Looking High and Low

Scripture: Acts 1:6-14
As we begin today on this Ascension Sunday, let us remember our veterans, many of whom have themselves ascended to the love and fullness that is God. And let us give thanks for their great service and sacrifice on our behalf and on behalf of this great nation.

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Today is Ascension Sunday. Sometimes the scripture for a given Sunday almost preaches itself. It is clear and timely for today. I merely have to type, and the words fly onto the page and nearly fall into my lap. However, sometimes there are scriptures like we have today at the time of Jesus’ ascension, and it has me scratching my head, wondering, “What in the world does that have to do with us today? How is that going to preach?”

There’s a lot going on here in today’s lesson that is not easy to understand if you take a literal approach. Sometimes we need to take the bible seriously but not literally to get the most meaning out of it, and this passage from Acts would seem to fall into that mode.

The Bible is filled with wonderful stories, parables, metaphors and images that are richly suggestive and go beyond facts. Theological truth cannot be confined to facts alone. It goes beyond facts. It goes far beyond what can be known, and that’s the beauty ofallegory, parable, and imagination. Scripture is richly suggestive, and that makes it delightful, and occasionally perplexing. I approach sermons like a creative writing assignment and not a term paper, and many congregants have been grateful for that over the years!

So let’s take a look at our story today, because often scripture comes alive the very moment you are working with it, and emerges like some organic work in progress, taking on a life of its own. You never know where it is going to lead you. I hope you will think of scripture that way the next time you are reading your bible.

In today’s lesson, did Jesus take off from Bethany and blast into space like some sort of astronaut? At first blush, that seems to be what is happening. What we do know for sure is that Jesus disappeared. But if we can get past Jesus traveling into space, we just might be able to find some helpful patterns and dynamics for the living of our lives today.

We miss a lot if we summarily dismiss the account of the ascension. This past Thursday was the actual day the church worldwide celebrated the Ascension of Christ. Forty days after Easter, the church commemorates the Ascension of Christ into heaven.

Next Sunday is Pentecost, and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on all believers.

Be sure you wear something red when you Zoom! The Ascension is the last step in preparation for Pentecost.

We can thank Luke – the writer of the gospel that bears his name as well as the author of Acts for these stories. The first chapter of Acts is a transition in a much larger work, sometimes regarded as Luke-Acts. The books of Luke and Acts form a complete work, and you might note the similarities between the last chapter of Luke and the first chapter of Acts. Both books highlight prominent themes of the importance of the Holy Spirit, and the significance of the Ascension, and the yearning for the Kingdom of God.

There are other similarities – not only between the two books, but between the situation of the early disciples and our own. Liturgically we are living between Easter and Pentecost. We are living between the times in many aspects of our life, looming like two large bookends. We are living between the days of social gatherings and life as we knew it, and the new normal, whatever that means. We do not yet know.

We are living between the days of going to church, hugging each other and singing, and now lingering in limbo. We don’t know when we can return to church, or what that’sgoing to look like when we do. We are betwixt and between, and these times in between can certainly be filled with anxiety and uncertainty.

It was that way for the disciples, too, just as I suspect they are for many of us. Sometimes it seems these “times in between” are the norm – not just between Easter and Pentecost in the biblical sense, but between the past and the future.

It was a time of great certainty. Was the Lord really resurrected or not? Some had seen him, and some had not. Was he leaving again, returning to God? Why? Why would he leave them alone? What if the authorities came after the disciples and the friends of Jesus? It wasn’t that long ago when they were huddling in the upper room in fear of their enemies.

And what was this confusing thing called Pentecost he was talking about? It was a periodof “now you see me, now you don’t.” And even when you can no longer see me, Jesus said, I will send the Holy Spirit, the comforter, who will always be in your midst and remind you of me. If you know the Spirit, Jesus went on, you will know me, and if you know me, you will know the one who sent me. This was tremendously confusing then as it is now. You can probably see why.

The resurrected Jeses tells the disciples to stay in Jerusalem and “wait” for the coming of the Holy Spirit. He knew they were ill equipped to set out on their own. This happens over a period of 40 days, recalling perhaps the time Moses spent on the mountain, receiving the law.

