Feast of the Ascension

Luke 24:46-53

May 12, 2013

Preaching on the ascension is not easy.

Part of the problem may be in our imagination.

At Christmas we have a baby, secure in a manger.

 On Holy Thursday we have a supper, something tangible like bread and wine and people sitting around a table with Jesus.

On Good Friday we have a cross and suffering.

There is betrayal and lying and deceit, something with which we can all identify. Finally there is death, something we experience around us every day.

Then at the resurrection we meet a person, Jesus, along with many others running around confused and frightened and bewildered.

Many of us have probably had "resurrection" experiences.

At the ascension Jesus just says "goodbye," and leaves a short message for the apostles.

But how many of us have had "ascension" experiences, just floating up into the sky?

In the heyday of liturgical experimentation in the '70s, a campus congregation sang "Up, Up and Away," and "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

In the congregation was a student who later became a priest and a bishop.

He saw no humor in this campus ministry's understanding of sacred events!

Well, Jesus did go "up and away."

It's one way of saying what Acts says.

Maybe a French priest who lived in the seventeenth century still gives us a way to approach the ascension.

He wrote that the ascension was his favorite mystery among all the mysteries of Christ's life because it was the only one which made you think how nice it was for the Lord instead of thinking how nice it is for us.

What did he mean?

Well, Christmas is a day of joy for us but not for Jesus, who was in a cold stable.

The passion and crucifixion are events we cannot think of without some sense of gratitude, but they brought nothing but anguish and misery to the Lord.

The resurrection, though a day of joy for Jesus, was still more a day of joy for us--our sins were forgiven and the fear of death dispelled.

But the ascension gives us the opportunity of unselfish rejoicing, that of being glad that Jesus was able to go home to his Father.

We might want to say to him, "I wish you had stayed with us so that we could see and touch you, to hear your voice and sit at your feet.

But still, we're glad that you could return to your origin and live in glory.

Even though I'll miss you, I don't begrudge you one moment of your exaltation."

So let's rejoice that Christ returns to the origin of his love.

We know that, even though away from us in one sense, he promises us that he is still "Emmanuel," and will be "with us" for all time.

The challenge for us is to make him present in so many different ways through the faith we profess and act on.

If we want to come face-to-face with him now, we will have to see him in the oppressed and the outcast of our society.

In our actions we shall declare that he is to be found in places and situations where others would not have thought to look.

Like the angels told the disciples: What are you looking up into the skies for?

Get out of here and start working.

His work is now ours.