He is risen! … Alleluias abound. We are Easter people with signs of the resurrection all around us and around this world. Christ is deeply present in our pain and in our joy. In our hope and in our sorrow. Christ breathes us, he’s so close. So what’s Jesus doing ascending into heaven, as we read today? Why’s he leaving us? Why’s that closeness shrinking and shrinking as he lifts up into the clouds? I thought he’s always promised to stay with us.
Oh well, let’s just wait. I’m sure he’ll be back. [stand, looking up]
Will you wait with me? It’s very Christian to wait, together…
This may have been how those disciples long ago felt to: Can you imagine the joy that they had just experienced on reuniting with their friend? Forget for a moment all the theological implications of Jesus’ resurrection—these men and women had their friend, their son, their brother, their favorite teacher back!
But just as soon as he’s back in the flesh—walking with them down their roads, fishing in their waters, sitting around their tables—he’s gone again…this time up into heaven.
So they’ll wait.
The text says, “While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.”
Jesus hadn’t even been gone for but a few moments—and they could probably still see him way up there, like when a little one accidently lets go of a red helium balloon and we all watch it drifting up and up—and angelic strangers are sidling up next to them!
Jesus was never even gone completely and angels are already sidling up!
How we too may be caught staring at the heavens. How nice it is to “gaze up,” to enjoy the serenity—and the challenge—of tracking a drifting hot air balloon…or Christ himself, somewhere up there.
Maybe not literally, do we gaze at the sky. We’re busy, productive types here. But what is your drifting balloon that you gaze up at wistfully?
Paying off the house? Retiring in fine style? Keeping the kids perfectly safe and sound? Finishing the backyard? Just getting to heaven?
All nice things, to be sure; “pretty normal, really”.
But Jesus doesn’t operate in the realm of “pretty normal really”! Jesus doesn’t just leave us gazing up. And he doesn’t drop us a ladder from on high either, affirming our longings and blissful dreams, so that we can leave all this behind.
Instead Jesus sends angels, sidling up, to snap us out of our gazes [“suddenly”], and to re-position our eyes for ministry in this world. These angels locate us.
When we stare at the sky, we see no one else. I wouldn’t even know if you were here or if you left, if just kept staring at the sky. I probably wouldn’t care.
But when I’m snapped out of my gazing up, I see you, I see us, I see this world out the windows and doors.
And this is just Luke’s version. (The author of Acts is the author of Luke.) In Matthew’s version there is no ascension story, Jesus in fact never does leave. Jesus says, “Lo, I am with you always.”
Whether its angels or Jesus himself, we have our focal point re-adjusted again today. From gazing at the sky to seeing the sister or brother right before us.
And then starts an interesting progression. One of the great things I love about this story is this progression that Jesus offers: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria [cross that border], and to the ends of the earth.”
I’m trying to weed our back yard. Heather and I have a wise friend Michelle who said, when it comes to house projects, just take one thing, one room, one yard at a time. “Don’t try to stay on top of it all, or you’ll drive yourself crazy.” So I’ve been focusing on the front and now there’s a forest of weeds in the back. But when I take her advice and think, “Jerusalem, Samaria and the ends of the earth.” I calm down and start working my way in…I locate myself and do everything I can in that time and place.
We are called to be witnesses, sisters and brothers in Christ, witnesses 1) to Jerusalem – those who are hurting in Spring Valley, El Cajon, La Mesa, downtown San Diego. 2) to Judea and Samaria – that is both in our country and across our borders – those who are hurting in Arizona and Mexico, in Florida and Cuba, in the flood plains of Mississippi and Colombia. And then, to the ends of the earth. WE are called to be witnesses, given the Spirit of Truth, the Word of Life, Bread of Heaven, the Cup of Salvation.
And finally, we’re not alone. You’re not alone. Christ goes with us as we witness, for Christ gives us that same Spirit which both enlivens us, gives us the courage and strength we need to go forth, and it binds us together. We are never offering our hands to Christ’s work alone. Even if the whole Christian church around the world dwindles, dwindles, dwindles there will always be two or three gathering, reading Scripture, sharing the meal, and being sent in Christ’s name! [slowly] You are not alone. We are bound together, bound together, nourished and then sent out.
I love that at the end of this text, after this amazing experience of ascension and angels, from gazing to seeing, from dreaming to scheming—after it all, the disciples returned to Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s walk from where they experienced all this. They don’t go out from the hillside of the Ascension: first they gather. And they start this whole mission into the world in prayer. “They devoted themselves in prayer.”
That’s a picture of a Sunday morning! A Sabbath day’s walk. Devoting ourselves in prayer. Pausing for a moment to give thanks that God is both up there and right here, at the very same time. Lifting our hands in a gesture of thanksgiving, that this world is not ours to rescue, but only ours to serve. Opening our arms in a gesture of openness of heart and mind, for God to take us once again this day, and mold us into a people with eyes set not on the cluster of clouds and a one-track dream, but on the cluster of sisters and brothers across the tables and across the borders and a one-track Gospel message of LOVE.
We are gathered, we are baptized, we are fed, and now we are sent. Thanks be to God.
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