GOING UP? Ascension Sunday

Acts 1:1-14 

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

May 4, 2008

Welcome, friends, to one of the great church festivals of the year…. Ascension Sunday. Oh, I know it’s not quite up there with Christmas and Easter, or even Pentecost; I guess you’d consider it a “second-rung” holiday… but it’s important. I mean, take a look at the south Transept… there it is … a huge, glorious stained glass window that presents the Ascension in living colour. Why, just last year, that window was featured on the front page of The Sun… mind you, it was mistakenly labeled as a Resurrection scene, a bit of colour for their Easter column. And I can sympathize… I know that my enthusiasm for Ascension Sunday isn’t shared by everyone!

I can see you discreetly looking around, wondering if you’re the only one who isn’t quite sure what this ascension stuff is all about. Maybe, you’re thinking, it’s a Catholic thing… so let me briefly explain. According to Luke, after five or six weeks of post-resurrection appearances, Jesus has a final farewell with his disciples, and at day “40” he “ascends”… he leaves earth behind, and is taken up to heaven. That would have been last Thursday, and so church tradition suggests that this Sunday we celebrate this return to God. I know, I know… you’re probably thinking right now that maybe you should have signed up to run the Marathon this morning… it might have been less painful.

You might, though, feel a little bit of envy for folk who are living in Germany… because they actually have a holiday on Ascension; same for the citizens of Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark… or Vanuatu in the South Pacific; or Indonesia -- I know that seems strange, but there it is. Nothing like a statutory holiday to make you sit up and take notice; perhaps we should lobby our government to announce another May holiday… I’m sure we could make some kind of case to connect Ascension Day with the Queen’s birthday.

To make sense of Ascension, you need a bit of background on the cosmology of the first century. You see, people back then assumed that they were living in a three –tiered universe: heaven, earth and hell. Heaven is above… beyond clouds, blue sky, moon, sun and stars… it’s just a matter of going far enough up; hell is just as clearly, below, somewhere deep in the depths of the earth; and in between, well, that’s where we live our busy lives, here on earth.

The Jesus story unfolds within this framework -- Jesus descended from heaven, his arrival marked by a virgin birth, angelic announcements, strange events. He spent approximately thirty-three years on earth, and then was killed. Then he descended below, into hell, for three days… the period of time between Good Friday and Easter day. Then he was raised from the dead, resurrected – which meant a return to earth, strangely altered, appearing and disappearing, substantial enough to eat a meal, yet able to vanish at a moment’s notice; nevertheless, clearly a part of this realm. But eventually these post-resurrection appearances came to an end, and Jesus ascended back into the heavenly realm from where he originally resided. The story will continue on next week, when we celebrate the descent of the Spirit, coming from heaven to empower us humans, here below on earth.

This framework was perhaps most explicitly developed by Luke, but although time details may vary, it underlies most New Testament thinking in one way or another. It became systematized in the great Creeds of the early Church – perhaps you remember reciting the Apostles’ Creed, the middle part of which goes:

I believe in Jesus Christ,

conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, dead and buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day he rose again from the dead,

and ascended into heaven,

And sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

Which leaves us 21st century folk with a bit of a problem. How are we to make sense of all of this, when our cosmology has so totally changed, when we know that live in an ever-expanding universe that exploded into being some fifteen billion years ago? If we attempt to understand Ascension in any literal way, we are in big trouble, and end up being flummoxed by questions like, “So, where actually is heaven; or hell for that matter? How far “up” do you have to go before you get to heaven? And how fast was Jesus travelling… if he was moving at the speed of light, where would he be now? (You do the math… 186,000 miles per second times 2000 years of seconds.) Or was he perhaps teleported by that cloud?” All of which will get us no where.

No, friends, once again we find ourselves in the world of metaphor, faced by the task of interpreting symbolic language. Because we know, from our own experience, and from the witness of so many before us, that the Jesus story carries power, and that despite any quibbling about details, it can bring hope, grace, challenge, demand, transformation -- abundant life. We know that the real story is never dated, although the framework in which it comes to us might be. We are called to find new language, new ways of expressing the truth of the gospel. One of my favourite hymns from More Voices catches this dilemma so well – and yes, we’ll be singing it later in the service…

When we seek language to praise you, O God,

all we can utter seems stale, tame or odd;

tongue-tied and word-lost we struggle to find phrases

that slight neither heart, soul or mind.

It does help us, really, to ask, “Did ascension really happen as Luke describes it?”; we’ll do much better asking, “What was Luke trying to communicate? What does it mean? How does it speak to us… here, today?” We are called to “de-mythologize” the story; to recognize the mythic structure and cosmology out of which Luke was writing, and discover the deeper meaning and essence of Jesus’ ascent to God.

