On Ascension Sunday in 2024 I gave the homily. It was also Mother’s Day on that Sunday. We have another secular holiday on this Sunday….Syttende mai …. the 17th of May which is for us of Norwegian ancestry a day remember also as Constitution Day. So there are parades, and meals w/lefsa & rommegrot (heart attack in a bowl) made of flour, sugar, and butter!! Delish! But Ascension Sunday is a Sunday with plenty of significance of its own. As Rex noted in the introduction, the absolutely remarkable & mysterious story of Jesus’ ascension is truly a story worthy of our full attention & contemplation.
In that 2024 homily, I was greatly comforted in the mystical understanding of Christ’s ascension….as real, and even more profound than the physical. That understanding is affirmed by today’s reading from Acts: It’s the account of Jesus being raised up into the clouds. The possibly the same two mysterious figures Luke described at Jesus’ tomb appear with the disciples at Jesus’ ascension. They ask this question: ‘Why are looking up toward heaven because just as Jesus was taken up to heaven, that’s how he’s going to return, don’t you know?’
Building on that understanding, I was greatly helped by reading Tom Zanzig’s book ‘Jesus of History, Christ of Faith.’ In that book, Tom noted that the main lesson the scriptural authors wished to teach by describing the Ascension was this: ‘Following his Resurrection, Jesus passed totally into the presence of God, and in doing so, he moved beyond our experience of space and time. And then, instead of Jesus being removed from our earthly realm, or being separated from us, the reign of God, the presence of God is among us right here, right now!’ Thank you Tom!
The thought that Ascension unites us with Christ rather than separating us from Christ is astounding. This concept of the ascension of Christ is echoed by Rachel Mann, a priest in the Church of England, in her article in this month’s issue of Christian Century magazine entitled ‘Holy Uprising’. She quotes 16th Century English poet John Donne in his poem “Ascension.”
‘Salute the last, and everlasting day,
Joy at the uprising of this Sun, and Son,
Ye whose true tears, or tribulation
Have purely washed, or burnt your drossy clay.
Behold, the Highest, parting hence away,
Lightens the dark clouds, which He treads upon;
Nor doth he by ascending show alone,
But first He, and He first enters the way.
O strong Ram, which hast battered heaven for me!’
Donne calls the Ascension an uprising!! It’s a revolution against what is and has always been. In the Ascension…Christ first enters the way and batters all barriers to heaven!! The world is infused with God. This expansive understanding of Christ’s ascension, where, in Matthew’s great commission of Jesus he says to his disciples and to us: Do as I have done, my Spirit will empower you to go and be the messengers that the barrier between heaven and earth has been opened with my love, my care, my compassion. How do we do that? We bring the reality of heavenly comfort to immigrant families who live on the edge of terror, we do that by challenging injustice through our phone calls, our letters, our postcards, our rallies, our strong statements about how our following Christ means we stand with the poor, with the imprisoned, with the refugee, with the immigrant. As a community we bear the banner that Christ has battered the barrier between heaven & earth.
It’s real. We know when it happens. I have an example of how that happened to me recently, how someone battered that barrier giving me joy and hope. One beautiful afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I decided I’d spent enough time inside moping in my bedroom, so I went out to the driveway to sit on a lawn chair in the late afternoon sunshine. A few minutes after I got settled in my chair, Ellison, my 6 year-old neighbor from across the street, came over lugging a lawn chair. She told me she saw me sitting by myself and wanted to talk a little bit. I was happy to see her. I asked her about school, about swim lessons and gymnastics. She was happy to tell about swimming, her favorite activity. Then, during a lull in the conversation, she asked: ‘Terry, do you know any rhymes?’ I told her, yes…how about ‘Jack & Jill went up the hill up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.’ She liked that rhyme. One of her brother’s name is Jack. She then started singing ‘Old MacDonald.’ After a few
rounds with each of us picking an animal… cow, duck, pig, Ellison sang “And on his farm he had a unicorn…” What does a unicorn say? And Ellison sang, ‘With a rainbow here and a rainbow there, here a rainbow, there a rainbow everywhere a rainbow.’ In those moments, Ellison battered my sad, and sorrowful afternoon and opened me up to heavenly joy and hope.
In response to Christ’s battering any and all barriers between heavenly hope into our lives, into our community, we not only share the good news but we are the good news. Heaven and earth are infused with God’s presence. Because, quoting the writer of Ephesians, ‘with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we know the hope to which Christ has called us.’ The question of the angels…’Why are you looking up to heaven?!’ Why indeed…. because through Christ’s ascension and promise of the Spirit, the realm of God, the realm of heaven is right here, right now. We are empowered to share that amazing goodness, astounding justice, remarkable care and everlasting hope to all!!
I’ll close with a poem sent to me by a friend. It’s by Malcom Guite called Ascension.
We saw his light break through the cloud of glory
Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.
We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centered now, and sings,
Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,
His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed .
Let us sing the waning darkness into light for all the world as followers of Christ, the resurrected and risen one. Amen.
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