Sermon for the 18th of May - The Feast of the Ascension

Psalm 93
The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.
The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring.
More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the Lord! Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O Lord, for evermore.

Acts 1: 1-11
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’ So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you
will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was
going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards 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.’

Ephesians 1: 15-end
I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in
this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of
him who fills all in all.

Luke 24: 44-end
Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’ Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.
While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

A Meditation for Ascension Day

There are many things we believe in or about, although we cannot see them. Air, for one! Rays of the sun that will burn your skin on a beach, germs that can make you very ill, sound waves, and that invisible web of signals that my sons ridicule me for not understanding: the internet. There are many others. The point is, that Jesus's Ascension is something we commemorate and celebrate although we ourselves never saw it. Nor did anyone else. It is not reported in Matthew, the shorter ending of Mark, or John. Luke and Acts are quite vague: he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Well, what is that all about? Some of the most beautiful works of art have beeninspired by scenes from the lives of the great prophets and kings in the Bible; even more so, by scenes of Jesus's ministry on earth. But his ascension has always been, for them and for us, a little harder to try to imagine and to grasp. Some of those painterly attempts are quite thought-provoking: One of the earliest depictions of the Ascension, from the Drogo Sacramentary in Paris, around the year 850, is that of Christ striding forth on a mountaintop into the air, grasping a hand that extends from the top of the frame. The hand is that of God the Father, though we don't see him, in an illuminated manuscript that depicts this scene within a capital "C." Presumably the force and weight of the Father will be sufficient to haul the Son up through the clouds to sit by his side.

Another attempt at conveying the Ascension can be found in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova, a beautiful series of frescoes by Giotto, completed by the year 1305. Giotto's conception is that of Jesus with both hands upraised toward heaven, as if opening its gates himself while already in mid-air, steadied on a platform of white clouds. The joyful angelic host surround Him, and the figures left behind on earth keep their gaze on him, in reverence and amazement. As Jesus moves upward, there is a marvellous Hans von Kulmbach painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from 1513, where only Jesus's feet and lower legs,
engulfed by clouds, appear at the top. And having attained his final position in heaven, in the prayer book of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, of about 1412, the artist shows what Jesus left behind: two small foot-prints upon the Mount from which He rose. As they are the central feature of the painting, they could serve as reminders of Christ’s eternal presence in the midst of those he has left behind on earth. This is a nice way of thinking about the Ascension, that it can be portrayed in any number of colourful and imaginative ways, but that the effect of it is what really matters. As Jesus ascended farther and farther away from those who depended upon his physical presence in their lives, his spiritual presence came to occupy a new place, in their hearts.

And this is exactly what Jesus promised, and what we proclaim, on the day of Pentecost. The Ascension of Jesus is one of those mystical concepts, like the Creation of the world. We weren't there; we didn't see it. But the effect of both has determined who we are and how we live. The Bible sets out for us the incomprehensible acts of magnificence and mystery that are the outworking of the mind of God. It is for us to read about them, contemplate what they mean, try to relate them to ourselves from our own humble vantage point, here on the ground. In some way, invisible and indescribable to us as well as to those who were there then, Jesus ascended to be with the Father after his mission on earth was completed. That is all we can be sure of. But it is enough. May the Holy Spirit who was sent to take his place fill us with both awe and joy, as we live out our lives in this earth that God loves!
Amen!