“Forty” is a very important number in the Bible. It often symbolizes waiting and a time in between. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. Moses wandered for forty years in the wilderness. So towards the end of this forty day period, the disciples come to Jesus and asked:

“Lord, is this the time your kingdom is going to come?” “No,” Jesus said. “It is not for you to know.” After Jesus speaks to the disciples one last time, offering them words of comfort and assurance, he is lifted up, and a cloud takes him out of sight. You can read more about the ascension at the end of Mark and Luke’s gospel.

As this is happening, two men in white robes – we presume angels – appear on the scene and they say to the disciples: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (1:11) In the meantime . . . between the times . . . there is always a period of waiting, and important work to be done.

But perhaps Jesus is trying to tell us something. Perhaps he is trying to say, “You know,this is really the time – right here and now – with which you ought to concernyourselves.” Don’t be worried about what is going to happen forty days from now, or forty years, for that matter. “Trust me. I will not leave you alone, and I will not leave youill-equipped. Trust me.”

The disciples did, and we should. In the meantime, we are not left desolate or to our own devices. We can look up to Jesus. We can look up to other significant spiritual teachers as well.

Some years ago I saw a wonderful artists’ rendition of Jesus’ ascension. It was this finely etched woodcut print by Dürer. In the picture, Jesus is rising up as the disciples watch him disappear into the clouds. But if you look down closely at the bottom of the picture — and not up at the clouds — you can see the footprints of Christ still upon the earth. The artist had carefully etched Jesus’ footprints down on the level where the disciples are standing with their mouths wide open.

Perhaps the artist was simply imagining a detail that isn’t in the text, but may be implied. The artist seems to be posing to us an age old question, “Why do you stand looking up into heaven? Look down at these footprints still here on earth.”

We usually see what we’re looking for. Are you looking up or down? Jesus’ muddy footprints are all over the pages of the gospels, as well as the pages of our lives every day. Today you hear the first half of the story – Jesus rising and ascending into the heavens. Next Sunday we are invited to consider the power of the Spirit coming at the time of that first Pentecost.

But just for today, I wonder: Just like the disciples, have we been too busy staring up at the sky, with our jaws dropped wide open, like Jesus is some Mary Poppins type figure? Do we spend time waiting and wondering how and when he may return? That’s what Jesus tried to tell his disciples before he left them. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.”

Meanwhile, the period between the Ascension and Pentecost is more than the week that separates it in the liturgical cycle. It is an ebb and flow that defines our entire lives. It is the long stretches of time that make up the bulk of our days.

Our experience between the Ascension and Pentecost is a perpetual cycle that highlightsthe amazing and the ordinary … the miraculous and the mundane . . . We feel inspiration and frustration. We feel power and powerlessness. Sometimes we experience God’sabsence, and at other times, God seems miraculously present.

We see Jesus rising up, but we also see the work of God going on down here. All you have to do is look around. At times we feel high and lifted up, while at other times we feel weighed down. Are we there yet? No, we’re not.

But for today, we are invited to experience the fullness of God on earth, even if God cannot be seen. Some day we will experience God in the fullness of eternity, but don’tmiss all the ways God is already present, right here, right now. Don’t be anxious fortomorrow, or even today, for that matter.

There was a poster on the wall of my youngest son’s room some years ago. I still remember it. It shows a picture of the cosmos and the starry galaxies. Below it was a caption that read, “Reach for the stars . . . and even if you do not succeed . . . you will still achieve amazing heights.”

I can almost picture the disciples reaching towards the sky, trying to grab on to Jesus’feet and pull him back to earth as he was ascending, like some hot air balloon. But what if that’s not what he wanted? What if the most important thing was not his departure?Today Jesus might say, “Don’t reach up, but reach out – don’t look up, but look around.Reach out to those still among you who are in need. Don’t just do it for me, but with me.

As I’m think about reaching up and reaching out, I’m reminded of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam fresco that shows Adam and God reaching toward one another, arms outstretched, fingers almost touching . . . as God is putting the finishing touches on creation. It is a celestial scene.

But I’ve also seen prints that just show a close up of the two hands reaching towards one another, straining . . . almost touching, and you can imagine at any moment the two hands will grasp one another and be joined together. If I hadn’t seen the original work in its cosmic setting, and only saw the close up with the two hands reaching out, I might conclude that what we see are two human hands – reaching out, trying to connect, maybe about to help the other in need. It all depends on which picture you see. I think Jesus would appreciate that.