Ascension? Why the Big Deal?
Text: Acts 1:1-11
Today is Ascension Sunday, the day that we mark the occasion of Jesus returning to God’s side, and the prelude to next week, one of the most important days of the Christian year: Pentecost. After spending five Sundays in a row in the Divine Throne Room in Revelation, things get a lot more down-to-earth this week. We deal not with these great impressionistic images of encouragement, but something much straightforward… a simple story of the disciples spending their last moments on earth with Jesus… but it doesn’t quite turn out the way we think it might.
Following his resurrection at Easter, Jesus has been spending time with the disciples. He has been preparing them for the real work that lies ahead. Until now, the disciples had spent much of their time listening and learning. At some point, they would have to take that responsibility for themselves, because it was only a matter of time until Jesus would no longer be with them in a physical sense. Jesus was preparing them to finally take up their calling, and become the leaders that he was calling them to be.
From the beginning of the story in Acts, Luke tells us that the disciples were with Jesus on a hillside. He is lifted from their sight, hidden by a cloud, and presumably returns to heaven. After all that training, all that preparation, all the work that Jesus had done with his followers to prepare them for their mission, what do the disciples do?
Stand there and gawk.
Yep. Just stand there, gazing off into the sky… waving goodbye with a befuddled stare, oblivious to the world around them. Now if there were a list of things that Jesus had wanted his disciples to do after he left, we can probably be pretty certain that standing there and gawking would not be very high on the list!
The trouble is, maybe the disciples see this as the end of the story. After all, here Jesus is riding off into the sunset, majestic music is playing, and we should see the credits beginning to roll at any moment. Things have been brought together and wound up. That’s all folks… Look up and wave goodbye to Jesus!
But the credits don’t roll. Instead, like a needle dragged across the soundtrack, it comes to a screeching halt; two messengers suddenly appear beside the disciples.
Yo! Wake up… get with the program! Why are you standing there and looking into heaven? Jesus has spent all this time preparing you for something greater, not to just stare off into space.
It would seem that the disciples have yet again missed the point. This time Jesus isn’t there to straighten them out. It takes a pair of strangers, presumably angels to snap them out of their trance. They continue to say to them,
Jesus has ascended, so don’t waste your time looking for him. Don’t look up to heaven, look around you! Pentecost is coming, there is a church to build! This story is just getting started, and there is an awful lot of work to do.
Their words are a bit harsh, but they’re worth hearing out. There is a good reason why this book of the Bible is called “Acts.” From the beginning, Acts shifts in focus from the work of Jesus to the apostles and the beginning mission of the church. Luke tries to shift our focus from heaven, and brings us down to earth. It reminds us that while the story of Jesus draws to a close, the story of Christ’s mission to the world is just beginning.
Maybe we need to listen to the words of the two strangers again:
“Why do you stand looking into heaven?”
Their words are probably even a better said to us 2000 years later than even to the disciples.
This is perhaps even more true with our faith. One of our cultural challenges that we face today is that we have successfully privatized our faith. We tend to think that God in Christ can only be encountered and experienced individually, that our relationship with God is so intensely personal that we lose a sense of the bigger picture. We have become so individual in what we are and what we do that we continue to lose our sense of community. Since it’s just about “me and God” there’s no point in being part of a community. We become so focused on God “above us” that we don’t see Emmanuel, God with us, and how the Holy Spirit is working in and through the people around us in our own lives. You may have heard the phrase that we become so “heavenly minded” that we are no earthly good.
The words of the messengers in Acts are a massive turning point in the story. Without their words, without their question, Christ’s mission would have stopped dead… because the disciples would have been far too busy staring off into space. God was calling the disciples to share the message, and create and plant communities of faith in this world, not to stare off into heaven and gawk. They were called to be “witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth!” These are concentric circles… that get larger, and larger, and larger. Jerusalem… the local community… Judea… the larger region… and those two we kind of get, but struggle with a little bit… but Luke’s story goes further… and calls us to go to Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
It is no mistake that Luke uses this language… as these concentric circles get larger we begin to realize that Luke is not telling us to hunker down inside our own communities, but to go beyond them and realize that Jesus is calling them to get out of their comfort zone and make a difference to the world around them. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth… To embody the truly good news of God’s love for everyone to those of us in our circles of family and friends, to our community and the people we like… but then he pushes it, by using Samaria as an example it’s a reminder that God’s love is also for not just the people we like, but people we don’t like… and in fact for all people everywhere.
The words of the angels to the disciples are as much to us as those standing on that hillside. God is calling us to be disciples, to be an active part of Christ’s family. To be a part of the ongoing story that merely gets started in the gospels. One of the most important things about the Ascension story is where we find it. It comes right at the end of Luke, but also appears at the very beginning of the book of Acts…. While it has all of those hallmarks of a story’s conclusion, and a fitting end to a gospel, Acts changes the tone completely. This encounter at the open verses of Acts reminds us that God’s story is just getting started.
The story of Emmanuel, God with us, starts in the New Testament, but our stories as followers of Christ continues on well beyond this place. God continues to call us to do this in our lives and our community, our own church family… and well beyond… God’s story continues on in our life, no matter how insignificant we might feel. Like those strangers remind us, God isn’t calling us to stare off into heaven, but to make a difference in the life and community that we have here and now.
