Acts 1.1-11 — Andy James

a sermon on Acts 1:1-11
preached on May 8, 2016, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

The Ascension of Christ, Hans Süss von Kulmbach, 1513. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The moment of Jesus’ ascension is probably unlike most any other in human experience. Artists and writers have tried to depict this moment in various ways over the centuries. The ascension is a very common theme in religious art, including the very interesting image on the cover of our bulletin today that leaves our focus on Jesus’ feet hanging down from the heavens. In more recent years, a commentator has suggested—and rejected—two more modern images: Jesus rising into heaven like a rocket launch or being “beamed up” as in Star Trek (Ronald Cole Turner, “Theological Perspective on Acts 1:1-11,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, p. 498). No matter what image we might use, the ascension is strange and unexpected enough that human words and images just can’t capture the wonder of this strange event.

The strange and unexpected wonder of this day is nothing new—even the disciples had to be confused and uncertain when Jesus ascended into heaven. They had enjoyed the presence of the resurrected Jesus for some forty days after his resurrection, and they went with him to the mount not at all expecting that this journey would be their last with Jesus. Sure, he had repeatedly warned them that he would be leaving them and sending the Holy Spirit to be with them, but their lack of understanding culminated in those uncertain and puzzled looks that we see in the painting on our bulletin cover.

Their act of blankly looking up encapsulated everything that they had experienced in all their following of Jesus. Their many expectations of what Jesus would do and especially how he would do it had been upended at every turn from the very beginning. They had repeatedly been forced to change their understanding of what God was doing and how God would do it in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And time and time again they had been left dumbfounded by Jesus’ words and actions as they struggled to figure out what it all would mean for their lives and their world.

As they looked up in those moments after Jesus disappeared from their eyes, the disciples’ conversation with Jesus atop the mountain only moments before had to be echoing in their ears. He had given them three clear points for their consideration—perhaps introducing in that moment the form that would dominate Christian proclamation many centuries later!

First, Jesus had told them that they needed to wait in Jerusalem for what would happen next. I suspect that this is not what they had been planning to do. The disciples were not city folks, after all—they had followed Jesus to Jerusalem from the countryside of Galilee, and they couldn’t have been particularly comfortable with the idea that they needed to stay there. To date, the whole Jesus movement had been pretty much confined to the countryside, and this would indicate the beginnings of a major shift ahead. Still, Jesus assured them that the things soon to follow would be worth it:

You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

As they waited for this upcoming baptism and transformation of their lives, Jesus continued with his second point that destroyed some of their expectations about the things that were ahead. The disciples were anxious and ready for him to “restore the kingdom to Israel” and lead a more complete transformation of their community and nation, but Jesus would have nothing of it. “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority,” he told them. Beyond all this uncertainty in timing, the sort of drastic, dramatic transformation that the disciples seemed to want here—and so many times before, too—was not in the cards for Jesus. He had not come to overthrow the powers of the world through traditional means of waging war or political revolution, for by defeating death itself, he transformed the world by defeating the deeper powers of evil and destruction that separate us from God.

The conversation on the mountaintop between Jesus and the disciples concluded with Jesus’ third point reminding them of the things ahead. They were to “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon” them, and they would be given new and greater ability to engage Jesus’ message of freedom and new life. But even more, they would become his “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The disciples would be more than a band of students united by the teachings of their teacher—they would start a movement that would change the course of history all around the world as they told about their experiences with Jesus and invited others to join them in living as he invited them to.

As the disciples stood looking up to heaven, pondering these words and their experiences along the way, they received one final message to direct their way ahead. Two men in white robes suddenly joined them on the mountaintop, reminiscent of the two men in dazzling clothes who had appeared to the women at Jesus’ tomb on the day of resurrection. Just as they had on Easter morning, these messengers spoke amid the uncertainty and confusion of a strange moment, this time inviting them to take a different perspective as they gazed up into the sky.

Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

In these words, the two men sought to recenter the disciples in their experiences with Jesus, remind them of his promises to them, and focus their attention on the real things that were ahead for their witness to Jesus in the world. It was easy, you see, for the disciples to stare at Jesus’ feet dangling in the sky, to spend all their time looking up, to mourn the departure of their friend and teacher for the last time, rather than to confront the real possibility and challenge of the mission that Jesus had placed before them.

We so easily fall victim to this ourselves, too. It is easy to spend our time looking up, looking ahead to a promise of a different world that we might enjoy for ourselves, and miss Jesus’ call to make God’s new life real in this world, too. It is easy to put our time and energy into wondering where Jesus is in our lives and so forget to bear witness to him in ways that reveal him to others. And it is easy to pause in joy and amazement at the moments of glory that sneak into our lives and miss that these are the very moments that should lead us into words and actions that join in God’s transformation of the world.

As commentator Richard Landers puts it,

Ascensions and moments of divine encounter can dazzle us so that we forget the surrounding world. We glory in the moment, only to find that God has moved on, and so must we. (“Homiletical Perspective on Acts 1:1-11,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, p. 501)

The ascension of Jesus calls the disciples and us to do more than spend our days looking up. The ascension invites us to explore together how Jesus’ reign with God in power, sealed for us by this vision of his ascension into heaven, gives us hope for the transformation of our world. The ascension gives us assurance in the promise of the Holy Spirit that we will not be left to offer our witness to the wonder of Christ alone. And the ascension shows that God empowers us for our own lives of faith and work, for just as God has moved on from the glory of this moment, so we too must move forward and join in God’s work to reveal that glory again and again in the church and the world.

