Sermon Diaries
Thoughts on the Ascension of Jesus
Preaching on the Ascension was hard because too many ideas. What I ended up going with were thoughts on ending well. And this was not the first time I had reason to write about the ascension. I wrote an article for Grow Christians last year as well.
How do you end well?
How do you know when you have finished the work you were doing?
How do you know that it is time to move on to the next work?
These questions have been on my mind a lot recently and I have been contemplating what it means to end well. As most of you are now aware, I am in a period of major life transition. After some years in discernment, I am pursuing a calling to the priesthood within the Episcopal Church. The next big step in this journey is that this summer I will take my four children, my cat, a large percentage of worldly goods, and move to Austin, Texas, to attend seminary for the next three years. I am trying to end well in practical ways, including to-do list of packing, arranging mail forwarding, and the other sundry tasks of moving. I am pondering how to leave my various jobs in order for the person who will follow me, and how to make sure my children get to have plenty of time with their friends, and maybe take a jaunt up to Glacier in the next few weeks.
The luxury of ending well is not one that I have had a lot of experience with. Many things in my life have come to an end in which I had no agency, or which I did not want to end. Sometimes endings have been abrupt, even if they were anticipated. Sometimes I did not notice the signs that an ending was coming. Such endings are often heavy with grief.
The disciples, and ourselves by proxy, mere weeks ago, were in that state of grief, over a devastating ending. They had pinned the Messianic hopes of centuries on their rabbi, Jesus, only to be devastated by his horrendous crucifixion. It was not the ending they wanted. Yet, barely had they begun to process their grief when BANG! STOP THE PRESSES, HOLD EVERYTHING! JESUS IS ALIVE!
So, here the disciples were, reveling in all the new experiences of a Risen Messiah, eating meals, touching wounds, walking and talking, and living in hope once again and then…
He leaves.
He ascends.
It seems to be as much of a surprise as the crucifixion, even though the words that John records indicate that this was always part of the plan.
How did Jesus know that it was time to ascend?
To be honest, trying to answer the question of how Jesus knew anything is beyond the scope of my knowledge right now. So we will have to be content with, he just knew ok? He spent the last several days of his time on earth telling the disciples all the ways that his presence was a fulfillment of many different prophecies, laying out the largeness of God’s plan. Although the disciples’ last question of Jesus shows that they still had not grasped the fullness of God’s plan.
“Lord, is this the time you will restore the kingdom of Israel?”
I imagine Jesus giving an indulgent shake of his head as he says, “It is not for you to know the times and periods of the Father.” He then gives his final command, “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.”
Not just the kingdom of Israel or the Roman Empire, not the government of the United States of America, or the People’s Republic of China, or the Commonwealth of England, or any of the kingdoms and governments that have risen and fallen over the millennias before and since Jesus was hidden by the clouds.
This is how Jesus ends the earthly portion of his work. With a reminder of how expansive the kingdom of God actually is. It encompasses the ends of the earth. A phrase which makes me ponder if Jesus knew if the earth was flat or not, which is really beside the point. Because the point of the phrase is that the kingdom and work of God is beyond the sliver of soil that was and is Israel.
Jesus glorified God on earth by finishing the work he was sent to do, and now the work is passed on. His ascension marks the completion of his earthly mission. The Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension are the triune work of completion. Jesus ends well, because the ending is not about finality. The ending is about eternal life.
And what is eternal life? Well, according to the words that Jesus prays in John,
“This is eternal life, that they may know you the one true God.”
Now to understand the end, we need to make a quick look back at the beginning. When we follow the story of God from the beginning, we see creation in harmony with God, we see humanity in harmony with God and with creation. This harmony is broken in the fall of Adam and is restored in the person of Jesus Christ. Death was a finality, an inevitability of the curse in Genesis 3, but it was not instantaneous. What was instant was separation and division. Division between God and humanity, between humanity and creation, and between human beings themselves. In the same way, eternal life is not instant immortality, per se. Eternal life is the restoration of our relationship with God without the many complicated layers of purity laws and sacrifices. Jesus did that work of restoration and he finishes his work, and he leaves.
If we were to take a cynical perspective on this story, it might seem that the finish line keeps moving. Was the cross the finish line, where the literal words “It is finished” are recorded? Or is it the Resurrection, when the finality of death is magnificently destroyed?
Or is it this moment of ascension?
Maybe that is why the disciples remain staring at the clouds, waiting for some other marvelous miracle. Can you be sure that this is the end?
Well, it is, and it isn’t.
It is an ending for all the former beliefs that the disciples had held. An ending of the vision of a kingdom of Israel as they had once thought. It is the end of the Son of God on earth.
But it is not The End.
So how does Jesus end well?
He teaches them to pray,
He promises them help,
And he gives them a plan.
“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.”
Really for all the time he had been with them he had been giving them the plan, leading by example. The work of Jesus was to share the expansiveness that is the kingdom of God. It opens borders, transcends language and culture, challenges the hierarchies and power structures that humans have built. Jesus finishes his work by leaving it in the hands of those he loves and trusts. The ascension of Jesus is the end of his work in only one sense, because his disciples will have disciples, who will have disciples, who will disciple others, on and on through the centuries, until we come to today, with me standing here, and you all sitting there, all because of an expansive love that calls us to God.
Ending well looks like building a community that will care for one another, which is what Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.
Next week, in the pattern of the liturgical year, we will get to the beginning of their work on earth, with the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We will celebrate by wearing red and rejoice that we, too, have been given the ongoing work of love.
Jesus ends well because he lives in the hearts and minds of all of us, and as we all become Christ followers, we want to share that. For me, right now it looks like going to seminary. For you, it looks like prayer and worship each Sunday here in Christ Church. And it takes on other qualities as you go out each day, noticing the wonders of the Big Sky, squabbling with your siblings one moment and laughing together in the next. Asking for forgiveness when you mess up and offering forgiveness when you have been hurt. Noticing those who struggle and being tender to the experiences of others. All of this is the work of Jesus that we carry on. More endings will come, ones that may be sad or maybe a relief, and some will be bittersweet. And the good work of God’s kingdom of love will carry on, no matter who or what tries to stop it.