Ascension
Acts 1:6-14

May 4, 2008


Today is Ascension Sunday in our liturgical year. Forty days after Easter we celebrate Jesus’ ascension into heaven 40 days. Ascension Day is more important in some Christian traditions, and in some countries, than in others. In Germany, for example, it is an official school holiday. In North America, while this is a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church, the day passes relatively unnoticed among many Protestants. Yet, the ascension of Jesus is a central element in our Christian tradition. It is included in the two classic Christian creeds: both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed affirm that Jesus `ascended into heaven’. Both these creeds are contained in our hymn book, Voices United. So what then is this New Testament story which Carol just read really about?

To understand this narrative or any Biblical story it is helpful to try to understand the world of the writer. Actually some of us would say that `context’ is everything. How can I understand what a writer is saying if I don’t understand the position from where she or he writes. Be it racial, cultural, socio-economic, gender or political, these factors influence a person’s views and their actions.

I am currently wading my way through the writings of John Dominic Crossan. Irish-born Crossan is a professor emeritus in the religious studies department at DePaul University in Chicago. Between 1950 and 1969 he was a member, and a priest within a 13th century Roman Catholic religious order, the Servites. Crossan is widely regarded as the foremost historical Jesus scholar of our time.

Speaking on an educational video to the issue of interpretation of scripture, Crossan said, “Just because we call Jesus the `lamb of God’, does not mean that Mary had a little Lamb!’” Crossan can be witty as well as erudite!

Jesus’ world and Paul’s – the accepted writer of the books of Luke and Acts - was imaged as a three-tiered-universe. There were waters above the earth and below the earth. Above the upper waters was `heaven’ – the residence of God. Below the seas was Hades – Hell.

So, imagine yourself there in that first century world. Jesus has been tortured and executed and three days later his tomb is found empty. At the point of today’s Biblical encounter however, the deep despair of the disciples and his followers is lifted since over the past 40 days they have had strange experiences of Jesus becoming present to them. We have been hearing the stories of these appearances in the gospel readings over the past month. We don’t know exactly how his disciples experienced him but from the stories it appears that Jesus hung around for 40 days to give his students a remedial seminar on the undigested lessons which he had been trying to teach them while he was alive.

About these pre-Pentecost contacts Crossan writes: The N.T. speaks of the risen apparitions and empty tomb of Jesus. There were certainly visions of Jesus after his execution – and visions are literal facts. How one explains them is another question. Visions or apparitions are not hallucinations but are – like dreams – hard-wired options of the human mind in absolute grief over the sudden – and especially the horrible – death of a beloved person.

Perhaps some of you have had an experience of a deceased loved one after they have gone. Maybe you have just sensed their presence around you, comforting you. Maybe you have seen an apparition of them. I have heard such stories from parishioners. These experiences are not so unusual.

First century Christians lived in a pre-enlightenment world. We do not. We have the advantage of centuries of scientific knowledge: we know that the sun does not revolve around the earth. We understand (or at least some of us do) gravity. Today, quantum physics has influenced theology in the writings of quantum theology. Dairmud O’Murchu (who incidentally is coming to PCTC this summer) writes along this vein.

So, how can we, as post-enlightenment Christians, relate to this story?

For Jesus disciples this was a time of waiting. The disciples, had, in Jesus, hoped for social and political change. They had hoped for the Messiah who would overthrow the oppressive Roman government as well as oust the temple priests. But we know the ending. We know what happened after that exciting parade into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We know. There was no successful political rebellion; no change of government. Only the tables were turned over in the temple – not the burdensome and oppressive practices of the temple priests and scribes. Only another public execution – this time the violent and humiliating execution of Jesus of Nazareth - the one they tauntingly called, “the King of the Jews”.

But at the time of today’s story the disciples’ hopes are up again. They understand more after the 40 day remedial seminar with the post-resurrection Jesus. So anxiously they ask, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" Is this the time when we get back our own? Is this the time when the Romans get their come-uppance?

Like little children on a car trip pressing their parents, “Are we there yet?” The disciples are anxiously waiting.

Waiting is hard, isn’t it? At least I find it hard.

We’ve all been there. We all have to wait at times. We have to wait in traffic lines, in grocery tor line-ups, in doctors and dentists office, in hospitals. Some days just waiting for the computer to wake up is frustrating! Perhaps we are more impatient than our parents. How often do you see people talking on their cell phones while driving?

But impatience gets us nowhere... except maybe frustration, anger, depression.

It’s been a week of intense waiting for several families of this congregation. Each of them has been hovering in that sedated place while their medical teams compassionately use every means to restore them to health. Meanwhile their loved ones wait for permission to sit with them, for news of progress. The hours are long sitting in a hospital waiting room, hoping for good news. Many of you have had this experience whether it has been sitting at the bedside of your loved one at home, in a long-term care facility or in hospital. You know how hard the waiting is.

So you can imagine the space the disciples are in as this story unfolds. They are waiting.

It’s not that they lack faith; they believe that Jesus will somehow institute the kingdom of God on earth. What they don’t know is when? How will it be accomplished? What does Jesus need them to do? They are waiting, eagerly.