It seems to me that first and foremost Luke is making statements about God. Yes, he’s talking about Jesus, but behind the story lies the hunger to know God, to experience Holiness, to catch a glimpse of the “whatness” or “whoness” of God. Creation might be understood as the first revelation of God, and it brings us humans to a sense of wonder, awe and ultimately deep and profound gratitude. But I don’t think that “nature” in and of itself will bring us to the recognition that God is love, a love that embraces and includes forgiveness, compassion and justice. To get there you need a further story, a more explicit revelation. For Luke it came in the life, teachings and ministry of Jesus, in his crucifixion and resurrection. The story of the Ascension is a way for Luke to tightly tie together God who is above, in heaven, and Jesus, who is here, on earth. Jesus is the means to link the two; he operates perhaps as a conduit, a bridge – a way to connect God to earth. Luke does similar work in his story of Jesus’ birth, his baptism, transfiguration, his resurrection… and now finally, with his ascension.

It becomes an identity question. Jesus… rabbi and teacher, healer and prophet, mystic and spirit-filled man – this person is a revelation of the deepest nature of Holiness. As scholar William Loder has said, “This loving, but vulnerable, humanly limited, wonderful but ordinary human being, God has declared to be God’s own personal appearance and presence.” Thus Jesus becomes model, paradigm, the interpretative lens, the framework in which, and therefore by and through which, we can come to understand and experience God. When asked, “Who is God? How is God?” I find myself pointing simultaneously to the world and to Jesus. You need both.

When I was on retreat a couple of weeks ago, I read Archbishop Rowan Williams new book, entitled Where God Happens. It’s the title that continues to ring in my imagination… where does God happen in our lives, in the world? God is perhaps better understood as an event, rather than a person. God happened in the life of Jesus; and continues to happen wherever we see that Jesus model being replicated. To place Jesus up in heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, as the creeds so emphatically state, is to declare that Jesus is the determinative model; to see the face of Jesus is to catch a glimpse of the face of God.

That’s the first thing that Luke is trying to do with the Ascension. But he’s also working on second task, for Luke is also wanting to make sure that we know that our calling is in the world – not up in heaven. The purpose of our lives is not to get to heaven; it’s rooted in the here and now. After the service, take a closer look at the Ascension window in the south Transept… the disciples are all standing around, as if rooted to the earth… and all of them are staring up … which is not something you can do for very long without getting a serious crick in your neck. Just try it for a while, and watch how quickly that definition of holiness becomes seriously uncomfortable.

Luke adds a couple of angels to his story, who question the disciples: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” It’s a question that seems to have an obvious answer… but the angels seem pretty determined to send the disciples on their way… back into the world, with work to be done. Earth… that’s what we need to be concerned about… not heaven or hell.

And perhaps it’s important for Jesus to depart… so that we don’t try to tie him down, into one body, one place… even, perhaps, into one faith. One commentator , Barbara Brown Taylor, has suggested that rather than talking about Jesus’ having ascended, we should imagine that he has exploded; because he is nowhere, he is now everywhere. And our task is to discover his presence all around us. Taylor says further that the Ascension may be the moment when we realize that the seeds of heaven have been scattered in the fields of earth; and we are to cultivate and tend them. That new hymn that we will be singing in a few minutes… “When we seek language…” -- a new way of trying to talk about Jesus -- well mark the chorus, and see if its language that works for you: Infinite, intimate unbounded friend, cosmic companion who loves without end; nearer than heartbeat, more subtle than breath, keener than insight, and stronger than death.

Just before the moment of ascension, Jesus has a final conversation with his disciples. We all know that “last words” carry a special power – people hover around the bed of a loved one who is dying, hoping to hear … what?… words of love, forgiveness, acceptance, some wisdom or blessing. So, when Jesus spoke for the last time, his friends were listening, carefully, attentively. And Jesus said three things. First – “It is not for you to know the times or periods that [God] has set by his own authority.” Sure, we would all like to know what’s coming our way, the details… but we do not have that kind of control. We pretend, sometimes… until life knocks over all our blocks, and we’re left struggling to cope, to make sense. Being religious, trusting in God does not spare anyone from the unpredictability of life. But after that tough news, Jesus then says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you….” Unpredictable, but there are resources that will allow you to cope and even thrive. Holy energy will come, a connection to the Divine, that will inspire, and strengthen. And then, thirdly, there is a task : “…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth .” Why, even here in Vancouver we are called to tell the story about this infinite, intimate unbounded friend, our cosmic companion who loves without end. We are bearers of good news, and we are invited by the Holy One to share this reality in a hurting world, a world that is so hungry for just such a word. Jesus may have ascended, but the seeds of heaven are everywhere, sprouting green; and we are invited to be farmers of the Spirit.