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The Festival of the Ascension of our Lord, 05/17/2012
Sermon on St. Luke 24:44-53, by David M. Wendel
44Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." 50Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Problem of the Ascension
Of all the festivals of the Church Year the most problematic for most of us, laypersons, pastors and theologians, is the Ascension. On the one hand, this is because we can't quite figure out the physical logistics of it, try as we might. Luke tells us, twice, that Jesus ascended up, supposedly into heaven, to sit at the right hand of the Father. But where is "up"? And where is heaven? Most today might think of heaven as "up", but we have been "up", some of us just up into the clouds, and some few of us fortunate ones, even further up, up, into space, never running into or passing through, "heaven". And consider this--isn't "up" to us, "down" to those on the other side of the world? And would up in Bethany in Judea, be sideways to us? For modern, analytical people like us, we can't let "heaven" be mystery--we want to figure it out, understand it, locate it. So that Jesus ascending up, creates all kinds of questions for us with regard to the simple physics of it. And then add to that the spiritual issues! If Jesus ascended, is he now absent from us, abandoning us, leaving us to struggle on against the ruler of this world, Satan, and the forces of evil all by ourselves? Is the best we can hope for the gift of a T-Shirt that says, "The Lord Jesus ascended to heaven and all I got was this lousy shirt"?
The truth is the Ascension creates such difficulties for the modern mind that most pastors and congregations don't acknowledge this festival at all! Having the actual festival day fall on a Thursday, why bother? Better to ignore it on a Thursday, than to deal with the difficulties and problems it presents from our human perspective. And yet...
Because the Ascension is Scriptural...
And yet, the Festival of the Ascension of our Lord--the chance to think about it, and acknowledge it and recognize it, is worthwhile and valuable for the Christian, if for no other reason than that it forces us to consider why on earth Jesus ascended, and to ask whether it has anything to do with us after all? Because, it is right there in the Bible, after all. And let's say again, Saint Luke, our namesake reports it twice-- once at the end of his gospel, and then again at the beginning of his book, the Acts of the Apostles. So Luke must think there's some reason for the ascension, and must think there's some reason for us to know about the Ascension. So that observing the day at least confronts us with the texts, and leads us to ask about Jesus' ascension three simple questions: "what, how, and why?"
What?
And "what" is probably the easiest question to answer. It has now been forty days since Jesus has risen from death, and he has appeared to his followers many times--sometimes to the apostles, but also to the faithful women, and also Paul tells us, once to some 500 people at one time! While his is now a "resurrection" body, without a doubt it is in some form a physical body. Thomas can put his hands in the nail marks in Jesus' hands and feet. Thomas can literally stick his fingers into the hole in Jesus' side where pierced with a Roman spear. Also, Jesus makes breakfast for the disciples by the sea, and He eats! No need for that if Jesus was merely a ghost, a purely spiritual apparition. The gospels go out of their way to prove to us that the Risen Jesus had a human body still. But Jesus had no intention of remaining in this world in that way. He didn't intend to continue living with the apostles in Jerusalem or Galilee, nor did he plan to challenge the Jewish king, or Roman emperor, for that matter, to take an earthly throne. But make no mistake, Jesus was to be enthroned. That's "what" the ascension was--Jesus ascending to the Father God--Jesus going to the place, or space of God, which is what heaven is. That is, simply put, what the ascension is--it's Jesus--literally, not figuratively, but literally ascending to the Father. Which brings us to the hardest question to answer, "how"?
How?
