The Seventh Sunday in Easter May 4, 2008
Acts 1:1-14
Psalm 47
1 Peter 4:12-19
John 17:1-11
On Sunday mornings here in Eugene a great division takes place: some come to Church but most stay home or do something else. Those who don’t come generally aren’t taking a week off; Church is simply not part of their lives. It is one of the more peculiar things a small percentage of twenty-first century Eugenians do: They, we, come together week after week with no intention of doing anything useful or productive or fun. They, we, gather together to declare and affirm things about a deity we cannot see.
The word we use for this is worship, and those of us who show up at Church on a weekly basis depend on it. This in part, is how we have learned where we fit; this is how we locate ourselves in the whole Cosmic scheme of things; this is how we learn who we are, and more importantly, whose we are, by coming together to pray and sing and listen and be nourished by the Eucharist.
We may baffle our unbelieving or at least non practicing friends and neighbors, but perhaps part of our task in to make them a little uncomfortable by our consistent behavior. It is a witness you know, to be steady in worship. And if truth be told, there are times when we baffle ourselves, proclaiming Good News when the news is so bad, trusting the light when things are pretty dark, continuing to wait on the Savior in our midst when so many about us just shake their heads in wonder.
To be theologically correct, we have been waiting ever since the first Ascension Day, when Jesus led his disciples to a mount called Olivet just outside Jerusalem, spoke a few words to them for the last time, and then disappeared into a cloud for good.
Let’s look at this pertinent passage together. We’re about half way into the lesson from the first Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus said, “’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 cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:8-9)
Jesus went into heaven, which is not so much up as it is beyond. What he went there to do was to finish what he had begun with us. It was not enough that through him God was born into human flesh, as the most wonderful Christmas gift of all time. But ironically, this departure was a gift as well. By his Ascension, Jesus imported the fullness of humanity into heaven for the very first time. He paved the way for us, so that when we arrive there, everyone will not be so shocked to see us. By ascending bodily into heaven, he showed us that God, who created us flesh and blood, also redeemed us through flesh and blood, and that flesh and blood is the medium God likes when he is dealing with us humans. By putting on flesh and blood, Jesus has not only brought God to us, he has also brought us to God.
I remember being in conversation one time with someone about this, and I said something like, “Doesn’t this make the Ascension alive for you?”
As I said this, I could watch the garage door come down. “Um Huh, Interesting…”
In reflecting on this exchange, I believe that he was saying that this was not only abstract and boring, but it also had very little to do with day to day living. Other things about Jesus are understandable and we can relate. He was born to a human mother; so were we. He ate and drank and slept at night; so do we. He loved and got angry and wept and forgave; so have we. He died; so will we.
But rising from the dead and ascending into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father? That is where it is easy to part company with Jesus. That’s where he seems to leave us in the dust. Our perception of The Ascension is from the ground, neck cranked back as far at it will go, mouth open wide, face shielded from the sun by the cloud that is bearing the Lord away.
The corresponding account in the Gospel of Luke tells that the disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy. But we have to remember that this just happened for them and they were pretty jazzed. They were still running on adrenaline. I can’t help but think that they thought that He was going to return in just a day or two and they were excited.
Here we are, almost two thousand years later, and we have a window of the event. Note Jesus being depicted as being all shimmering white, hovering in the air as he ascends to the Father. All these windows were put in several years ago to depict the story of the Gospel from the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary all the way to the Ascension.
Sometimes I think we need another window, a window depicting this period of waiting, a window with just us in it; no angels, no Jesus, no heavenly light; just us, still waiting, still watching the sky, our faces upturned. The Ascension reminds us that God who became flesh and blood like us, is now absent, at least in the way He was before His death and Resurrection. This may be why The Feast of the Ascension tends to be forgotten. Who wants to celebrate being left behind? Hungry as we are for the presence of Christ, the one thing we don’t want is to be reminded of Christ’s absence.
But sometimes I think absence is underrated. Tossing out a double negative, absence is not nothing after all. It is something; it’s a yearning, a heightened awareness, a sharpened appetite, enhanced awareness. When someone important to me is absent, I become closer than ever to what that person means to me. Details that got lost in our togetherness are recalled in our apartness, and their sudden clarity has the power to pry my heart wide open. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. I see the virtues I have overlooked, the opportunities I have missed. The quirks that were crazy making at close range become endearing at a distance. This is the stuff of love.
There is something else that happens during an absence. If the relationship is strong and true, the absent one has a way of becoming present; if not in body, then in mind and spirit.
I have listened to countless widows and widowers who have spoken of having a strong sense of the presence of their departed loved one. Those of us who have children and grandchildren a long way away know this ache and heightened awareness.
One thing is sure: there is no sense of absence where there has been no sense of presence. What makes absence hurt, what makes it ache, is the memory of what used to be there but is no longer. Absence is the arm flung in the middle of the night, the empty space, the hole in the bed. Absence is the overgrown lot where the old house once stood, the house in which people loved and laughed and thought that their happiness would last forever.
You cannot miss what you have never known, which makes our sense of absence (and especially our sense of Christ’s absence) the very best proof that we know Him and we hope to know Him more fully. There is loss in absence, but there is also hope, because what happened is that our need is honed. It is our sense of Christ’s absence that brings us to Church in search of His presence.
Back then followers became leaders, listeners became preachers, converts became missionaries, and the wounded became healers.
This was probably not the way they had planned it. If it were up to them, my guess is that they would have tied Jesus up so that he would not leave them, so that they would know where to find him when needed and they could rely on him forever.
But as we know, that did not happen. He went away—he was taken away—and they just stood there looking up into heaven: And then they looked at each other instead, and got on with the business of being the Church.
And once they did that, surprising things began to happen. They began to say things that sounded like Him, and they began to do things that they had not seen anyone but him do before. They became brave and competent and wise. Whenever two or three of them came together it was always as if Christ was present with them, unseen but oh so present. And as folks came together more and more, they called it Church and they discerned the Lord’s presence in the midst of His absence.
Do you miss him sometimes? Do you long for assurance that you have not been left behind? Then why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Look around you, look around.
Amen.
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