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Sermonette: The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord
Sunday, 16 May 2021 08:57 amAs preached at the midweek outdoor Eucharist at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Glassboro, NJ on the evening of Wednesday, May 12, 2021.
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53
The feast of the Ascension has a special significance to me because my last parish--my first parish, the parish where I was baptised and confirmed--was the Church of the Ascension in Gloucester City.
( images of the Church of the Ascension under the cut )
And as someone who as a child (and, let's face it, still as an adult) often had my "head in the clouds," as my parents or teachers might have described, I have a certain degree of sympathy for the disciples in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles. I was (and am) often far more focused on the abstract, the intangible, even the outright imaginary than on the "down-to-earth" tasks with which I was faced. And so I can imagine what it felt like for the Galilean disciples to be criticized by angels even as they continue to crick their necks staring up into the sky at the spot where they last saw Jesus.
Heaven, of course, is not “up” in any physical or spatial sense. We can send probes and satellites and even spaceships into the sky, Elon Musk can set up a passenger service to Mars, and they will never reach Jesus, just like we don’t need to drill into the Earth’s core in order to reach hell.
Church of England bishop and theologian N. T. Wright describes heaven as
How often are we guilty of the same thing as the disciples, then, of “looking up toward heaven” instead of living fully as members of Christ’s kin(g)dom here on Earth? The temptation is real. It’s far easier to place our hope “up there” instead of the messy realities we face in this world, to really believe that the kin(g)dom of heaven is present not just in the life to come, not just in our tabernacles and sanctuaries and lych gates, but in slums and prisons and hospitals.
Jesus is King, and he sits on his throne at the right hand of the Father. He has won the victory over death, over sin, over hell, and he has gone to prepare a place for all who, despite our unworthiness, are willing to accept it.
Amen.
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53
The feast of the Ascension has a special significance to me because my last parish--my first parish, the parish where I was baptised and confirmed--was the Church of the Ascension in Gloucester City.
( images of the Church of the Ascension under the cut )
And as someone who as a child (and, let's face it, still as an adult) often had my "head in the clouds," as my parents or teachers might have described, I have a certain degree of sympathy for the disciples in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles. I was (and am) often far more focused on the abstract, the intangible, even the outright imaginary than on the "down-to-earth" tasks with which I was faced. And so I can imagine what it felt like for the Galilean disciples to be criticized by angels even as they continue to crick their necks staring up into the sky at the spot where they last saw Jesus.
Heaven, of course, is not “up” in any physical or spatial sense. We can send probes and satellites and even spaceships into the sky, Elon Musk can set up a passenger service to Mars, and they will never reach Jesus, just like we don’t need to drill into the Earth’s core in order to reach hell.
Church of England bishop and theologian N. T. Wright describes heaven as
God’s space, which intersects with our space but transcends it. [. . . A] further dimension of our world, not a place far removed at one extreme of our world. It is all around us, glimpsed in a mystery in every Eucharist and every act of generous human love. We are reminded of it by the beauty of the created order, which in its very transience points beyond itself to the fuller beauty which is God’s own beauty, and which [God] intends one day to bring to birth, as we say so frequently, ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’When Jesus ascends into heaven, he is answering the Galilean disciples’ question about when the kingdom will be restored to Israel. In ascending to heaven, in taking his throne at the right hand of the Father, Jesus establishes his kin(g)ship over all the Earth. As St. Paul tells us in our epistle reading, Jesus is
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.And when Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead, the last veil between heaven and Earth will be removed.
How often are we guilty of the same thing as the disciples, then, of “looking up toward heaven” instead of living fully as members of Christ’s kin(g)dom here on Earth? The temptation is real. It’s far easier to place our hope “up there” instead of the messy realities we face in this world, to really believe that the kin(g)dom of heaven is present not just in the life to come, not just in our tabernacles and sanctuaries and lych gates, but in slums and prisons and hospitals.
Jesus is King, and he sits on his throne at the right hand of the Father. He has won the victory over death, over sin, over hell, and he has gone to prepare a place for all who, despite our unworthiness, are willing to accept it.
Amen.
