Feast of Ascension

A friend of mine who is a priest in another Christian tradition was telling me not long ago about his struggles with this year’s Confirmation Class. In the class this year was a young woman, aged 15, who is particularly bright and inquisitive. She didn’t grow up in the church. Her parents took the non-directive approach. They reckoned she should make her own decisions about faith, so they made no effort to guide her in one direction or another. (I’m guessing that when the times comes for her to choose a college to attend, they won’t be so non-directive.)

In any case, my friend the priest was trying to explain the doctrine of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. His tradition teaches (as did John Calvin, by the way) that Christ is truly present the Holy Meal, albeit in a spiritual, not a literal, way. This bright teenager listened very carefully to the priest’s explanation. When he finished, she was the first to put her hand in the air.

"Alright," she said. "I get it. I have no problem believing that the wafer that you give me at Holy Communion is the body of Christ. I get that. But, Father, there’s no way you’re going to convince me that that little poker chip is really a piece of bread."

There’s no telling what that young woman might say about the Feast of the Ascension, which we observe today. She would be the first to point out that modern people like us don’t live in the three-story universe of the first century. We no longer think of hell as the lower story, where the dead reside, earth as the middle story where the living reside, and heaven as the top story, where God hangs out.

In a three-story universe, a tale like this one makes perfect sense. Jesus, who has "descended to the dead," has been raised to new life, and is very much alive. The time has come for him to leave his disciples. He’s going to be with God, so the only way to go is up. So, according to the story, Jesus promises his disciples that they will receive power when the Holy Sprit comes upon them, and then "is lifted up and a cloud [takes] him out of their sight."

Right! And that wafer is a piece of bread!

I admit, this is a very old story, but the very last thing you and I should do is to discount this story just because it’s old. We have no right to do that. This is our story from our sacred past, the story handed down to us by our ancestors in the faith. It speaks in a language our generation has all but forgotten, but that does not mean it’s not true.

Let’s us be frank. This story uses the language of myth. Most of us have been taught to think of "myth" as "falsehood," but that’s because we’ve forgotten the true meaning of the word. Myth is truth through story. There are some truths so real that "story language" is the only language we can use to pass them on. Nothing else will bear the weight.

If you read this story as though it were a modern newspaper article, you’d conclude that it came from one of those tabloids you can pick up in the supermarket check-out line. You’ve seen the headlines: "Aliens abduct Elvis." "Paris Hilton joins convent." "Jesus seen ascending into heaven." The difference is, those tabloids are written to sell newspapers, and the scriptures were written to tell the truth.

You and I are children of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment did us a power of good in many ways, but it also stunted our imaginations. It taught us to think empirically, which can be a very helpful thing if you want to cure cancer or build a computer, but it also had the effect of blinding us to realities that transcend the merely scientific.

Among other things, the story of Jesus’ ascension sent a message to those first followers of Jesus, who were still hoping that he would hang around to defeat the Romans and assume for himself the royal throne of David. "No," this story says. "That was never his intention. Jesus is a king, but not the kind who wears a crown of gold. He’s the kind who wears a crown of thorns. You’ve seen him enthroned upon the cross. Now see him claim his place as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

This story also sets the stage for the next act in the drama of the church’s life – the period of Christ’s presence through the Holy Spirit. If Jesus is to be spiritually present amongst his followers, he must take leave of them physically. As painful as it is to see him leave, the promise is, he will come again, never to leave. "You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

Remember, the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written by the same author. With this story, Luke draws the curtain on Act I, (what we call the Gospel According to Luke), and sets the stage for Act II (what we call The Acts of the Apostles).

If we imagine Luke’s work as a two-act play, Christ’s Ascension would be acted out on the apron of the stage, in front of the curtain. After this story, we are meant to get up, stretch our legs, nip out to the lobby for a bite to eat, and return in time for the curtain to rise on the Day of Pentecost.

The reason you don’t hear very many sermons from this pulpit about Christ’s ascension is not because the preacher doesn’t believe it’s true. It’s because the preacher hasn’t got words to convey its truth that are any better than the ones Luke has already chosen.

John Calvin, who was seldom at a loss for words, wrote that Christ’s ascension "has opened the way into the Heavenly Kingdom, which had been closed through Adam." I rather like that image. I picture a country lane all grown over with briars and bushes, impassable for more years than anyone can remember. Then Jesus opens the way – the way home, the way that was closed to us before he came.

Perhaps the most striking thing Calvin said about this story is that because Jesus ascended into heaven in the flesh – "in our flesh" he called it, "in a sense we already sit with God in the heavenly places."

In the words of John Mclure:

Jesus didn’t ascend to leave us in the lurch. He ascended to take us with him into the open arms of God. He took with him our humanity, with all its brokenness and sin. "This includes the suffering refugee, the abused child or spouse, the victim of war or terror, the lonely one in the nursing home, the one who struggles with depression or a lost sense of worth and value, those who are sick, all who are in difficult transitions in life" (John McClure). All of them – all of us – are brought into God’s presence with the ascended Christ.

Calvin said much the same about Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper. Christ is spiritually present in the Supper, Calvin said, but unlike some other theologians of his day, he didn’t locate that presence in the bread and wine. Christ is present in the Supper, he said, because in the Supper we are drawn into Christ’s presence -- into the communion he shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

It’s as though, when we call upon the Holy Spirit, the Spirit pulls us up into heaven, to sit at table with the Lord. It’s not so much that Christ descends into the bread and wine. It’s more that we ascend into heaven, and are seated as honored guests at the banquet we have no right to attend. Seated with us are the once-poor, the once-broken, and the once-despised of the earth.

Can you see yourself sitting at such a Table? You can if you look through the lens of faith. In order to get at the truth of the Ascension, you have to put yourself into the story. You have to be open to the power of a myth that is more real and more true than mere words can convey. You have to hold out your hands to be fed.

What does Christ’s ascension mean? Don’t ask me. I haven’t got the words. Ask the saints who have gone before us. In all likelihood, they won’t tell you in so many words, either. Instead, they’ll pull out a chair for you at the Table of Christ’s welcome, and they’ll suggest that Michael pull out all the stops for the closing hymn, when the saints join us in singing praise to the risen, ascended Lord.