For All People, Everywhere

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

May 4, 2008

Text: Luke 24:44-53

It may be so that “there is a part of us that cannot dare believe that the Lord has a present tense.” (Barclay)
We may believe that the Lord is risen----- and yet still conclude that the Lord has then….. disappeared! Here today, gone tomorrow?

I was in seminary, working in the summer at the Casa de Amigos in Midland, Texas. I met some college students, friends of a friend and, over curly fries and a burger, the conversation drifted to what I was studying. “Theology,” I said. I might as well have said “archeology.” They expressed amazement that anyone would not only study but enjoy studying “about the past.” They could see the value of the rules passed down, but they were mystified that theology could be considered a practical subject for the present time----especially for someone who seems to be so normal! (There have been a few times when I worried that they might be right!)

But the experience of the earliest believers was otherwise. This is why we continue to celebrate the Ascension of the Lord, fifty days after Easter as we anticipate the gift of power at Pentecost. We dust off the ancient and quaint doctrine of the ascension of Jesus Christ to the heavenly Father.

We cannot go back to the first century, to have their view of the natural world. But we can experientially relate to the same reality that they knew to be true. We mortals have to use the language we have, of course. For we are not angels----yet!

So we use spatial language to signify spiritual and existential realities. Of course, we no longer believe in a three-story universe where heaven is “up,” for up is relative to where one stands. To speak today of Jesus’ being lifted up to heaven is not an aeronautical statement but theological and spiritual. Taken literally, its spatial symbolism would be absurd, of course. (Our better understanding of the solar system does not signify that we are any wiser about living---- just more developed astronomically.)

We continue to affirm in the creed that Christ “ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty.”  This is our shorthand way of saying that…. “Christ is Lord, for people everywhere….Lifted far above all heavens that he might fill all things, the ascended Christ is to be at the center of every life.” (Synthesis) At God’s “right hand” is a fourth century way of saying that Jesus’ dominion (sphere of influence) is unlimited by geographical or spatial considerations.

As one has summarized this belief:
“Jesus, who refuses to be king in Jerusalem, ascends to heaven to be King of all.

 He leaves to reign. He departs to rule.

 He passes out of sight to prevail.

 He goes to govern.

 He bids farewell to run the show.

 He vanishes to vanquish.”

 Or, as Martin Luther put it, “he ascended above for the reason that there, he can best do his work and exercise dominion.” (Synthesis: A Weekly Resource)

But does this mean that God is merely “watching us, from a distance----as the song popular a few years back expresses it?”

Not exactly. Here we are, with Jesus “lifted up” to the Father---- but at the same time, he is our savior, the Word of God, also now with us, among us. This is not the kind of information you can get with a Google search. It is certainly different from the type utilized on Jeopardy. (Keizer, CC, April 22, 2008, page 30)

If the word became flesh and dwelt among us, so the word is now eternally with Father God, and with the Spirit, and continues to work in the world. We are not speaking spatially but qualitatively.  God’s realm is another dimension of existence, not another place----or, better said, not limited any particular place. “Through the divine power and love, the non-being of death was conquered and….Jesus the Christ [has] received the new, transcendent mode of being in and with God.” (Langdon Gilkey)

Jesus does not ascend to look over us here on the field from box seats far above the fray. “The physical loss of Jesus is overcome by a deeper, more intimate union with Jesus through the Spirit.” And it is not only for our salvation that Christ reigns, but for the salvation of the whole world.

Before he ascends, Jesus commissions the disciples. And Jesus, as we stand in a long line of witnesses, commissions us, too.

Every time we baptize, every time we receive another member into this body of Christ, Christ Jesus commissions them and re-commissions us. We are received into the arms of God and we are sent in Christ’s name with a mission.

There is an old story of angels in conversation with Jesus just after Jesus commissioned the disciples and ascended. The angel asked: “Jesus, you gave the disciples plan A. But what is plan B?” Jesus replies: “There is no plan B. I have entrusted them with my mission.” (Source unknown)

What is the assignment? Luke has two ascension appearances. Luke is the author also of Acts. The assignment in the gospel is that we are to proclaim “repentance (turning, changing the mind) and forgiveness (wiping out the debt of sins), beginning from Jerusalem.” Where are we to do this? “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem [and also] in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

OUTWARD BOUND

One way to look at Jesus’ ascension is to believe that Jesus leaves so that we can become his ambassadors, his voice, hands, heart, and mind [for people in every generation]. “Where the Lord’s physical hands and feet cannot be present, the ministry of the hands and feet of countless saints in simple and sincere ministries continues to bear witness to the Lord’s living presence.”(R. Alan Culpepper, New Interpreters Bible, Volume 9)

N.T. Wright uses this image: Jesus is like the medical genius who developed penicillin. We are like the doctors who, ourselves having been cured by it, now apply it to those who need it, to those others who have need to be healed. We are being-healed healers.

By grace, we are blessed with binocular vision. We glimpse with the eyes of God the spectacularly beautiful creation which is still proceeding; and, we see with the deep grief of the creator the battered and battle-scarred state in which the world finds itself. (Wright)

So we are instructed to worship and show and tell of God’s active love. When we continue to pray, “This does not mean that we want God to sort out our messes and muddles so that the church can be a cozy place without problems and pain….We become the few with the message [and actions on behalf of] the many.” (Wright)

When will God bring in his kingdom? Well, that’s not for us to know, Jesus says. Occupy yourselves with work and witness. Meanwhile, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be empowered to do the work I send you to do. Wait for it, not grimly, as if the worst is yet to come, but with confidence. (Richard Hays, Moral Vision) In a real sense, every time we gather here in Jesus name, we are waiting for the Spirit to come upon us.

The first disciples did as Jesus said. They went to Jerusalem to wait. And they did not go with fear but “with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.” So it is with us.

If God welcomed Jesus into his dimension of being, then God is like Jesus, now and forever. “The whole of the Jesus’ life is now caught up into God’s life.” The Spirit will breathe God’s Christ-like power into us, over and over again, as we open ourselves to receive and seek make real God’s vision of Shalom.

And someday, when our work on earth is done, “the absolute Logos shall look on us in eternity with a human face.” It will be the face of that first-century man, Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary and Joseph, lover of our souls and God’s unique revelation of his love for the whole cosmos. (Karl Rahner)

What do you think? Is this a practical doctrine? Does it make a difference when we believe what is affirmed?

A working mother in Pennsylvania wrote: “Every morning I get out of bed by installments. I am not very healthy, and my knees hit the floor first. With my knees on the floor and my elbows on the bed, I might as well pray, so I pray,
 
‘God, I love you. What are you up to today? Let me be a part of it.’”

This woman believed in the ascension of Jesus Christ, whether she ever heard of the doctrine or not. For Christ was “the companion of her present days, not anchored in the year A.D. 33.” (Arthur Lichtenberger, The Day is at Hand, 1963, pages 31-32)

Do you?   Do I?   Do we?