Ascension Sunday
New Covenant COG
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Casey Cole
Acts 1:1–11

I love this church because I know this is a congregation that is comfortable being uncomfortable. You’re willing to ask hard questions. 



Which is good because today’s passage makes me uncomfortable. Ascension is considered a feast day in the Christian church, it’s a celebration, ten days before Pentecost. It technically falls on the church calendar last Thursday, but we can celebrate it today.

My struggle is with the idea of celebrating ascension. It has always seemed to me to be more a thing of crisis. So this is our endeavor today: Ascension as celebration? Or crisis?

***

As many of you know, I teach Theology. My favorite thing in the whole world is teaching students about God through the Holy Scriptures. I love to explain-away all kinds of theologies, especially concerning the gospel narratives. 


When I teach Christology, I start with incarnation, move through Jesus’ life and ministry, discuss paradigms of his death, celebrate his resurrection... and then I jump straight to Pentecost!

I have skipped the Ascension narrative because I simply didn’t know what to say about it. We must admit it’s rather odd... thankfully Luke opens his second work with the same story that closed his gospel, though this time with more detail. 


But even in this Acts account, the telling of Christ’s ascension is rather straight to the point: the disciples ask a question, Jesus won’t answer it, he promises them the Spirit, and then he lifts off into the sky.

Students often ask me what that lift-off looked like. How fast did it happen? How high up could they see him? I joke with them that I’m not sure if it was slow and dramatic with harp music, a pensive Christ slowly escalating... or if he winked and zoomed off, “beam me up, Scottie” style. I confess I’ve never experienced or seen such a thing, of course, and there’s not much else about it in the scriptures, so it all leaves me wondering a bit.

I can imagine that if the scene is literal and if Peter is there, he was jumping into the air, too. Peter would be trying to fly with Jesus, just like he wanted to walk on water. If we place ourselves in the narrative alongside those witnessing disciples, I wonder what our responses would be. 
I’m afraid that I would have also jumped into the air with Jesus, but unlike Peter, I’d be trying to grab Jesus by the leg, trying to bring him back down to earth.

What I can identify with in this story is the reaction of the rest of the disciples... standing there, staring up into the heavens. I picture them with mouths agape and eyes wide, or maybe squinting eyes with their heads cocked to the side. They are amazed, dumbfounded even. They just stand and stare until they have to be shooed by angels to move on.

Sometimes I find myself staring after Jesus too... amazed and astounded yes... But it seems to me that those disciples were not staring at Jesus. Rather, they were staring at clouds... at empty sky... at the absence of Christ. And I, too, know what it’s like to stare into space when Jesus seems long gone. I’d rather grab him and beg him to stay with me.

***

So now we must ask our hard question: is the ascension of Christ cause for celebration? Or is it crisis? The Lukan narrative says the disciples departed with great joy, but the Acts account seems like they have a little trouble getting back to reality.

Their messiah has just disappeared. The hope of glory has left them, and he expects them to just get back to all the work without him. The one who came to save the world has left the world in their hands. Can you imagine the emotion?

One moment, Israel’s hope is born... they cherish their long-awaited Messiah as his ministry takes off, but quickly he is crucified. Hope is shattered, but then– with him– hope is resurrected! The excitement returns! But it is short lived as soon he departs again. I wonder: is this a cycle your life bears witness to?

***

When Jesus is in front of you, it’s easy to be full of faith. His compassion is enough. He heals, he comforts, he corrects, he provides. But when it looks like Jesus is absent, it can be a different story. It’s hard to be full of faith when you’re left staring at the clouds that took him out of sight.

Surely we can identify with this today, as a nation, as a church, and as individuals. Have you ever known a time in your life when you looked around and had to say, 


“Where is God? Has Jesus left me? Where is God in my pain, my heartbreak, my loss? Doesn’t God care? I feel so alone. He was right here just a second ago...”

We might look around and ask ourselves, where can Jesus be found on the earth today... 

He multiplied fish and loaves, but we see starvation and inflation. 

He healed each sick person that was brought to him, but we see a breaking healthcare system and death.

He built bridges with those who were different, but we see walls and bombs.
It seems we are left to stand and stare at the absence of Christ.

***

So here’s what I know about the absence of Christ: two things. First, it’s very real in this world. Pain abounds, suffering persists. And we are called to lament it.

But the second thing I know... what the ascension teaches us... is that directly related to the departure of Jesus is the reception of the Spirit.

When Christ leaves, he leaves them with the promise of the Spirit. The promise that God’s power would come to them and enable them to be witnesses all throughout the world. And how is this Spirit described? As the advocate. The comforter. The helper.

