The Festival of the Ascension of our Lord, 05/17/2012

Sermon on Luke 24:24-53, by David Zersen

THE FUTURE PROMISES BLESSINGS

On an episode with the master interviewer, Charlie Rose, Jim Lehrer of the PBS News Hour is asked to talk about his latest in a string of many novels he has written. This one details his fantasies as a boy growing up in Kansas where the Superchief train would come roaring by on its way from Chicago to San Francisco, never, of course, stopping in any of the small Kansas towns where Lehrer grew up. The story he tells today is a kind of Murder on the Orient Express tale in an American setting. Titled just "Super," it has all the excitement that such transportation provided for affluent travelers in an age gone by, including the presence of movie stars, politicians and a murderer.

Charlie Rose asks Jim Lehrer how he builds excitement in the telling of such a tale. Lehrer explains that he uses a number of approaches. One is to re-read the last paragraph of each chapter and consider how it might be used as the first paragraph of the next chapter, with but a hint in the old chapter left to provide some anticipation. Another approach is to reach the critical point in the story and then go back and drop hints that relate to this point throughout the previous chapters.

I pondered Lehrer's comments as I thought about today's text and wonder even now as to whether the writer of Luke's Gospel is not doing the very same thing. On the one hand, many of us think of the Ascension as a kind of final chapter, even a dead end. "Tha..tha..that's all folks," blithers the rabbit, and the curtain rings down. Yet what if the Ascension is the beginning of a new chapter, and you and I are in it, and the story has yet to be told!

Also think of all the times in the Gospels when the disciples and others fail to catch the hints that are being dropped all along the way. But then there comes a moment, and our text tells us it's just before the Ascension, when Jesus opens their minds and lets them-and perhaps us now as well-understand what's really been happening and what's about to transpire. It's one of those "aha" moments when you realize that it's really important to have been there to hear this. And certainly, in our cases, it's important that we allow Ascension Day to fulfill its objective in us today.

How unfortunate it will be for those who might miss this!

When you realize there's a meaning not to be missed

I think that Ascension Day provides a capstone on the doorway to life's meaning. It's the ultimate statement, the summary, the clarification to all that came before. It's provides the moment when you can stand in the doorway looking forward and say, "I know what's been going on here and I know what I'm being called to do." In the language of educational psychology, it's a moment of transformation.

Thinking back to the Gospel stories, there were so many times when people asked Jesus to explain a parable or to justify a miracle or to debate a fine point they couldn't grasp. One of the more graphic stories involves the two disciples walking to Emmaus after the crucifixion. I remember this story so well because my mother came from a parish in Milwaukee named Emmaus. It was a large building with huge stained glass windows and paintings on the wall above the chancel. One of the paintings was of the Emmaus disciples hurrying along the road with the unknown fellow traveler, Jesus, who explains everything to them because they just didn't get it. He explains why the crucifixion had to take place and how all the prophets had predicted these things. And then as they later sat at table with one another, their eyes were opened, and they understood.

It seemed to me as a boy growing up with this painting before me that all of us were like the disciples on the road. We were seekers who were waiting for our eyes to be opened when we would discover why we were here and what we were being called to do. In words I learned only later, we were anticipating the transformational moment.

The other painting was of Jesus knocking on the door, with a lantern in his hand, inviting the seeker to open the door and let Jesus come in (Rev. 3:20), filling that important vacuum in a life which only Jesus can fill.

In reflection, I have always felt that somebody had given serious thought to the theological reflection that should be taking place in the minds and hearts of seekers at Emmaus. They were in the process of having their eyes opened to the full meaning of the Gospel and were being invited to open the door to the Savior himself. It was all right there for anyone to see.

This is exactly what our text tells us Jesus does with his disciples just prior to his ascension. He knows that there is confusion among many of them, just as there is some confusion among us about the clear and full meaning of the Gospel. And what he does is important. He doesn't say, "Oh, by the way, there is something I forgot to tell you" or "There's a secret potion that you need to drink when I leave." He tells them that they have everything they need. It's all there in the Scriptures, and the intent from the beginning needed to be realized, and it was, in fact, realized in Jesus' own suffering, death and resurrection. Claro?

This is the point at which the hearer can slap his cheeks and say, "How could I have missed that?" or the time when another might say, "Did you catch that? Isn't that what I've been telling you all along?" In any case, it's comforting to know that we don't have to go out and buy a new CD edition or a new revelation. Everything we need to know is right here in the old family Bible or in the treasured paraphrases that we have come to enjoy reading over the years. Everything is just as we've been told. Except.....

When you realize that things we take for granted need to be rethought

We need to start getting specific about what eyes were opened to see. We need to avoid all the vague generalities that pepper and salt the proclamations of street preachers and pious aunts.

