, your mind can wonder. You can think about things you might not otherwise think of. And suddenly you can find yourself distracted and confused, even distracted.

In fact, you know that when you leave the bedside or leave the room you may not see that person again. What do you do? What do you say? Goodbyes are never easy.

That’s why I think airports are some of the happiest and saddest places around! So many hellos and greetings and welcomes, but so many goodbyes!

It’s what this weekend is about: Memorial Day – a time to remember
those who have fallen and sacrificed for their nation, a time we say goodbye and thank you.

In a sense, this is what the Ascension of Jesus is about: Jesus is leaving. Now what? Why do you stand there looking up into heaven?

If you have seen the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, you may know this story-line, where the old, Christ-like wizard Gandalf is with the hobbits for a while on their adventure, but then leaves them on their own for some time. While Gandalf is away, the hobbits face horrific challenges and difficulties, requiring a great deal of courage; they need one another to survive and make it. As the story goes, Gandalf shows up again at the climax, but then bids them farewell once more./4/

The Bible shares a similar story: Jesus comes and heals, guides and instructs, dazzles and confuses the disciples; he suffers and dies, and is resurrected – and then he leaves! But instead of dominating his followers, he entrusts them to continue his mission while he is gone. He leaves them on their own, but he does not leave them alone (Matthew 28:20, John 14). Even though he is absent, he is still present through the Spirit. That’s the story-line in a nutshell./5/

If you have read the best-selling book Tuesdays With Morrie, you will remember the scene where Mitch Albom shares a particular conversation with his old mentor Morrie Schwartz before Morrie dies. Mitch asked Morrie if he were afraid of being forgotten after his death. Morrie replied that he wasn’t worried about it, recalling all the lives he had influenced, saying to Mitch: “…love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”
Even after Morrie’s death Morrie’s influence would continue./6/

It’s similar to the Ascension: Jesus’ power and influence would continue long after he had left through the Holy Spirit.

Now, as far as we know, no one from the Jerusalem Times was there to report this story. Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw did not show up. There were no evening broadcasts or tabloid headlines announcing that a recently crucified rabbi had levitated out of sight. Only the apostles witnessed it./7/

Therefore, it raises a basic point that the Ascension of Jesus is not accessible to scientific investigation. Don’t get out your telescopes! The Ascension is only discernible through the eyes of faith.

To those who have eyes to see, Christ is there. He is always there, ruling over all things, reigning in peace and justice. He is ascended and now sits at God’s right hand.

Of course, not too many see Christ’s rule or acknowledge it, but make no mistake He’s there, ruling and guiding the nations, ruling and guiding us.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there were echoes of this doctrine in the background. Try as we might as humans to dominate others politically or religiously and we fail. Try as we might to repress freedom and we falter. That’s how God created this world.

Try as we might to put down others and we get what is coming to us.
Try as we might to hurt or injure others and there is justice. When we fail to acknowledge who the Ruler is, we fall.

It may not come all at once; in East Germany it took several decades. In South Africa, it took longer, and in our own nation it has taken time; but in time Christ rules and God gets his way. As Martin Luther King stated, the arc of justice is always bending toward the earth. It is always moving toward the good.

That’s how God has created this world; when we break God’s law God’s law breaks us. We reap what we sow. When we transgress the limits God has established, we reap the consequences.

So make no mistake: Jesus has ascended, and now he sits at God’s right hand, to rule the nations and us, not by coercing us but by granting us the freedom to continue Jesus’ mission, by giving us the power to accomplish what we have been called to do.

In fact, if I could bring this message of the Ascension home to every person here, I would need to give an invitation, an invitation to allow Christ to rule your heart, to allow you to set Christ as Lord of your life, to allow him to be your ultimate guide – because that’s what really at stake.

Jesus is not only the ascended Lord of rulers and nations; he is ascended Lord of every Christian and every church. He is my Lord, and he is your Lord. And he has already blazed a trail on which we are blessed to follow, in this world and in the world to come.

Indeed, that’s why he came: he came to this earth, not so much that he could be like us, but that we could become more and more like him.

And because he has, we are now given holy work to do – here, together, waiting for the power of the Spirit to come and fill us with life and love and freedom. Amen.

Notes

1. Reader’s Digest, January 2005, p. 54.

2. Alistair McGrath, “I Believe”: Exploring the Apostles’ Creed (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1997), p. 74.

3. See Fleming Rutledge, “Ascension Day in Pretoria,” in The Bible and The New York Times (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1998), p.152. See also “I Believe,” p. 75.

4. James C. Howell, The Life We Claim: The Apostles’ Creed for Preaching, Teaching and Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), p. 92.

5. The Life We Claim, p. 92.

6. Arthur P. Ciaramicoli and Kartherin Ketchan, The Power of Empathy (New York: Dutton, 2000), pp. 167-168).

7. The Bible and The New York Times, p. 153.