So as we celebrate the ascension of Jesus this day, as we remember how the disciples spent so much time looking up, as we are tempted to draw our eyes heavenward and miss the call of God around us, may God give us hope that there is something more than what we have seen before, confidence that are not left alone to bear witness to the wonder and glory of Jesus in the days ahead, and power to be faithful witnesses of all the things that God has done, is doing, and will do in this world and the next until the one who reigns in glory now is revealed in all fullness and hope as all things are made new in Jesus Christ our risen and ascended Lord.

Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

a sermon on Acts 1:1-11 and Ephesians 1:15-23
preached on Ascension Sunday, May 20, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

There are plenty of things up in the air these days, but Jesus is the last thing you expect to see when you look up. Flying in general today is incredibly simpler than it was 100 years ago. Even though the space shuttle never quite worked out to make going into space as common as some had hoped, it’s still incredibly easy to go up. There are hundreds if not thousands of flights out of our city every day. When the winds and the location are right, you can take a more leisurely hot-air balloon flight across the countryside. And if you have enough money, these days you can reserve a spot on a brief flight to the edge of space. When we look up, you never quite know what it is you will see. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or could it be Jesus??

In biblical times, it might have actually been Jesus, according to our readings today from Acts and Ephesians. Today we’re celebrating the great Christian feast of the Ascension, so we are rightly looking upward to think about how Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after his resurrection from the dead. The book of Acts starts out with this important story in our reading this morning of how Jesus disappeared from the disciples’ sight by rising into heaven. After his resurrection, he had been teaching them about the coming kingdom of God and giving them instructions for what to do when he left them, and they kept asking him questions about when God would restore Israel to its former glory. He responded with a reminder that no one could know about the restoration of Israel, but more importantly, he told them to be ready to receive power from the Holy Spirit so that they could be his witnesses in Israel and beyond. Then, as they were talking with him, he was lifted up into the sky, and a cloud took him out of their sight. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it really was Jesus!

The wonder of all this is lost in our days when we find it so much easier to become airborne. The disciples were reasonably astonished at what they were seeing – human flight was not something any of them had seen before! The air was the exclusive domain of birds, insects, and other flying things, and Jesus needed to be down here with them. Gradually, though, after Jesus rose up into the air, this event began to take on great meaning for the disciples. They took the words of the two men who suddenly appeared with them seriously and stopped staring idly into the sky. They began to do as Jesus had told them and expected to see him return just as he had left. They got ready to welcome the promised Spirit to be with them in the days ahead.

By the time the letter to the Ephesians was composed some thirty or forty years later, the Ascension had taken on new and incredible meaning for those who followed Jesus. As this letter opens, we get a glimpse of how the early church understood this revelation of God’s power in Jesus’ ascension. The writer here offers his prayers for the Ephesians so that they might know the hope that emerges from Christ, the riches that he shares with all the saints, and the “immeasurable greatness of his power.” This power comes from God and was put to work first in Christ’s resurrection and then in his ascension and exaltation to the heavenly places. His rise into glory is above all earthly rulers, power, authority, and dominion; his name is above every other name for all time; and he is head over all things for the church and the world. It is clear, then, that the ascension seals the deal for the followers of Jesus so that we can know the fullness of his power and glory and honor and hope, now and always. That thing up in the sky is not a bird or a plane but Jesus, ascending to reign and rule in all power, glory, honor, wisdom, and joy, now and forever.

I for one think the Ascension of Jesus gets short shrift in our world today. While our opening hymn celebrating the ascension dates back to the seventh century, in our own time, about the only way you’d know that this past Thursday was a church holy day is that alternate side parking rules were suspended for the day! We’ve become so consumed with the commercialism of Christmas and Easter that we rarely note these lesser feasts of our church calendar where we remember these important biblical events and in this case celebrate the continuing reign of Jesus Christ as Lord of all creation. But even more than all this, I think we consciously or unconsciously avoid this day of celebration at least in part because we resist the real implications of these great words. What would it mean for us to live like Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth each and every day? How would life be different if we took the Ascension claims of God’s power and reign more seriously?

I think there are several important ways that we can respond faithfully to the gift and challenge of the Ascension in this time when its meaning is less clear and anyone anywhere can go up for the right price. In our society that resists accountability at all costs, the Ascension reminds us that we always remain accountable to the one who died and rose and ascended into heaven to reign. In our world where the almighty dollar and yen and yuan and Euro is at the center of nearly everything, the Ascension reminds us that God’s power and dominion extend to every corner of our lives and call us to faithful stewardship of everything that we have and just treatment of those who are in need. In our lives where we think we are in control and can answer to no one but ourselves, the Ascension shows us that Christ reigns over us with justice, grace, and mercy even amidst our resistance. And in the moments when we question God’s care and concern for us, whether in matters of the moment or of eternity, the Ascension gives us hope and confidence that we will share with Jesus the joy of resurrection life.

Lest we get confused about the things that go up or forget about this seemingly lesser feast day, the Ascension still stands before us, year after year, forty days after Easter, as we await the coming of the Holy Spirit. We can try to ignore it, but Jesus still reigns and calls us to recognize him and follow him, not so much in his journey to power but in his journey to greater love for ourselves, for one another, and for all creation.

So may we trust the good news of this special day, not so much wondering if we are seeing a bird or a plane or Jesus rising up before us – because we know that it is Jesus! – but always confident that Jesus ascends into heaven to go before us to reign in power, glory, mercy, justice, grace, and peace, so that we might know the fullness of God’s power in Jesus Christ our Lord until he comes again. Lord, come quickly!! Alleluia! Amen.

Looking Up

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s… Jesus?