If you've been in many cathedrals and churches in Europe, or looked at the front of the bulletin for that matter, you've seen artwork, often stained glass windows depicting the ascension. And often what you see is clouds at the top of the scene, with feet hanging down out of them. It's as concrete an image of the ascension as you can get--as Scripture tells us that Jesus was taken up into heaven in the sight of the disciples, until a cloud obscured their vision. And while this doesn't really explain "how" it happened, that probably is as clear an explanation as we can get, given that we are bound to earth ourselves, and bound by notions of earthly, physical laws of science and nature. Some scholars say that trying to understand how the ascension happened is like trying to capture the sight, smell and wonder of the ocean, by drawing a black and white picture. It's like trying to project 3-D in 2-D, without the funny cardboard glasses. NT Wright, retired Bishop of Durham, England and professor at the University of St. Andrew, Scotland, writes that heaven may no more be "up" than moving "up" a grade in school is literally moving to the second floor of the school building. Wright says Jesus appeared to go up, but being obscured from sight, no one saw any more than that. Surely Jesus didn't end up on the moon, or the planet Krypton, but went wherever God the Father is. Bishop Wright suggests heaven may well be a parallel dimension to earth, so that God isn't, as the Bette Midler song says, "watching us from a distance", far out in space, far removed from us. Rather, says Wright, He is near to us, as near as two parallel dimensions, heaven and earth side by side in some way, so that Jesus can actually step back and forth. We can't say for sure where heaven is, so we can't say for sure how the ascension happened. What we can say is what the Bible says, that Jesus, at that moment, was taken up, or out, to His Father in heaven, and He was taken up physically, bodily--not flying through the air as a disembodied spirit-being, but with His flesh and blood feet, truly, hanging down out of the clouds. Which brings us finally to the most important question: "why"? Why did Jesus ascend? Why did He go to the Father in heaven?
Why?
Jesus ascended for at least two reasons. First, He ascended to enter into that place, heaven, where he would no longer be bound by earthly limits of time and space. While Jesus ascended, and even now sits at the right hand of His Father and our Father in the heavenly places, still, Jesus moves from heaven to earth, coming to us, and to every gathering of two or more believers who gather in His name. In particular, we know that Jesus presents Himself through the power and working of the Holy Spirit, whenever Christians gather for Word and Sacrament, as Jesus incarnates Himself, again, as the Word made flesh, in Holy Scripture, and in His Holy Supper--in the Word and in His Body and Blood broken and poured out for us. When tied to space and time in this world, Jesus was only in Jerusalem, or Judea or Galilee, and if He were still in this world, in that way, we would see Him only on TV, or YouTube; we would have to jump on a plane and make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to be in His presence. But having ascended, Jesus now breaks into our world, from out of time and space, incarnating Himself when and where He wills, to be with us, not spiritually, not ethereally, but physically, bodily, in Word and Sacrament, what Lutherans call the "Means of Grace". This is the first reason Jesus ascended--to be with us, and with all who call upon Him, whenever and wherever.
And second, Jesus ascended to lift up our humanity, to raise us up, too, as our humanity, united with His divinity, was taken up into heaven, to be with the Father. Leo the Great writes of this: "It was certainly a great and indescribable source of joy when, in the sight of the heavenly multitudes, the nature of our human race ascended over the dignity of all heavenly creatures. It passed the angelic orders and was raised beyond the heights of archangels. In its ascension with Jesus, our human race did not stop at any other height until this same nature was received at the seat of the eternal Father. Our human nature, united with the divinity of the Son, was on the throne of His glory. The ascension of Christ, then, is our elevation. Leo says, let us exult, then, dearly beloved, with worthy joy and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. Today we not only are established as possessors of paradise, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ."
This is the second reason Jesus, in both His divinity and His humanity, ascended--taking us, our humanity, with Him into heaven, that we might be lifted up, with Him, not just in the future, when we die and pass into heaven, but now. The ascension gives us now, hope and promise for human life, the ascension gives us now courage and affirmation, even as we struggle and trudge through the difficulties and darkness of earthly life. Now, no matter what happens to us, no matter how we suffer, grieve, and stumble in life, we know that Christ is one with us, and we are one with Him, because He not only has shared our human flesh, but has taken it with Him, into the heavenly places, yes, even to the throne of His glory. Now, we are encouraged and uplifted in life, because at the right hand of the Father in heaven is one of us--our brother in the flesh, Jesus Christ the Lord!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.