Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension - Jenny Davenport
In my youth I went to a series of quite eccentric schools. In one we used to get a whole holiday for the ascension of King Charles II on May 29th 1660. In another we got one for Ascension Day, so it has always seemed an important day for me.
In fact, it really is an important day for the Church. It is one of the Holy Days of Obligation. It is so important that St Luke covers it twice: once at the end of his gospel and again in the beginning of Acts.
In the Jewish tradition the sky is God’s space and the Earth is humanity’s. Following the Ascension Jesus now exists permanently in both God’s space and humanity’s space at once. The ascension therefore marks the time when we as followers of Jesus become the place in the world where Heaven and Earth overlap.
It also marks the end of Jesus’s second stay as a human being on Earth, after the resurrection. Luke is at pains to tell us how, during this time, he was fully human and not just a ghost. He had a body that people could touch; he ate a fish dinner.
Let’s look at the event through the eyes of the Disciples. How wonderful for them it must have been after the resurrection to have had Jesus back. After the trauma of his arrest, torment and crucifixion he returned. Peter, in particular, was able to put his shame and despair behind him. In the lovely story in St John’s Gospel he is so excited that he jumps off his boat and swims to meet Jesus on the shore before being commissioned to “Feed my sheep” in a treble repetition matching the denials on the night of Jesus’s arrest. It is hard for us to imagine just how special Jesus’s presence must have been. How wonderfully exciting, joyous and comforting it was to have been with him. The post-resurrection scenes are full of warmth and joy.
The ascension itself, which we have just heard read to us, will have had some resonance for the Disciples. Elijah too was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind and for Peter, James and John there was the echo of the Transfiguration: mountain, clouds, figures in white robes, Jesus in the sky.
And yet the episode must also have been traumatic. One moment he was with them, in all his special presence, and the next he disappeared in a cloud and they were looking at the empty sky. How awful for them to lose him for a second time, just when they had him back.
Those of us who have lost people very close to us will know that one of the elements of grief is the loss of the particular unique presence that our loved one had. The way that being with them was subtly different from being with anyone else. How much greater must that loss have been for the Disciples. How bereft and desolate you would have thought they must have felt.
And yet, Luke tell us, they didn’t feel bereft or desolate at all. They returned to Jerusalem “bursting with joy”. Why not? 4 reasons I think:
1. They had something specific to do: The Great Commission “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”
2. They gathered together to support each other, returning to the Upper room and praying together.
3. They knew that although they could no longer see him, he was always with them: From Matthew’s gospel “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
4. They knew that they would receive the Holy Spirit to aid them further. “I am sending what my father has promised to you”
Mother Teresa wrote of her struggles when she no longer had a sense of God around her, and everyone has moments when God seems far away or where they feel bereft or desolate. These 4 reasons for “bursting with joy” have messages for us too.
Let me end by reading a poem by Jeremy Taylor, the great 17th century preacher and poet, which I think expresses the joy of the ascension.
On the Day of Ascension - Jeremy Taylor
He is risen higher, not set:
Indeed a cloud
Did with His leave make bold to shroud
The Sun of Glory from Mount Olivet
At Pentecost He’ll show himself again,
When ev’ry ray shall be a tongue
To speak all comforts, and inspire
Our souls with a celestial fire;
That we the saints among
May sing, and love, and reign.
Amen.