The meaning of the Ascension is so surprising, so life-changing, that it would really be a shame for us to miss it. It's like watching a movie that we really enjoy, but have to leave before the last 15 minutes and never find out what it was all about. Or better, it's like watching a great movie and then not knowing what to do with what you saw once it's finished.

I had an experience that made the Ascension powerfully clear to me, and I'd like to share it.

Some years ago, I received a large wall calendar that had artwork of high school students pictured in rather large 12 x 18-inch representations. One young man from a high school in the Northwest of the U.S. had chosen to depict the Ascension in a dramatic way that I have never forgotten. The watercolor showed Jesus having ascended. All you saw was the lower portion of his legs and his feet crashing through a grid that represented the barrier between the material and spiritual worlds, but also between the world in which things can be broken and destroyed and the world in which nothing can be broken and destroyed. And the grid, as the feet of Jesus ascended through it, was being transformed into red and yellow, pink and green confetti. As Jesus ascended the entire universe that was being left behind was celebrating the birth of what eye has not yet seen and ear has not yet heard. It was a beginning, not an end. It was a proclamation from the one who said, "Behold, I make all things new."

I have often wondered if that young artist went on to become a well-known artist and whether he ever fully understood how theologically profound that watercolor of his was. He had caught the excitement, the drama of what this new chapter in the story of God's people was to mean.

Jesus tells the disciples that given their understanding of who he is and why he came, as revealed by the Scriptures, they are now to go and preach in his name to the nations, not just to the Jews, the message of repentance and forgiveness.

That's it! Wow! Two words. And we thought we had the Gospel in a nutshell in John 3:16. Here we have the nutshell's Gospel made explicit, put into action, in just two words. What if we would have missed this? And what if all the nations to whom this is to be proclaimed would miss this?

It's hard to know where to start with this, at the international level or at the level of individuals. Sometimes, the case is made that the process starts with individuals transformed and only then escalates to collective transformation. Others say that Jesus never implied that his proclamation was to be lived out at national and international levels. Yet it's hard for me to understand how we as human beings can be expected to live one way individually and collectively another.

And there are other equally profound questions. Are we who have come to believe so strongly in the separation of church and state here in the U.S. to take it for granted that what we believe privately cannot be entertained collectively? And must we assume that the principles of repentance and reconciliation have meaning only for those who know Jesus? Is it possible that what Jesus offers as a kind of last will and testament has applicability in both religious and secular settings? Is it possible that what I can understand within the context of the full heritage and depth of the Scriptures can also be understand to some degree by those who have not yet come to know Christ? These are penetrating questions worth exploring on Ascension Day.

And the answers may take us to the heart of Ascension Day's meaning for us, an insight that should not be missed? Here are some sample questions for our reflection:

What if Osama bin Laden had come face-to-face with a message of repentance and forgiveness instead of the message of revenge on which he finally acted? What if the World Trade Center had never been attacked and we had never found it important to attack Iraq in return? Would confetti be flying in the streets on 9/11 ever after?

What if sisters who haven't spoken for years suddenly had to attend their mother's

funeral together and found it necessary to embrace and forgive one another as they

stood before the coffin? Would confetti reign down all over them?

What if two countries, both affluent and intelligent, constantly bicker at and criticize one another until one declares sanctions against the other and the sanctioned one retaliates with threats? Is international encouragement to repentance and forgiveness more politically crazy than the dead- ends opened through hostile language and diplomatic intrigue? What would it take to throw confetti in the streets of those nations instead?

What would happen if people who stopped talking to their neighbors because of caustic remarks made over the failure to pick up dog doo-doo arranged a talk-in because they both came to believe that repentance and forgiveness made more sense than silence? Would confetti fall over the dog house?

Some of this may be silly, but there is nothing silly about the reality that Ascension Day wants us to rethink our old priorities, our self-understood acts of vengeance and our "till death do us part" flaming invectives. Ascension Day does not remember the end of anything, but rather the beginning of new potential, new ways of living, all based on repentance and forgiveness.

In some countries, Ascension Day is a national holiday. In others, like the U.S., it's often hidden in a calendar square and remembered only in the church bulletin. Today's text says it has a message our world desperately needs to hear. Jesus is opening our minds, hearts and spirits and sending us out to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in his name.

If we become more intentional about it in our world, more than confetti will fall, nice as that will be to see! Old hatred, old vengeance, old bitterness, old regimes, old grids can fall.

Doors can open. New worlds can arrive. The future can be filled with blessings.

In Jesus, we have something better than anything that the world can offer.

Don't miss hearing it, experimenting with it, trying it on for size.

How fortunate you are to have heard this today.

Amen

Prof. Dr. Dr.,President Emeritus David Zersen
Austin, Texas
E-Mail: djzersen@aol.com

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