| Scriptures: | Acts 1:1-11 Luke 24:44-53 |
This past Thursday was an important event in the liturgical calendar, but one that contemporary Christians don’t seem to pay much attention to: Ascension Day. The two scriptures we read tell the story of Jesus’ ascending into heaven from two slightly differing perspectives – although since Luke is generally accepted as the author of Acts, they were most likely written by the same person. By tradition Pentecost falls 50 days after Easter – which makes it easy for Pentecost to be on a Sunday, since 49 days is seven weeks, and we will be celebrating that very important holy day next week with the young people of our congregation offering the service – and Ascension Day falls 40 days after Easter – which puts it in the middle of the week, and thus not always that easy to recognize or celebrate. The period of 40 days was chosen partly because the book of Acts reports Jesus as having appeared for 40 days following his resurrection. But as we noted before in talking about Lent and the Israelites’ wilderness wandering, 40 days is a highly symbolic number. “Forty days,” as John Middleton Murry says, “is the period of a timeless spiritual happening…. It is the period in which it was recognized that Jesus had become a necessary part of the true idea of God.” So, it is not something that happens as a movement in time, but it becomes the crucial preliminary step before Pentecost. Christ had to ascend to his glory as a prelude for our ascending into glory with him before the church could begin its essential work, which is what it starts to do on that day of Pentecost.
However….. We really don’t like to deal with all this mumbo-jumbo mysticism, do we? Clouds carrying Jesus up into heaven. Men in white robes speaking to the disciples. The promise that Jesus will come again (a promise, by the way, that was not fulfilled in their lifetime, and so the waiting for a Second Coming consumed the early church until it became clear that something else was being offered).
Something else was being offered. We know now what that was. We give it a name: Holy Spirit (used to be the Holy Ghost until that took on too many supernatural connotations). Jesus knew that he was not going to be with us any longer and that he, himself, was not coming back in the flesh. And so he sent a comforter.
The key to understanding this seemingly supernaturalistic story is that it is Jesus’ way of demonstrating what great gift of grace he is leaving us as a way to help us with our marching orders. And the key verse for that understanding in the book of Acts is when Jesus says to his followers: “’But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’” “You will receive power” – that is the promise. “You will be my witnesses” – that is the command.
Our problem in cutting to this chase is that first century world-view that sees heaven as up there somewhere – a place to which Jesus has to ascend, and then the Holy Spirit has to descend down to us. Two years ago when we were talking about Ascension Day I suggested that we change the directional imagery from a vertical one to horizontal – going “sideways” as it were. Imagine yourself walking toward a distant body of water. The Master has shown us which road to take and has even walked with us for a little way. But now he has gone on before us, and we despair of ever reaching that body of water by our own efforts. Yet, from the direction where we believe the water to be comes a Spirit who stands ready to assist, to pick us up when we stumble, to point out when we go off onto side paths. This kind of symbolic imagery is especially helpful when we think about how the symbol of water is closely tied in with the Holy Spirit, as in baptism, or as when Noah released a dove (which is a symbol for the Holy Spirit) over the waters which covered the earth.
Today I want to do another kind of directional change – although maybe this doesn’t have as much to do with direction as with how we understand outer and inner space. What I am thinking about here is the movement of Jesus from a physical presence with his early disciples to inside each of us – inside the depths of our hearts and souls.
Jesus comes in to us (which is what we symbolize, by the way, every time we receive Holy Communion) in order that we may go out for him. His command is very directive: “’You will be my witnesses.’” And the disciples aren’t quite sure about this role. The word here in the Greek is martores, which means literally “martyrs”. Jesus is asking them to witness to who he is – the Son of God, the Messiah – in all the world…and in the process they will become martyrs. As you might imagine, there’s a certain amount of reticence about all this. Andrew Foster Connors puts it this way: “Jesus tells them they will be his witnesses and the first thing they do is retreat to an upstairs room. Jesus tells them they will be his witnesses to all the ends of the earth, and as soon as he’s out of the picture they close the door and pray in private. Jesus sends his disciples out to the world to be witnesses and it would appear that they shrink from the job.” Now, to be fair, one of the things they needed to do in that upper room was select a twelfth disciple to replace Judas; even in the first century church there was some organization needed before setting out. And it was symbolically important for there to be twelve of them in order to correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel.