Amen.
Today is Ascension Sunday, the day that we mark the occasion of Jesus returning to God’s side, and the prelude to next week, one of the most important days of the Christian year: Pentecost. After spending five Sundays in a row in the Divine Throne Room in Revelation, things get a lot more down-to-earth this week. We deal not with these great impressionistic images of encouragement, but something much straightforward… a simple story of the disciples spending their last moments on earth with Jesus… but it doesn’t quite turn out the way we think it might.
Following his resurrection at Easter, Jesus has been spending time with the disciples. He has been preparing them for the real work that lies ahead. Until now, the disciples had spent much of their time listening and learning. At some point, they would have to take that responsibility for themselves, because it was only a matter of time until Jesus would no longer be with them in a physical sense. Jesus was preparing them to finally take up their calling, and become the leaders that he was calling them to be.
From the beginning of the story in Acts, Luke tells us that the disciples were with Jesus on a hillside. He is lifted from their sight, hidden by a cloud, and presumably returns to heaven. After all that training, all that preparation, all the work that Jesus had done with his followers to prepare them for their mission, what do the disciples do?
Stand there and gawk.
Yep. Just stand there, gazing off into the sky… waving goodbye with a befuddled stare, oblivious to the world around them. Now if there were a list of things that Jesus had wanted his disciples to do after he left, we can probably be pretty certain that standing there and gawking would not be very high on the list!
The trouble is, maybe the disciples see this as the end of the story. After all, here Jesus is riding off into the sunset, majestic music is playing, and we should see the credits beginning to roll at any moment. Things have been brought together and wound up. That’s all folks… Look up and wave goodbye to Jesus!
But the credits don’t roll. Instead, like a needle dragged across the soundtrack, it comes to a screeching halt; two messengers suddenly appear beside the disciples.
It would seem that the disciples have yet again missed the point. This time Jesus isn’t there to straighten them out. It takes a pair of strangers, presumably angels to snap them out of their trance. They continue to say to them,
Jesus has ascended, so don’t waste your time looking for him. Don’t look up to heaven, look around you! Pentecost is coming, there is a church to build! This story is just getting started, and there is an awful lot of work to do.
Their words are a bit harsh, but they’re worth hearing out. There is a good reason why this book of the Bible is called “Acts.” From the beginning, Acts shifts in focus from the work of Jesus to the apostles and the beginning mission of the church. Luke tries to shift our focus from heaven, and brings us down to earth. It reminds us that while the story of Jesus draws to a close, the story of Christ’s mission to the world is just beginning.
Maybe we need to listen to the words of the two strangers again:
“Why do you stand looking into heaven?”
Their words are probably even a better said to us 2000 years later than even to the disciples.
This is perhaps even more true with our faith. One of our cultural challenges that we face today is that we have successfully privatized our faith. We tend to think that God in Christ can only be encountered and experienced individually, that our relationship with God is so intensely personal that we lose a sense of the bigger picture. We have become so individual in what we are and what we do that we continue to lose our sense of community. Since it’s just about “me and God” there’s no point in being part of a community. We become so focused on God “above us” that we don’t see Emmanuel, God with us, and how the Holy Spirit is working in and through the people around us in our own lives. You may have heard the phrase that we become so “heavenly minded” that we are no earthly good.
The words of the messengers in Acts are a massive turning point in the story. Without their words, without their question, Christ’s mission would have stopped dead… because the disciples would have been far too busy staring off into space. God was calling the disciples to share the message, and create and plant communities of faith in this world, not to stare off into heaven and gawk. They were called to be “witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth!” These are concentric circles… that get larger, and larger, and larger. Jerusalem… the local community… Judea… the larger region… and those two we kind of get, but struggle with a little bit… but Luke’s story goes further… and calls us to go to Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
It is no mistake that Luke uses this language… as these concentric circles get larger we begin to realize that Luke is not telling us to hunker down inside our own communities, but to go beyond them and realize that Jesus is calling them to get out of their comfort zone and make a difference to the world around them. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth… To embody the truly good news of God’s love for everyone to those of us in our circles of family and friends, to our community and the people we like… but then he pushes it, by using Samaria as an example it’s a reminder that God’s love is also for not just the people we like, but people we don’t like… and in fact for all people everywhere.
The words of the angels to the disciples are as much to us as those standing on that hillside. God is calling us to be disciples, to be an active part of Christ’s family. To be a part of the ongoing story that merely gets started in the gospels. One of the most important things about the Ascension story is where we find it. It comes right at the end of Luke, but also appears at the very beginning of the book of Acts…. While it has all of those hallmarks of a story’s conclusion, and a fitting end to a gospel, Acts changes the tone completely. This encounter at the open verses of Acts reminds us that God’s story is just getting started.
The story of Emmanuel, God with us, starts in the New Testament, but our stories as followers of Christ continues on well beyond this place. God continues to call us to do this in our lives and our community, our own church family… and well beyond… God’s story continues on in our life, no matter how insignificant we might feel. Like those strangers remind us, God isn’t calling us to stare off into heaven, but to make a difference in the life and community that we have here and now.
Amen.
Comments