And what is Jesus’ reply to their question? Jesus says, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. “Don’t ask”, Jesus says, “It’s not for you to know. Trust me, and trust God.”

How do you think you would feel if you were one of the disciples in this biblical story? Perhaps, just a little angry with Jesus. Hurt? Insulted? You followed after him for three years, stuck with him (except for those times you ran away) and, for the last 40 days, intently prayed in secluded rooms with him. Now, it seems, he wants you to “just back off”!

But then, Jesus adds: 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."

That’s better. Now you know there’s a place for you in the big scheme of things. Jesus has work for you – he wants you to be a “witness”. And, it’s a pretty big job – you are to “witness’ not only in Jerusalem, but in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Wait just a minute though..didn’t Jesus say something about, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you? When is that going to happen (we, of course, know it’s in just one week). But for the disciples anxiety must have risen again taking them back to their original question, is this the time? How much longer are going to have to wait?

And then, Luke, the gospel writer, tells us, as they were watching, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

That’s where the disciples saw the vision of Jesus go. Up. Meaning, he has gone to be with his Father, God, in heaven. To sit at his right hand.

I’ll admit, I have a problem with the image of a bodily ascension, so I’d like to unpack this image a bit.

Both Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan argue that these stories, and others like it, are metaphor. Marcus Borg says: This story is one of the stories in the N.T. that most obviously requires a non-literal reading. ...it is manifestly a symbolic or metaphorical narrative.

Borg points out that this narrative of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples 40 days after his crucifixion is found only in Acts 1:3. He suggests that the number 40 has a non-literal meaning and means simply, `a long time’.

Also, he says, Luke doesn’t intend this to be taken literally as the last chapter of Luke (24:50-51) ends with Jesus ascending into heaven. This apparently happened on the night following Easter day.

So, there are two conflicting accounts of Jesus’ ascension.

Marcus Borg argues that the story cannot be taken literally because one cannot imagine it happening. The issue is not whether “miraculous” events happen. Rather the issue is the “three-story-universe” presupposed by the story.

In February of last year the announcement was made of the possible discovery of the “Jesus Family Tomb” in Jerusalem. A month later the Discovery channel aired a documentary about this archaeological find. Probably some of you saw it. I did. This discovery naturally raised a lot of theological questions. One of the theologians interviewed was John Dominic Crossan.

In an interview Crossan commented:

Bodily resurrection by God, bodily ascension to God, and bodily location beside God are linked metaphors which insist that Jesus was executed by Rome but raised by God. The Heavenly Court overturned the decision of the Earthly Court (God as Activist judge). In other words, the resurrection of Jesus means that God was on a collision with the Roman empire-not because it was roman but because it was Empire. Faith in Jesus’ resurrection is a declaration of Christian against any empire – yesterday, today or tomorrow....Bodily resurrection is about imperial wounds and not about buried bones.

This understanding has deep implications for Christians and for our world.

In their jointly authored book, The last Week: what the Gospels really teach us about Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem, Borg and Crossan conclude that our understandings of the Jesus’ journey through Good Friday and Easter is both personal and political. They propose that, as a whole these stories address the fundamental human question, what ails us?

They write: Most of us feel the force of this question – something is not right. So what ails us? Very compactly, egoism and injustice. And the two go together. We need personal transformation and political transformation...Good Friday and Easter, death and resurrection together, are a central image in the New Testament for the path to a transformed self. The path involves dying to an old way of being and being reborn into a new way of being. Good Friday and Easter are about the path, the path of dying and rising, of being born again.

So there is powerful personal meaning to Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter. We are invited into the journey that leads through death to resurrection and rebirth. Each of us seeks personal transformation in our own way. But if we only understand this highest season in the church year personally, we deny the passion which got Jesus killed. In Crossan’s words: That passion was the kingdom of God, and it led him to Jerusalem as the place of confrontation with the domination system of his time, execution, and vindication. The political meaning of Good Friday and Easter sees the human problem as injustice and the solution as God’s justice.

The story of Holy Week enables us to hear the passion of Jesus – what he was passionate about-that led to his execution. His passion was the kingdom of God, what life would be like on earth if God were King, and the rulers, domination systems and empires of this world were not. It is a world that the prophets dreamed of-a world of distributive justice in which everybody has enough and systems are fair. And it is not simply a political dream. It is God’s dream, a dream that can only be realised by being grounded ever more deeply in the reality of God, whose heart is justice. Jesus’ passion got him killed. But God has vindicated Jesus. This is the political meaning of Good Friday and Easter.

As Marcus Borg says, this Luke-Acts narrative isn’t a “beam me up” story. So why would we look “up” for solutions. We do not live the three-tiered-universe of the early Christians. We are an enlightened people. If I asked each of you, “Where do you experience God?” I know I would receive interesting answers. For God is within us and without, above us and beneath, before us and behind. We are in the heart of God. Let us then look within, prayerfully and faithfully. And let us look out in compassion and action as we move into the week to come. Amen.

Preached by Erin Shoemaker
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan