Today we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus, the moment when the risen Christ departs from the disciples and commissions them for the work ahead. Although we mention Jesus’ Ascension each time we say the Apostle’s Creed together, it’s one of those parts of Jesus’ story we often gloss over. What do we do with this strange, awkward, almost unbelievable story?
This Ascension Sunday sermon explores what this story says about where God is now, what it means for the church to be the Body of Christ, and why the disciples are told to stop staring into the sky and get to work! Today’s Scripture readings are Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 68:1-10, and John 17:1-11 (a combination of the assigned lectionary readings for Ascension Day and Easter 7). In addition to the sources cited throughout, I found helpful Daniel Glaze’s sermon Gone Up, Not Gone Away at A Sermon for Every Sunday, although I didn’t end up using the quote I’d planned to use from it.
Here’s the video and sermon podcast from Living Hope (with the song recording from Christ the King).
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Grace to you and peace in the name of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
I need a volunteer. Who wants to be an object lesson? Someone come up front. We’re going to try an experiment. I need you to jump as high as you can.
Thanks. As you can see, after Theo jumped up, he came back down. (If you’re listening to the podcast, you’ll have to trust me. They didn’t fly away.)
And this is why the story of Jesus’ ascension is hard. This story of Jesus rising up in the air and vanishing from the disciples’ sight does not make sense.
As Douglas Adams once pointed out (this is one of my favorite quotes): “There is an art…or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. … Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.” (Life, the Universe, and Everything) So keep practicing.
Things that go up must come down. Obviously. And Luke knew that just as much as we modern humans do. Isaac Newton discovered gravity in the sense that he put together mathematical formulas about the “law of universal gravitation” but the first century followers of Jesus were not dumb. They were well aware people did not just float up to the sky. We don’t know how Jesus’ ascension works.
But we also don’t know how exactly Jesus healed a man born blind, or a bleeding woman. We confess he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, but we don’t know how that could happen. Most importantly, we don’t know how someone could be dead, and on the third day be alive. Maybe all that’s too much to believe.
But if you can believe any of that in faith, maybe this ascension story isn’t that hard. And maybe if Luke’s not interested in “how,” that’s not the right question for us either. As Jesus himself says in John’s gospel, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:29)
So what are we supposed to believe from this story?
Our opening song today (God is with Us, by The Afters) asks, “Where is God?” and then answers, “He is right here where he’s always been / He never left, and He never will. Where is God? God is with us.” That reminder is helpful and true. When you’re going through hard times, you need that reminder, that promise: God is with you. God has always been with you.
But, the way God is present is different.
There’s some irony today in singing “He never left, and he never will” with a straight face when today’s story is literally about Jesus leaving. And yet it’s also about God continuing to be present.
Crucified and risen from the dead, Jesus appears to his disciples. Over the forty days following that first Easter Sunday, Jesus offers them evidence of his bodily resurrection, proof he’s alive. Thomas gets to touch his scars, the wounds in his hands and his feet. He eats some fish in their presence.
He offers them forgiveness: Peter had denied him three times, and the risen Jesus gives him three opportunities to affirm his faith, to state that yes, he does love Jesus.
And most importantly, the risen Jesus commissions his followers. He tells Peter, “Feed my sheep.” At the end, he tells them, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Matthew records Jesus’ words: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I will be with you, always. And then he left. We can’t get around the reality that Jesus is not present in the same way he had been. Jesus is not walking around, preaching, teaching, healing, eating and drinking. If he is present, it’s in a different way.
And that is good news for us, because the way Jesus is present in the world after the Ascension is through us. Not just in some sentimental “we’ll always carry his memory in our hearts” way, but because the Holy Spirit calls and forms us to be the Body of Christ. The Church—God’s people, the people claimed in baptism, fed at Christ’s table—we are the Body of Christ.
Jesus promises to not leave us orphaned, but to come to us, and, as Clint Schnekloth puts it, “Christ’s way of coming to us is by making the community he assembled his own and real presence. We are to look for his presence among us in the gospel words we share and the bread we break together.”
I don’t know if the Ascension story seems that critical to me. Not exactly one of my top five Bible stories. I’ve been reading a book this week called Forty Facets of the Ascension (I’ve read about 22 of them so far), and I’ve learned all sorts of fascinating theology about the layers and meaning of the ascension.
And it’s still easier for me to share jokes about the Ascension than to try to explain it. (“Ascension: The day Jesus began working from home.”) I’d almost rather not think about it. In fact, in the introduction to that book, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson writes, “Chances are, though, that the Ascension has been anything but central to your faith. That Jesus is risen from the dead, we proclaim and sing with gusto. That Jesus ascended into heaven, now beyond sight and contact, somehow seems less joyful, and quite possibly embarrassing.”
Several commentators I read used that word “embarrassing.” But this story really is a turning point in the Christian story, really a turning point in history. When Luke tells the story of Jesus, he ends his Gospel with Jesus’ ascension into heaven. And then he begins his sequel, the second volume of his story, the book we call Acts, with the same story. Jesus’ Ascension is the hinge, the inflection point, the bridge between Jesus’ resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the birthday of the church.
Jesus trusts his work to the church. We are Christ’s body; we are the hands and feet of Jesus.
When we invite neighbors to Jesus’ table, when we make soup to share, when we give money for disaster response or make birthday kits so kids can have a special day, when we provide space for moms to find community, we’re acting in Jesus’ name. As our denomination is so fond of saying, “God’s work, our hands.” It takes faith to believe that.
The disciples see Jesus lifted up into the cloud, and as they stand gazing up toward heaven, two men in white robes appear. The angels ask them the key question of this story: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
That’s all the angels say, but I think the implication is clear: Get to work. Don’t just stand around staring at the sky, do something. Jesus’ work is entrusted to you. Get to work.
As Tim Brown write (in this week’s ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starters email), “Jesus isn’t showing up like he used to anymore for the disciples. So the disciples have to start showing up more for the world.” Ascension is the mother bird kicking the chicks out of the nest.
There’s a song in the hymnal that I think puts it really well that I want to try singing together. Number 538, “The Lord Now Sends Us Forth.” Mary/Susan can play through the melody, and then we’ll sing it through.
Song: ELW #538 The Lord Now Sends Us Forth
I like that song as a call to action, a call for us to go do God’s work, “make of all the earth a better place to live,” but not on our own. The last line: “Help us, O Lord, we pray, to do your will today.”
Not on our own, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus prayed: “Holy Father, protect them in your name.” That’s a prayer for us.
Jesus’ resurrection sets us free to do God’s work. In Jesus’ ascension, God entrusts the work to us. And at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowers us, equips us to be the church, the body of Christ going to the world. We are God’s people, freed, commissioned, and equipped to carry out Jesus’ work.
Where is God? God is working in us, on us, and through us, blessing the world in Jesus’ name. Amen