Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
When I was growing up, as you might expect from a future priest, I was pretty faithful about going to services, even ones during the week. The celebrations of All Saints', when I could, Epiphany, and Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, you name it. If it was big and important I was there.
Except Ascension. I don’t remember going to a lot of Ascension services. I’m sure I went to one once or twice. But it wasn’t quite on my radar.
That seems to be true with a lot of people. In fact, it wasn’t until I went to seminary that I met some die-hard Ascension fans.
And there is a reason we celebrate it when we do. Ascension marks the 40 days mentioned in Acts, after Jesus’ resurrection. And so on this thursday, 40 days after Easter, we celebrate Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, as we hear about in Luke’s account of the early history of the church.
So why isn’t this day a big deal to us? Why isn’t a day that is marked off in the Bible itself not celebrated by Christians everywhere?
I think it’s because it’s so hard to understand what is going on. Not even the disciples really understand. In Luke, we hear that Jesus “withdrew” from them. “Parted” or “departed” might be a better word.
Even in Acts, where we get the cinematic version with Jesus is lifted up, goes behind a cloud, and poof! He’s gone!
So He’s there and then He’s not there. Pretty confusing.
And the Disciples are already pretty confused. “Is the end of the world coming now? Are you taking down the Romans? Are you doing what we’ve been expecting you to do.”
That’s really the point. Jesus doesn’t always do what we expect. He’s not there to fulfill our expectations, but instead to help bring us back to God in a new way.
And even though we don’t always know what’s going on, there is hope. As Jesus has been saying in our Sunday readings from John, “I go to prepare a place for you.” As He tells the disciples in our readings today, He is not leaving us alone. He is sending His Spirit. He is sending the gift we are getting ready to celebrate soon on Pentecost.
This day, as strange and insignificant as it might seem, is there to show us that there is a lot about God that we still don’t understand. But that’s okay. Because there’s hope. There’s hope that God’s way, the unexpected way, is better than ours. There is hope because God did the unexpected and came down, died for us, and then rose from the dead in order to save us all. And so for the unexpected and sometimes unexplained hope we have in Jesus, we can truly say, thanks be to God!