The Rev. Dan Rondeau
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
The theme today comes from Luke’s Acts of the Apostle’s men of Galilee why do you stand looking up toward heaven and also from the words of Jesus, "you are witnesses and you see I am sending upon you what My Father promised." A repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in Jesus name. So, rather than dwell on the mystery of a human being taken up into heaven to be joined with God there, we want to take a look at those who are left behind after this ascension of Jesus? One of the great things about a mystery is that you can say a lot about a mystery but you can never say everything. And so the aspect of mystery today is about ministry. The truth that we confess in our creeds that Jesus ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, is based upon the testimony of His disciples, those 11 that were left on the mount - who told others, who told others, who told others, until our generation, we too have heard that story, confess that story, believe that mystery.
Perhaps one way to approach that great mystery of the ascension is to use our holy imagination. What if the risen Lord had not ascended into heaven - stayed around. What would those early years have been like with the risen Jesus still present, still preaching, still teaching, still healing and forgiving? Never more to die and not able to be killed. Certainly, as this miracle, Jesus is alive, as this miracle would be known, people would have come to accept that Jesus was truly the Son of God. The Messiah, wouldn’t that have been a good thing? If capable of being in two places at once, Emmaus and Jerusalem for example, why not in three places, or four places or a hundred places all at once? Why not appear in Jerusalem and Rome?
Well, let the Risen Lord show up right here in person to heal you. Why wait for one of His lowly disciples - demand that the Lord Himself be present to heal you. Don’t settle for Peter to teach you about God’s love, demand that Jesus come and teach you himself. Why have Andrew, or James or John pronounce forgiveness of sin, settle for nothing less than the words and the touch or the Risen Lord, and so on. As history really unfolded, would Stephen have been willing to die for the Risen Jesus, who was also actively preaching in Jerusalem? Would Saul have engaged the Risen Jesus in debate in the temple, in the market place, wherever, instead of becoming the disciple and missionary that he became. What would have happened when one of the disciples died? Would Jesus have raised the man or woman on the spot? Would the disciple have received the resurrected and glorious body similar to Jesus or would it have been the body of Lazarus was place in to die again? If there have been room over the years that all have been resurrected, where would we put them? And on and on.
Your holy imagination will be filled with questions as you consider what would have happened if Jesus had not ascended into heaven. There are people who have come to believe what has been handed on to us, Jesus Christ suffered death and was buried, on the third day He rose again in accordance with the scriptures, He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. So what does it mean? He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
One thread, I want to suggest, one thread of meaning comes again as we look again at the disciples and at leave taking. Jesus was forcibly taken from them that night in the garden — hastily and unfairly condemned, He was crucified and died. In that moment, they were left alone, in that moment that they were left alone, that the lifeless body of Jesus was taken from the cross, placed in the tomb, the stone rolled in front, from that moment, the disciples were frightened, saddened, disappointed, disillusioned, on the brink of despair. They went into hiding — they hid themselves.
Fast forward — as we heard from Luke today, left alone on the mount as Jesus blessed them and withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven, the disciples are so different. They worship Jesus and return to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the Temple - blessing God. Not hidden, but out in the open, blessing and praising God and filled with joy, what a transformation! And this is our heritage. We who have gathered today have never seen Jesus as did Peter and Andrew and James and John and the other seven on the mount that day. We’ve not encountered Jesus in the same way as Luke or Paul. Yet, here we are, we’ve come to believe, we’ve come to believe because of the Ascension into Heaven, Jesus is everywhere present for those who believe like us. As present as He was, to Peter and Andrew and James and John and the other seven.
Barbara Brown Taylor, one of my favorite preachers provides a marvelous meditation for you and me as she picks up the story of the disciples as they stop, looking into the sky where Jesus ascended — and looked around them on that Ascension Day. She begins, "no one standing around watching the 11 that day, could have guessed what an astounding thing happened when they all stopped looking into the sky, looked at each other, and on the surface it was not a great moment, 11 abandoned disciples, with nothing to show for their following. But in the days and years to come, it would become very apparent - what had happened to them. With nothing but a promise and a prayer those 11 people consented to become the church and nothing was ever the same again, beginning with them. Whenever two or three of them got together, it was always as if someone else was in the room with them whom they could not see, the strong abiding presence of the absent One — as available to them as bread and wine. As familiar to them as each other’s faith. It was almost as if He had not ascended but exploded so that all the holiness that was once concentrated in Him alone, flew everywhere, flew far and wide so that the seeds of heaven were sown in all the fields of the earth. It comes to us now. We go to church to worship, to acknowledge the Lord’s absence and to seek the Lord’s presence, to sing and to pray, to be silent and to be still, to hold out the empty cups of our hand - to be filled with bread and wine, with the abiding presence of the absent Lord until He comes again." She finishes with questions that will further our meditation this week. "Do you miss Him sometimes? Do you long for assurance that you have not been left behind? Then why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Look around you. Look around. Present in word and the word spoken here, present in the sacrament shared at our altar, present in each other believers who gather, Jesus is here."
Always, even to the end of time as we prayed in our opening collect. Jesus’ work was accomplished in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus’ work continues to be accomplished in you and me. Who like those first disciples have waited and indeed have been clothed with power from on-high. The Ascension is a powerful ending to a powerful ministry in Jesus. The Ascension is powerful beginning to a powerful ministry in us. It opens a door to our ministry. The Risen Lord gave the church a great gift as He ascended into heaven. Room for us to be ministers. Room for us to be evangelists and to be missionaries and healers and forgivers and from the realm of heaven he continues to give the spirit that we might do the works He did and even greater. That is the promise.
So let us, like our ancestors in the faith, return to our home, our neighborhood, to our city, let us return with great joy and let us like them continually, with our whole lives, bless God. Amen.
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