Ascension Day
Acts.
1:1-11; Ps. 47/93; Eph. 1:15-23; Lk. 24: 44-53
Sermon title: “When Up is Out and Down
is In”
Scriptural background:
Acts – 1st book’s rehearsal or review of the kerygma ,
the basic salvation cosmology story – Jesus’ teaching and acts from beginning
to ascension. Disciples question to Jesus - Is the time now to restore kgdm?
You’ll have to wait – Holy Spirit is coming and God is still acting. Then they
watched as he ascended -- up, out of sight.
2 men ask: Why stand there looking up? Jesus will come again in same way!”
Eph. – Paul’s heard of their faith and unity of action. Prays for
them. God put this power they manifest to work in Jesus – resurrection,
heavenly enthronement, presence in community – Lord of All, in all things!
Luke – To disciples – (in context of
worship) Jesus explains and reapplies the cosmological story of salvation in
the OT– Opened their minds – reminding them that they are my witnesses. Sending
you the Father’s power. Lead out to
Historical Background of the Ascension – 40th day after
Easter – Mk, Luke & Acts
East and West church = Ecumenical
feast along with Passion, Easter and Pentecost. Since 15th century –
an octave before Pentecost (Leo XIII).
Theologically: Completion of God’s work of Salvation in Christ,
pledge of our glorification with Christ, entry of Christ into heaven with our
human nature.
[ Importance of the doctrine to
Calvin and the reformers: 3 benefits of Ascension in our faith-
- We are transfused with Christ’s power – enriched from
within the Godhead
- There is a constant advocacy by and intercession for
the church and world by Jesus
- It opens the way into the heavenly kingdom (previously
closed through Adam) in a new age inaugurated by Christ, a way now accessible
and open to all believers and for God’s ultimate purposes.]
Calvin said: “Christ entered heaven
in our flesh, in a sense, we already sit with God in heavenly places. Humanity
has been taken into the very heart of God, deeply valued and loved and held by
God – invested in the Godhead – moving continually into God’s being. “ * Metaphorically & Genetically speaking,
in Christ the human genome has been spliced into the Godhead, if you would!
Practices associated with Ascension Day
– Blessing of beans and grapes, 1st. fruit(Later to rogation days)
Blessing of Candles, wearing of Mitres for Deacons & Subdeacons,
extinguishing of Paschal Candle, triumphal processions with torches, Banner
with Christ the lion and dragon(satan) underfoot; Churches – elevation of
Christ figure above altar through opening in roof, devil descending.
From the speculative and practices
of Ascension Day related above, you can see that the Church of the risen and
ascended Jesus – still has a bit of a problem with finding and keeping its eyes
and hearts and hands on what it should be focused upon. In a week when the news
was dominated with the amazingly creative humans repairing of the cosmos gazing
Hubble Telescope, refurbishing and retooling it for yet another decade of
intergalactic probing and cosmic re-envisioning, seems important for us to look
at the cosmic proportions of the scriptural thinking and probing of the Cosmic
Risen and Ascended Christ and Cosmic Body of Jesus’ - the Church.
In his article for the website
“What Presbyterians Believe” – The Ascension – A promise of Great Things to
Come, John McClure, says that “Tucked away in a corner of most
“stained-glass” churches is an ‘Ascension Window,’ which usually depicts Jesus
floating upward in flowing robes while distraught disciples look upward or
cover their eyes in fear and anguish. In one painting of the Ascension, by Hans
Suess von Kulmbach, we see only Jesus’ pierced feet and the hem of his
robes sticking out from the top of the canvas amidst a cluster of clouds.
Beneath him the apostles huddle and gaze upward in curiosity and amazement.”
Q - Isn’t our gaze still cast
upward – looking for our Lord in the clouds and coming from heaven?
I also found an interesting article
in the Anglican Theological Review by The Rev. Tiffany Robinson. Her article is
about a 2001 book by
The angels, observing the apostles
focusing on Jesus’ feet as he rose up into the clouds above, in as much said
the early church had a problem with Jesus’ location and obsession with his mode
of leaving, when they sarcastically and succinctly put it: “Men of Galilee, 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 you saw him go.” In other words,
“there’s work to be done guys, get on with it, and put your gaze where it needs
to be for now!”
The scriptural call of the Ascension,
cosmology and the theology of our faith tradition, is again to allow God’s
power to continue to work and manifest itself in the church in our time.
Paul in his letter to the Ephesians tells them he prays for the enlightenment
of their eyes and minds, and he reminds them that through the Risen and
Ascended Jesus, God put this power to work in them. This means the power
continues to manifest itself and work, not only in the age of the apostles, but
in the lives of new witnesses and bearers of the revelation.
It seems important for the Church
of the Risen and Ascended Christ, to not get caught up in the geo-spatial
cosmology and debates of where Jesus is, how Jesus sits in heaven with God the
Father, etc., as if we had or could ever devise a (GPS) God Positioning
System. If there is such a device – it seems likely that the Church is one
major component of it and it’s sacrificial and cosmicly evolving love in
reflection of the earthly and risen Savior are its telling compass points!
