May 12, 2013
+ This past
Thursday, we celebrated the feast of the Ascension. Now, for most of us, this
just isn’t that big of a feastday for us. In fact, I don’t know a whole lot of
Christians who, quite honestly, even give the Ascension a second thought. Some of us might look at the Ascension as a
kind of anticlimactic event.
The Resurrection has already occurred on Easter morning. That of course is the big event. The Ascension comes as it does
after Jesus has appeared to his disciples and has proved to them that he wasn’t
simply a ghost, but was
actually resurrected in his body (remember a couple of weeks ago in our Gospel
reading how Thomas put his fingers into Jesus’ wounds).
In comparison to Easter, the
Ascension is a quiet event.
The resurrected Jesus simply leads his followers out to Bethany and, then,
quietly, he is taken up into heaven.
And that’s it. There are no angels, no
trumpet blasts. There is no thunder or
lightning. He just goes.
So, why is the Ascension so
important to us? Well, it’s important on
two levels. One, on a practical level, we recognize the fact that, at the
Ascension, this is where our work begins. This is when our work as
followers of Jesus begins. We, at this point, become the Presence of Jesus now
in the world. This is where we are now compelled to go out now and actually do
the work Jesus has left for us to do.
Those apostles who are left gazing
up at Jesus don’t just simple linger
there, wringing their hands, wondering what has just happened. Well, actually,
yes, that’s exactly what they do. For a while anyway. But eventually, with a
BIG prompting from the Holy Spirit, they get going. They go out and start doing
what they are meant to do. But we’re going to talk about that NEXT Sunday on
Pentecost.
For now, we’re here, with them,
watching Jesus being taken up, out of their midst. Again, this is the point in which we become
the presence of Christ in this world. What
I like about the feast is that it is more than just going out to do Jesus’
work.
Which brings us to our second point.
Again and again, as we see in the life
of Jesus, it isn’t just about Jesus. Our job is not simply to observe Jesus and
bask quietly in his holiness. It’s about
us too.
When we hear the fantastic stories
of Jesus birth’ at Christmas, for example, we can look at them as simply fantastic.
They are wonderful stories that happened then and there, to him. Or…we could see them for what they are for us.
We could see them as our birth story as well.
God worked in the life of Mary and Joseph and God’s special agent was
born. But it should remind us that God worked in our birth as well. Well. Maybe
not with angels and shepherds. But God worked in our lives even from the
beginning, as God did in the life of Jesus.
With Jesus, born as he was, with God’s special light and care upon him,
we too were born. Jesus’ birth became our birth.
At Easter too, we could simply bask in the
glorious mystery of Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb. But the story doesn’t
really mean anything to us until we
see ourselves being resurrected with him. His resurrection is our resurrection as well. God, who
raised Jesus, will raise us as well.
Well, the same thing happened last
Thursday. Jesus’s ascension is our ascension as well. What God does for
Jesus, God does for us too. That’s incredibly
important to understand. We are not simply
followers of Jesus. We are sharers with Jesus in all that happens to him. And that is incredibly wonderful! The event of the Incarnation is a reminder
that God is incarnate in us as well.
So, regarding the Ascension, it is
important for us to look at what happened and see it not only with Jesus’ eyes,
but our eyes as well. Yes, we are rooted
to this earth, to creation. We are children of this world. But we are also
children of the next world as well. We are children of heaven too.
What the ascension reminds us is
that we are inheritors of heaven as well. We, like Jesus, will one day ascend like him,
beyond this world. In fact, our whole
life here is a slow, steady ascension toward God. We are moving, incrementally,
upward toward God. This is our journey. And as we do, as we recognize that we
are moving upward, slowly ascending, like Jesus, to that place in which we
ultimately belong, we should be feeling what Jesus no doubt felt as he
ascended.
Joy.
Happiness.
Exultation.
When we are happy—when we are
joyful—we often use the word soar. Our hearts soar with happiness. When we are full of
joy and happiness we imagine ourselves floating upward. In a sense, when we are happy or in love or
any of those other wonderful things, we, in a sense, ascend.
Conversely, when we are depressed we
plunge. We fall. We go down.
So this whole idea of ascension—of going
“up”—is important. Jesus, in his joy,
went up toward God. And we, in our joy, are, at this very moment, following
that path. We have followed Jesus through his entire journey so far.
We have followed him from his birth,
through his ministry, to his cross. We have followed him to his descent into
hell and through his resurrection from the tomb. And now, we are following him
on his ascension. And it is joyful and
glorious.
And just when we think God has
provided just what we need for this journey, we find one more truly amazing
gift to us. Next week, an event will
happen that will show us that Jesus remains with us in an even more
extraordinary way. On that day—Pentecost Sunday—God’s Spirit will descend upon
us and remain with us always.
For now, we must simply face the
fact that it all does fall into place. All that following of Jesus is
now really starting to pay off. We know
now—fully and completely—that God will never leave us alone. In what seems like defeat, there is amazing resurrection.
In what seemed like being stuck to an earth that often feels sick and desolate,
we are now soar.
So, today, and this week, as we
remember and rejoice in the Ascension, as we prepare for the Holy Spirit’s
descent, let our hearts ascend with Jesus. Let them soar upward in joy at the fact that God
is still with us. Let us be filled with joy that God’s spirit dwells within us
and can never be taken from us.
And let this joy in us rise up. Let it
rise up in us and sing through us to those around us we are called to serve. Amen.
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