A homily for the Ascension of the Lord, May 21, 2023
Acts 1:1-11, Eph 1:17-23, Mt 28:16-20
Years ago, I visited friends in Colorado Springs and Casper, Wyoming, taking a nonstop flight first to Denver and then a short hop from there to Colorado and back to Denver, and to Wyoming and back to Denver for my flight home. It was my first time west of Ohio.
En route to the Springs, the 737 flew above the Rocky Mountaintops, which were hugged by clouds, and I gasped. At first glance, I was convinced I had seen a city in the sky, the unfiltered sun glistening on the snowcaps and the crags looking like palaces and temples and skyscrapers.
Nature’s skyscrapers. And so they were.
And I understood why every civilization since the dawn of time has looked up whenever the notion of a deity has sprung forth.
Looking up is awe-inspiring.
Up is clean. It’s bright. It’s starry. Up’s storms are powerful, with frightening lightning and rumbling, humbling thunder. The sky waters farmers’ fields and fills rivers and reservoirs and seas that keep all of Creation alive. Clouds whose shapes inspire imagination drift or zoom aloft on gentle breezes or stiff winds.
Up There is Heaven. Of course.
Up There is where God lives. Of course.
Up There is where we want to be.
But our Scriptures today bring us down to Earth, in a good and reverent way, reminding us of what still lies before us … and has for 2,000 years.
At the end of our passage from the Acts of the Apostles,
While [the Apostles] were looking intently at the sky as [Jesus] was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into Heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into Heaven.”
Jesus will return in glory. And yet, did he actually leave? Our belief in the Ascension says yes. But slightly confusingly, Matthew relates:
Jesus approached and said to them …
“[B]ehold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Yes, Jesus ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father. Gone from the Apostles’ sight, but with them — and us — always. Up there but down here.
Because, as we remember, we are always in the holy presence of God. Our omnipresent, omnipotent God.
Jesus, in the glorified body he attained upon his Resurrection, lifted himself from the Earth to make clear to his followers that it was time for them to continue his mission — for us to continue his mission. Everything about that mission, for all of humankind to love God and love their neighbors as themselves, Jesus made clear as if he was writing some sort of owner’s manual.
Oh, wait; he did write an owner’s manual. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul transcribed it for him. Through divinely inspired writings, Jesus challenges each of us to own the mission he started in the Holy Land and which his first followers spread worldwide.
Through his Ascension, the physical, fully human Jesus is no longer getting calluses and blisters while walking from village to town to city, which means he no longer can be tapped on the shoulder and asked, Rabbi, what should we do in this situation?
The physical Jesus, the rabbi Jesus is saying, in effect, I taught you; I’ve already given you the answers. It’s graduation day. Go forth, use your knowledge, and do your jobs.
Nonetheless, the spiritual, fully divine Jesus is available to inspire us and fill us with strength and grace and wisdom to answer any actual or hypothetical question that may arise as we work to be Christ to one another.
The spiritual, fully divine Jesus is always right here to inspire us and fill us with strength and grace and wisdom to know how to serve our sisters and brothers and to be Christ to one another.
Jesus gave his all for all of us. He expects us to do the same for each other.
And Creation — above us, below us, all around us — reminds us that God is everywhere, God is awesome, and God’s bright shining love never fails.