Paul Zahl in his book a Short Systematic Theology, recounts how Luther spoke of Jesus ascended, God present in his absence, Deus Absconditus, the hidden or concealed God. Tells of a science fiction story by Ray Bradbury, called “The Man.”
“Bradbury published this story in 1951. The premise of the story is that the risen Christ has expanded to another planet, and to planet upon planet. The main character of “The Man,” a rocket ship captain, blasts off from sphere to sphere in an everlasting search for Christ. The captain is a kind of Flying Dutchman. He always just misses him, because Christ was already there earlier within the presence of his absence. Only one member of the crew realizes that he is already there because he has been there, and that his being there was marked by healings and a divine love that is still radiant from the lives of the people there. The captain blasts off yet again at the end of the story, impervious to the evident and obvious presence of Christ’s absence. “
Paul calls for a new envisioning of
what a risen and ascended Lord might be doing in the church of the age of the
Spirit. The Gospel writer of Luke/Acts struggles with this not once but twice,
placing the Luke passage of the Ascension within a worship context where the
disciples fall down and worship the ascending Lord. Seemingly, the basic
kerygmatic cosmology of the Gospel and liturgy acclamation, “Christ has died, Christ, is Risen, Christ
will come again,” is not dependent on a cosmology of up or down, linear and
hierarchial as it is, and which the church has again and again gotten caught up
in.
In his article, “Embracing the World We Are Given - Thomas
Berry and the New Cosmology”
Joseph Mitchell, CP, recounts that Thomas Berry, a
Passionist priest and self-described ecologian, suggests we are suffering a
crisis in cosmology.
are to survive.
A cosmology is the story a culture tells itself about the
way things are – how the universe came into being, how the cosmos operates. The
concept of the world which a people adopt is referred to as their cosmology.
Nothing is more foundational than this assumption about the nature of time and
space. It is preliminary to everything else created by a society. Consequently,
a cosmology becomes the blueprint for the way we orient ourselves toward life
and inhabit the Earth. The way we educate our young, farm our lands, build our
cities, govern our communities, organize our economies, and understand what it
means to be a human being – every cultural institution is envisioned and constructed
based upon the cosmology of the society. According to
Years ago, writer Anodea Judith
says, that a paleontologist, biologist, theologian, and Catholic mystic,
Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) spent the bulk of his life trying to integrate
religious experience with natural science, most specifically Christian theology
with theories of evolution. Teilhard said, as if commenting directly on the
Ascension, I think, “purity does not lie
in separation from the universe but in deeper penetration of it.” If the
Ascension means anything to the universe, to the earth, to the human race, to
the church, it is that Jesus’ departure was a deeper penetration into the
cosmic proportions of the salvation story.
In the Book “Thomas Berry and the
New Cosmology” one of the writers, Caroline Richards, writes: “Thomas Berry –
Catholic Theologian and priest, ecologist, who admired and integrated
Teilhard’s thinking into his own writings, has stated that since the 14th
century, our archetypal stories have oriented us toward an excessive emphasis
on redemption, on the personality of the Savior, and on the interior spiritual
processes. All of
So, I would propose that a new
cosmology is called for by the Ascension of Jesus:
1. UP is OUT – of say “Jesus is out
of here” and out of the way or out of the boundaries and limits placed upon God
and the community of faith. Up – as in time is not “UP” for the risen Jesus or
for us – only God knows the seasons of the Spirit’s work and we must get on
with living out the days of the Spirit and God’s continual work in Christ.
2. DOWN is IN – not top down but
God in us, in society, in worship, in the church gathered and sent into the
world – crossing boundaries and barriers, transcending limits, and working in
our unity and diversity.
To use Teilhard’s and Berry’s
imagery, in conjunction with Scripture and Christian theology, in the doctrine
of a resurrected and ascended Lord, it proclaims that the “Omega point” has
already occurred and continues to evolve. The angels ponder (still) what we
will do with the wisdom and revelation that “this Jesus you seek is changed and
evolving and so are you!” The way we approach the cosmology of the creation we
and Jesus are a part of will determine how we spend this time watching and
waiting and working for his return.
I realized this last night as my
wife and I played with our grandson, Noah, and I later petted our cat, Ollie.
The Risen and Ascended Jesus is in them all, and without the Ascension, Jesus
present in his absence, I could not experience that reality. I long for the day
of being face to face with Jesus my Lord, but I am content and blessed and
called to know Him now in all of creation.
I’d like to close with prayer used
in Ascension Day Sermon by the Rev. Steve Kelsey of
Lord,
it is night.
The night is for
stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a
long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.
The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world
and of our own lives
rest in you.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,
and all who have no peace.
The night heralds
the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day.
new joys,
new possibilities.
In your name we
pray.
Amen.