But once that organizational work was done and out of the way, they knew what they had to do. Jesus had said it to them quite directly, as reported at the end of Luke’s gospel: “’…repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed [in the name of the Messiah] to all nations…. You are my witnesses of these things.’” But they were also aware that there would be consequences – that’s what being a witness – a martyr – means.
Do we want to follow in these footsteps today? Bearing the name “Christian” and witnessing to it may not be as fraught with peril in our own time and society as it was in first century Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria. But it still carries its own martyrdom-like risks: fear of ridicule, being thought of as a “goody-two-shoes”, taking a position based on moral principle that goes against the grain of what most of society is thinking, bearing a cross of responsibility for those who are the least, who are marginalized, who are thrown-away.
Here’s an example of what it could be like to be a witness in our time from the book Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy Tyson – a true story that takes place in Oxford, North Carolina, in the 1970s. In the book, the Reverend Vernon Tyson, the author’s father, meets Dr. Samuel Proctor, a prominent preacher at the time who was the president of North Carolina A&T College, the birthplace of the sit-ins. Vernon invited Dr. Proctor to preach at his small Methodist church. Word of the invitation got out and death threats came into the Tyson home.
One of the church members, a lay leader of that church, was a wholesale grocery salesman named Carl. He told Vernon, “I went to see one of my merchants this morning, and he said, ‘Carl, you go up there to that church don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I go up there. I’m the lay leader.’ And he said, ‘Are you going to support your preacher having that nigger up there?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I am going to support him.’ And that merchant told me to get the hell out of his store and never to set foot in there again.” Carl looked at [Vernon] and smiled through his tears. “Preacher,” he said, “I’ve heard all my life about witnessing, but until this morning I didn’t know a damn thing about it.”
Few of us might face such an opportunity to witness in this place or at this time in the life of our society. Yet, the kind of attitude being expressed by that 1970’s North Carolina merchant still reverberates all around us and requires our response. The stranger in our midst – the immigrant – the refugee – the “other”, whomever we think that “other” to be – all these and more the gospel insists that we care for and that we admonish those who would shut them out, for as the book of Hebrews declares, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” (13:2 ESV)
It is possible for us to do all this because a spirit – which is a Holy Spirit – has come into us and given us all that we need. The movement of Christ upward has been transformed into a movement inward; inside ourselves is where we now look to discover all that Christ has left for us. Why do we give a Layperson of the Year award each year? It’s not to glorify individuals so much as to lift up examples of those for whom the Spirit has become a living, breathing presence that allows them to model for us what it is to be Christ’s witnesses in the world.
The promise of the Spirit is the promise of power to be Christ’s witnesses in a world that persistently punishes those who would tell the truth. Jesus doesn’t send disciples who have figured out exactly who he is to them and to the world – I think we can safely say that that is true of all those we have named as Laypersons of the Year. Jesus sends disciples who have denied him (like Peter), disciples who have run from his call in the past, disciples who have questioned whether they want to be associated with him – Jesus sends them; which is to say, Jesus sends us. Jesus Christ sends us out to be witness to the ends of the earth – to the dangerous places of deepest pain armed not with money, power, sophistication, or superior intelligence, but only with the power and presence of the Spirit.
The story of the Ascension, I believe, holds a truth that is particularly relevant for today’s world. That truth is that the Spirit is in the world (sometimes in the most unlikely places), and it is the source for our own authentic lives. No, this story of the Ascension is no minor addition to the Easter message, but, as you can see, it helps us to realize that Christ is Lord over the whole world as well as being the individual Christian’s best hope for having a meaningful existence. By demonstrating Christ’s leaving (thus ending his beginning work), by demonstrating the Holy Spirit’s coming (thus giving us our spiritual guide in this world), and by demonstrating the importance of our seeking (thus underlining the urgency of our witness) this story of the Ascension indeed provides the basis for the Christian church – a basis that is then realized in the day of Pentecost.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, UCC
Las Vegas, NV
May 16, 2010