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Seventh Sunday of Easter
The Ascension of our Lord
May 16, 2010
Acts 1: 1-11, Psalm 47, Ephesians 1: 15-23, Luke 24: 44-53
The Rev. David M. McNair

Have you run across the books or websites that compile letters or questions from children to God? Here are some of my favorites: 

“Dear God, I think the stapler is one of your greatest inventions.”

“Thank you for the baby brother, but I prayed for a puppy.” 

“Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had different rooms. It works with my brother.”

“Do people in Bible times really talk that fancy?”

Last one: “Dear God, I bet it is very hard to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only four people in our family and I can never do it.”

Today, our lessons tell us that after Jesus’ resurrection and his appearances to the disciples, he was lifted up to heaven. I imagine that after hearing this story, children might ask questions like this: Why did Jesus need to go away? How high is up? Is that where heaven is? If Jesus went up into heaven, is his body still up there?

Of course, these questions are not just for children. They are wonderful and provocative questions for anyone of any age. They are profound questions about theology, Christology and cosmology.

We, living in the post-modern age of space exploration and quantum physics, tend not to think of the world in three levels  anymore: heaven above, earth in the middle and the netherworld beneath. We may no longer conceive of heaven as a gated community up there somewhere, but most people do continue to think of heaven maybe not as a place, but as an existence that transcends our present existence. 

So, how high is up? – It is beyond our comprehension.

Is that where heaven is? – It could be, as long as we do not limit heaven to a spatial dimension. If Jesus went up into heaven, is his body still up there? Now that is a question to ponder today. (1)

This past Thursday was the feast of the Ascension. This feast is celebrated Forty days after Easter Sunday and commemorates the ascension of Christ into heaven. It is one of the seven Principle Feasts observed by our church and, according to St. Augustine, who lived in the 4th century, the feast originated with the Apostles.

Ascension Day celebrates one aspect of the resurrection, Jesus’ exaltation. Jesus did not wait forty days to be glorified at God’s right hand. That already happened at the resurrection. The mystery of the resurrection is so great that we can only begin to grasp it. It is so vast that the church, in its wisdom, has designated 50 days to focus our attention on one aspect of the mystery and then another. On Easter, we focus on Jesus’ victory over sin and death; on Ascension Day we contemplate his enthronement. Next week, on Pentecost we will reflect on the gift of the Spirit.(2)

We observe with the disciples today Jesus being lifted up away from the earth. As a child who grew up in the 70’s, I can’t help but think of Superman going up, up, up and away. Or a scene from Star Trek with Jesus saying “Beam me up Scottie.” Jesus was lifted into the clouds and out of the disciples’ sight. Even after he had disappeared, the disciples continued to look up in the sky — until suddenly two men in white robes appeared and asked them, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”  This seems like a silly question to me. Who wouldn’t stand looking up in the sky if you had just seen Jesus rising up.

This scene is reminiscent of another time when two celestial beings dressed in dazzling white appeared beside the empty tomb on Easter morning. They asked the women who had come to anoint Jesus’ body “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” This too must have seemed like an absurd question to the grieving women who had come expecting to find the body of Jesus, NOT him alive.

Both these stories seem to indicate that to be with Jesus means to be somewhere other than where we are right now. Even if we don’t believe heaven is up there, we still find ourselves looking up. Where did Jesus go? How can we find him? Do we too need to lift off from this earth and fly into the heavens to be with him?

While we gaze up asking these questions, the two men in white interrupt us with their question:  “Why do you stand looking up?” they ask. “Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Still, we can argue: if Jesus is coming again from heaven why shouldn’t we be waiting — looking up for him. The men in dazzling white do not respond to our protests or our questions — but Jesus did.

After the resurrection, Jesus spent forty days on the earth, appearing to the disciples and speaking with them about the kingdom of God. At the end of the forty days, the disciples asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?”  Jesus answered, “it is not for you to know . . . But . . ” Preaching Professor Barbara Lundblad says that this word but is one of the biggest little words in the Bible.

[Continuing] “ . . . 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.”

This promise of power and the Holy Spirit is not for another place or another time. It is a promise for this earth, this place, this time. Jesus will forever be intertwined in this earthly life in the power of the Spirit.

Artists throughout the centuries have sought to portray the story of the Ascension. Many of these paintings show Jesus in flowing robes floating upward into the clouds with the apostles on the ground hiding their faces or looking up in awe. Salvador Dali portrayed Jesus from the vantage point of the ground looking up – so in the center of the painting are the soles of Jesus’ feet as he soars up toward a radiant light. Most of the classical images of the Ascension highlight Jesus’ feet, complete with the stigmata, disappearing into the sky, but there are a few artistic renderings that show something else — less obvious but, I think, critical. If you look closely at these paintings – not up in the clouds but down on the ground – you will see footprints on the earth. It is as if the artists are posing the question of the angels in white, “Why do you stand there looking up toward heaven. Look at the footprints here on earth.” 

Jesus’ muddy footprints are all over the pages of the gospels:

Can you see Jesus walking up to Simon and Andrew and calling them to leave their fishing boats and follow him because he saw in them potential beyond their wildest dreams?

Can you see the young Jesus walking to the top of a hill to proclaim to the crowd of mostly poor peasants the good news that the kingdom of God has come?

Can you see Jesus storming over to the disciples to rebuke them because they would not let the children come be with him?

Can you see Jesus walking up to a dirty leper and touching him and making his skin like new?

Can you see Jesus sensing the woman with the issue of blood behind him touching of the hem of his cloak and then him telling her that her faith has healed her?

Can you see him dragging his feet on the ground as he rides a small colt into Jerusalem?

Can you see him walking up Golgatha dragging his cross, loving us to the very end?

Jesus — anointed by the same Holy Spirit promised to us — told the disciples the path that his feet would walk on this earth in his inaugural sermon: “to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed.” This was his road map on this earth — and it is ours.
The Spirit that anointed Jesus anoints you and me. This is what Jesus said to his disciples before he left. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” On this earth where I left my footprints.

Where do you notice Christ’s footprints in your life, in this church, and this community?

The 16th century mystic Teresa of Avila prayed:  “God of love, help us to remember that Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands, but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world. Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now. Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.” (3)

Ascension Day is not a call to look up. It is a call to walk in the path of Jesus and to know that we are anointed, accompanied, and empowered, by the Living Spirit of God every step we take.