May 29, 2022 – Ascension Sunday (7th Sunday of Easter)

We can’t fully understand how the ascended Lord Jesus Christ is ‘Lord of all’, but are called to witness to his love and power, as He calls us to live into the Kingdom of God.

Let us bow our heads in prayer.  Great and loving and powerful God, we give you thanks for the gift of your presence in this time and place, and within each one of us.  Help us now to open our minds, our hearts, our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living Word for us this day.  And may the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

So as I mentioned briefly at the beginning of the service, this past Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ – 40 days after Easter Day. And we observe it on this Sunday after, because it’s too important a feast to limit to a midweek service. I realized that in many years past, as I heard from one of our 9 o’clock members this morning, All Saints actually used to celebrate this day in a very large way. In the evening of the Thursday – Ascension Day – there would be extra music and a glorious choir and accompaniment and all sorts of things. But we will attempt to do our best to honour that today.

This is the day when the risen Christ gives his final instructions to the apostles and physically departs into heaven. The Collect Prayer sums up this act in Jesus’ life in this way, “your Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven that he might rule over all things as Lord.” Now in the readings today we actually have two descriptions of this event. In the First reading, the first 11 verses from the Acts of the Apostles describes the Ascension, and in the Gospel Reading from the last 10 verses of Luke’s Gospel we also have a description of the Ascension. But, of course, Luke wrote both of these pieces – both Acts and his own Gospel. So if what we read today was presented in video – on television – it would be a kind of two-part episode. The end of Luke’s Gospel you would see first, and then at the end on the screen it would say “to be continued.” And then you’d come back a week later and the program would begin with a quick summary of the previous week. “Last week, on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, this happened …” and you would get the first 11 verses of the first chapter of Acts – today’s First Reading.

So what is, though, the significance of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ? The Collect Prayer alluded to one thing - that Jesus could take his place on the throne in heaven and be Lord of all things. Luke briefly refers to the link between Jesus’ Ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and ultimately upon all of Jesus’ disciples. If we go to John’s Gospel – John gives a much fuller explanation. The Holy Spirit can come upon us only after the departure of the risen Christ from the earth. As his physical body disappears from our presence, then subsequently the Holy Spirit is poured out and that Spirit becomes the presence of the risen Christ in a new and powerful way within each one of us – within each believer. And there’s more. Jesus takes our humanity with him into heaven. Now there is a human being reigning with God in heaven. And finally, in several places in the New Testament, we read about the risen Christ continuing to pray for us – to intercede for us to God the Father. And he is the ideal intercessor because he has lived our life. He can empathize with us – as a human being.

Now all of this is glorious and very reassuring - that one of us is with God, the Creator of the universe, who also sends his Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us. But, in our day-to-day reality, what does it mean? The end of today’s Second Reading hints at the answer – or one answer at least for the Church. We read these words, “And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” So the Ascension of the risen Jesus Christ has special meaning for the Church. In fact, the Church – we – are defined as the Body of Christ on earth – that when people experience the Church (when it’s faithfully living out its ministry and mission), they will experience Christ – they will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ through their engagement in the Church. That’s impressive! That’s profound. And as a result of Jesus’ Ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit, we actually have within the Christian community – alive and active – the love and power of Jesus himself.

But the Ascension of Jesus Christ makes even bigger claims. I quote: “that Christ might rule over all things as Lord”. In the First Reading, Luke tells us just before Jesus ascended, that he spoke to his apostles more about the Kingdom of God, and that Kingdom involves all of creation – not just the people of Israel, not just the “new Israel”, the Church, but the whole created order. In some way, Christ is Lord of it all. But how do we make a claim like that? How do we make that claim in light of the shooting of elementary school children in America? How do we make that claim in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine – in light of millions of displaced persons wandering our world? Is Jesus really Lord of it all? Is He all-powerful? Those are very real questions both inside and outside the Church. The day after the school shootings in Uvalde, Texas, one of the officials, in his media statement, passionately said that what had happened was “pure evil” – as though this was a power that was beyond us. And another local person, who I suspect wanted to protect his access to firearms, said that “this wasn’t an act of gun-possession – this was an act of demon-possession!”, - again suggesting that this tragic event was beyond our control, or influence. But wait! The Scriptures make it clear that the work of Jesus Christ defeated evil – that Jesus cast out demons! So where is the Ascended Christ in these situations? Well even Jesus’ disciples asked questions like that in their own way. When the risen Christ was giving them the final instructions about the Kingdom of God, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Their minds were very much on their present situation. And Jesus’ response was effectively, ‘You are not able to know or understand.’ In other words, God’s plans for establishing the fullness of the Kingdom are beyond us. It’s not just a linear path of ‘stomping out evil and forcing people to be good.’ That is not God’s plan. This shouldn’t surprise us if we think for a moment about Christ’s crucifixion – a time when the Son of God couldn’t have appeared more powerless – more weak – as he was accomplishing the ultimate saving and redeeming act of the world!

No – we don’t understand how God uses power, or what God’s power and plan ultimately looks like. Did God not care about the 21 persons murdered in Uvalde? And what about the mentally-ill shooter who was also killed? Even a cursory exploration of the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth would reveal that God cared very much for all 22 of those persons. But we are not called or equipped to completely understand God. We are called to know the love and truth of God as revealed in Jesus Christ to the fullest extent that we can. The author of the Letter to the Ephesians writes it this way, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” We are called to the fullest extent that the Holy Spirit equips us, to witness to the reality of a risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ whose love and power caused him to sacrifice himself for the sake of all; and whose life, death, resurrection, and ascension has blazed a trail of deliverance from evil, healing, forgiveness, peace, and eternal love for us all. This is what and whom we are called to witness to. And the one on the throne – the ascended Lord Jesus Christ - empowers us together to do just that! Thanks be to God!

Amen.