Empowerment from on high does not glorify oneself or one’s ministry, no, Jesus is the one lifted up in glory. The one who is baptized in the Spirit is the one who bears witness to Jesus’ love, who proclaims the gospel across barriers as Pentecost shows us.

But the Spirit is not another individual physical incarnation. The Spirit indwells us personally, empowering us to be like Jesus.

***

But lest we get ahead of ourselves, Ascension is not Pentecost; we aren’t there yet in the narrative. Ascension is more waiting. Luke tells us the Ascension happens forty days after the resurrection.

For the Jewish people, forty is the number of completion. We might assume that Pentecost should happen then. But on the fortieth day, Jesus says, “Wait a little longer.”

Ascension teaches us about waiting. It’s the in-between time. It’s when we are faced with his absence, yet we cling to his promise that the Comforter will come. So yes, we lament. But not without hope. Lament is not just complaining that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Lament says, “things are not okay, and we’re upset because we think they could be.” Lament knows the absence of Christ, but it also knows the promise of hope: the Comforter will come. The absence of Christ is the promise of the Spirit.

When we confess in the creed that “He ascended in heaven,” we are confessing our final hope, that where he is, we shall also be. If there is that hope for the future, then there is also courage for today. Courage to act as Jesus acts in this period of waiting before the world is made right. So... what is Jesus doing?

***

One of my favorite questions to ask students is: “Where is Jesus?” They usually tell me that he is in our hearts or that he’s everywhere because, you know, God. 


But let us remember that in the book of Acts, Jesus is seen again after the ascension. As Stephen is martyred just six chapters later, he sees Jesus in heaven. And what is Jesus doing there? Standing at the right hand of God.

Christians have long interpreted this imagery of Jesus standing as a very active position. We don’t see Jesus sitting, hanging out, basking in the glory of the throne. He is up, alert. Eyes on Stephen, ready to welcome him home.

And thus we learn our position of ascension: we too ascend to God when we learn to aid those in suffering and call them home to God.

***

This is both the beautiful part and the scary part of the ascension: the absence of Christ calls us to be the presence of Christ. The departure of Jesus’ physical body allows us to operate as the body of Christ. 


Now we all have the chance of Mary: to birth Christ into the world. So, no, he may not be visible, but he isn’t absent. We “little Christs” make him incarnate every day as we learn to act like his hands and feet.

Thus it is so important that when Luke describes Jesus’ ascension, it is bodily. Emmanuel comes to us in humanity and in that flesh he suffers death. Death cannot strip him us his humanity. 


He retains it in resurrection and takes it with him in ascension. This new life of the resurrection does not morph him into an immaterial spirit. And thus even in his glorification and ascent to God, he is human.

Before you start thinking, “Yeah, but Jesus has that God thing going on,” and you feel that you pale in comparison, remember that this is the crucified Christ. This is flesh that has known unspeakable pain: suffering unto death. And he– like us– ascends to God with his scars.

This is why it’s so interesting to me that the angels say, “He will return in the same way you saw him go.” Jesus, though no longer on earth in a body, has given us his spirit so that his presence may remain physically on the earth. Because of Pentecost, God continues to abide in humanity.

***

We are reminded of this every time we take communion. At the table, Eucharist teaches us of both his presence and his absence. We are left with the bread and the cup, but those elements become part of us. God with us has become God in us. 


And not just God in us, but us in God. We when act as Christ, we participate with the Divine activity. As the scripture says, in God we live and move and have our being.

Thus when Jesus spoke of his death beforehand, he said was leaving to prepare a place for us. And so we see that in his absence, Christ has made space for us in God and in the world. He has given us room to participate.

The absence of Christ in the world pulls us into God.

***

So is it crisis or celebration? Maybe it’s actually that we are commissioned in crisis. And that seems to be cause for celebration.

Why celebration, church? Because we are people of the promise.

We know that the Comforter has come. And we know that since the Comforter indwells us, Pentecost can happen over and over, again and again. But we mustn’t forsake the in-between time of waiting. 


Do stand, staring at the sky? Wait just a little while longer. 

Do you despair? The promise is still yours. 

Do you feel as though you can’t find Jesus? Then perhaps it is your chance to be Jesus. Stand alongside God, ready to advocate for those in need.

So yes, there are clouds in life that sometimes hide Jesus. But there is also you. You, like Christ, resurrected to new life. You, like Christ, going to God even with your scars. You like Christ, saying “hang on, Comfort is on the way.”

Just don’t forget: It might be through you that the Comforter comes.

Casey S. Cole