By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector The feast of Ascension Day, which we observe this morning, was actually this past Thursday. It enshrines one of the doctrines of the church and is in the Nicene Creed, which we’ll recite after the sermon. In those words we will say "...he ascended in to heaven and is seated at the right and of the Father."
After the resurrection of Jesus, the scriptures say he appeared to them for forty days until he ascended in the manner it was described in our lessons this morning.
When I was a child this puzzled me. I enjoyed the story of the disciples gathered with Jesus on a hill and he began to ascend in front of them, saying that it was necessary and that he would return one day. That’s when it became puzzling to me. Where did he go? My childhood occurred during the sixties and that was also the decade of early space flight. Since the body went up in the air, like the helium balloons I’d let go of, something had to happen. Balloons popped, I understood that. Presumably Jesus didn’t pop, but kept going. Did he go into space and would the astronauts see him, I wondered. Would he need the same breathing apparatus they needed, or does being God’s son make it OK. Who does he talk to? I was an inquisitive child with many questions. All of them got the same response. It’s the response our Sunday School kids often get from their parents, "Ask the Rector."
I was afraid of him and so my questions went unanswered. By the time I was no longer afraid of him I had made peace with my ignorance. Frankly, I still don’t have the answers to those specific questions, and I still think they’re good ones. However, I have a different way of looking at the issue.
The Ascension is the completion of the incarnation of Jesus. He came into the world mysteriously and he left the world mysteriously. He was born as a result of the promise of God voiced through the prophets for generations and departed with a promise to return. He reflected the love of God which transcends the physical world that we know and is a Spirit that is immortal.
God accesses flesh and spirit. God stepped into the world in human form incarnated in Jesus and also flows though Spirit in the world now as God did before and always will. St. Paul says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. It’s a wonderful way of saying that God is in us. The creative love of God is spirit that flows through us. It’ humbling, it’s reassuring, and it’s exciting. Through the inspiring Spirit of God within us, we become the body and blood of God in the world - the hands and feet of God beating with the heart of the Holy Spirit. None of which can be proven by the way. But none of which can be denied either. That’s what makes faith so much fun, and our beliefs, what St. Paul called in another place, a stumbling block to those unacquainted with our faith.
The Ascension of Jesus is a reflection on what we can hope for. I’m not talking about whether we will ascend in our bodies the way some Christians insist. I’m hoping for an updated model myself. Car manufacturers are not the only ones whose chassis have planned obsolescence.
I’m talking about a very different hope. And it has to do with the life of faith and love. Consider this: Jesus grew and developed. At the peak of his strength he was beaten, crucified and died. His resurrection was miraculous and breath taking. And his ascension brought him into the realm of Spirit which continues forever.
Also consider our lives. We grow and develop. The peaks of our strength may be physical, but they may also be emotional or psychological. Inevitably something happens and we fall, to where it feels like something inside us dies. But we don’t. We get up, stronger than we thought possible, and continue. In faith, we will hopefully learn from the experiences life brings us, and in our new strength, we ascend into a different spirit. We transcend and in so doing we are transformed. Our spirits are different.
You don’t have to be a theologian to figure that out. All of us have gone through heartbreaking, horrible experiences. Experiences that could have broken us, broken our wills or our spirits. Perhaps in some it might even feel like that. But we are here and we have survived whatever has hurt us. The death of loved ones, divorce, addiction, abuse, war, physical and mental illness, unemployment, bankruptcy, the list can go on. You name it, one of us in here has had it. But we have also survived it, and that is the spirit of God in us that cannot be killed, that resurrects and ascends. We are transformed through our life experiences.
The best of what I have to offer as a priest and pastor, came at the price of the worst things that have happened to me. I’m not getting into them here, don’t worry, but suffice it to say that because of what I have endured and survived, I can counsel and encourage others who go through similar things. And when I go through new things, I can be open and listen to others who have something to tell me. During my life, I have been transformed a few times, and I suspect some more are on the way. It’s inevitable. We all have.
As the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven, Jesus said, "...(Y)ou will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the Earth."
We witness the power of the Holy Spirit when we tell another person of our experience of the Spirit of God working in us to transcend the struggles of this life - our own and those of our neighbor. Ascension is that point of transformation from body to spirit, from struggle to triumph. And we are witnesses. Each one of us, because the power of God has flowed through each one of us, guided and protected us, and will continue to do so. We are witnesses.
I no longer worry about the same questions I had as a child about the Ascension. I suppose it’s like worrying about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We’re all disciples in different places, hearing the word of God and sharing the word of God in different ways. But it is the same spirit blowing within us and among us. We can’t prove it, we may not always feel it, but sometimes we do and as a result, we cannot deny it. The spirit of God is real and transforms us. We are witnesses. Amen.
©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
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