The Feast of the Ascension was last Thursday, so let’s talk about it today. The apostles are with Jesus on the mount called Olivet, or the Mount of Olives. It’s a chalky mountain about 2 miles east of the old city of Jerusalem. Because it’s chalky, it’s not suitable for building so it has been used as a burial ground for thousands of years. The Jewish belief is that when the messiah comes, the resurrection of the dead will begin there. At the foot of the Mount of Olives lies the Garden of Gethsemane. This is familiar ground for Jesus.
Jesus and his friends have come up the mountain and now they stand in the hot sun, looking out over Jerusalem. They’re talking and the apostles ask Jesus if he could please restore the kingdom of Israel. In other words, would he please just get these awful Roman overlords out of here and be a true, good king like David? Jesus answers, “No, I will not be an earthly king. Have you listened to a single word I’ve said over the time we’ve been together????”
No, he didn’t really say that, but I bet he wanted to. Instead, he tells them that even he can’t say when or how God the Father will do things. The apostles hang their heads in disappointment. But he cheers them up right away when he says: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you all be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth!”
I think that now he hugs and kisses them and says a loving, tender goodbye. That just didn’t get written down. Because, quite abruptly, Jesus just gets lifted up into the sky until a cloud covers him. Boom! He’s gone.
There are many paintings of this moment. Sometimes Jesus looks like he is hiking up a very steep mountain to heaven. Sometimes the only part of Jesus we can see are his bare feet hanging beneath a cloud high in the sky.
And there are the apostles: craning their necks up and up, staring with their mouths open, scratching their heads in confusion. Jesus has come back before, so immediately they began to hope that this is like his death and resurrection; just a brief pause before they get to hang out with him again.
Two white robed men suddenly appear out of nowhere and ask: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?" Or maybe that’s a question for all of us: why do we stand looking up into heaven when we need to do God’s work here on earth?
Eventually, the apostles lower their faces, look around them and then trudge down the mountain. They go back to the upper room where they are staying, the whole lot of them: Peter, John, James and Andrew, all the rest of them including some other women and Mary the mother of Jesus.
What do they do in this hot, crowded room? They pray and pray; they constantly devote themselves to prayer. They pray for the coming of the spirit of God so that they can be empowered to be Jesus' witnesses in the world. And maybe they just sit and reminisce about all the amazing times they had with Jesus.
I wonder about people today who are always looking up to heaven, looking for Jesus to come back down to earth the way he went up. Some people spend years studying biblical texts, then predicting the next coming of Christ (even though he clearly says we are not to know the time or place). These folks ignore the world around them, focusing only on how they and maybe some of their select followers will be raised up into heaven on Judgment Day while the rest of us jerks will be left behind to catch on fire. How Christian of them!
So are we looking up, looking ahead or looking down? Where should we be looking if we want to encounter Jesus?
A few years ago, during our worship service, a sweet old man walked into church. He was white, tidy and had a lovely British accent, which made me think that he just might be God. So, God was stopping in at St. Marks to see how we’re doing. God would be pleased by how we treated him.
On the other hand, many years ago, we were very busy preparing for a dinner of some sort at church. Everyone was bustling about, cooking and setting tables when suddenly, unexpectedly, a young man entered Calder Hall, looking nervous. He was disheveled, none too clean, and very anxious. I walked over to him with our deacon, Dorothy. He asked for help so Dorothy sent him to the police station where they would vet him to get help from the ministerial association.
I’m doubting that he was eager to go talk to the police or that he knew what a ministerial association was. He left and I’m pretty sure he didn’t get any help that night. As soon as he walked out the door, I wondered why we hadn’t invited him to stay and share dinner with us. What if this dirty guy was Jesus? This incident has bothered me for years. I learned a big lesson: Jesus comes when least expected and doesn’t look the way you might think.
Mother Theresa commands us to ‘look for Christ in every person’. Jesus Christ was homeless, hung out with prostitutes and criminals. Christ was in prison at the end of his life. He wasn’t a white guy with a British accent, he was a disheveled, homeless, long-haired guy with brown skin. So, when we’re looking for Christ, I think we’d better look around us, not up to the skies.
John Holbert writes: “Ascension Sunday is about the dangers of looking high when Jesus asks us to look low at the people he has come to redeem, to look for the poor and suffering ones rather than to dream of earthly power and glory. In short, Ascension Sunday is a fabulous statement of the gospel.”
The Reverend Kathleen Walker gives us some good advice: “As Christ ascends, so you are given an opportunity to rise up. You, beloved, must rise up against the contemporary tax collectors and money changers. You must rise up and help the hungry and the thirsty. You must rise up and love the abused, the unsheltered, and those who have never known love. You must rise up against injustice and the silencing of those who have a message to deliver or a song in their heart. You must rise up and inform people that “if it is not about love, it’s not about God.” Rise up in this beautiful season of Easter. Rise up and sing your song. Rise up with your heart wide open and share your love. For God is with you. God will always be with you.”
Amen.