Ascension Day sermon 2012
There’s a classic psychology experiment where the professor gets a group of his psychology students to stand on a street corner all staring up at the sky and pointing … and guess what - without fail lots of other people start gathering round to look up at the sky and try to work out what they are looking.
As the angels say in the reading “Men of Galilee - why do you stand there looking up towards heaven?” They have their heads in the clouds...
Most Sundays, someone will come up to me after mass and say “Fr Edmund I saw you in Sainsburys” or “I saw you on the High street” and “you walked straight past me”. I know... I will confess I am absolutely terrible at that. I can go along in my own little world and not notice people. I have my head in the clouds.
And that is what was happening with the disciples too. If we are going to be entirely literal about it, it was Jesus who had his head, and his entire body, and his feet in the clouds. That’s the point of the Ascension. He’s taken up bodily into heaven. But from a metaphorical point of view it is the disciples who have their head in the clouds, standing there, gawking, going “Whaaaa(t)?”
Yet out of the 12 verses in our reading tonight, only half a verse tells us about Jesus going up into heaven. Almost all the rest is Jesus giving the disciples instructions about what they are meant to do next. And that does not involve standing there, pointing upwards, going "Whaaaa(t)?"
The importance of the ascension lies in the words that Jesus says to his disciples before he ascends anywhere. He knows that if anyone needs grounding, it’s them. Jesus knows that if there’s anyone that needs to get their heads out of the clouds, it’s the disciples.
Just when the disciples were busying themselves with wonder about what would happen next, just when it would have been so easy for them to get distracted by all that was going on around them, just when they could have spent the next several hours with their heads in the clouds wondering where exactly Jesus disappeared to, Jesus’ words bring them, and us, back down to earth again! “Get your head out of the clouds! You’ve got work to do!” The terrible temptation that disciples of Jesus face is that it is so easy to get lazy thinking that Christ will sort everything out when he returns. We even go to great lengths predicting when exactly Christ will return, perhaps so we don’t have to do any “real” work! And so first Jesus, and then the angels say “Men of Galilee - why do you stand there looking up towards heaven?”“Get your head out of the clouds! You’ve got work to do!”
{concept from sermon By Clair Saur on this site}
You’ve got work to do!
The Olympics are only a few weeks away - can you imagine an athlete turning to his coach and saying “Coach are we going to have one of those random drug tests tomorrow?” What will the coach reply “That’s not for you to know, only for the Olympic authorities to know. You get training - you’ve got work to do”
“Lord, is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom of Israel?”
“Its not for you to know the times of the periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 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”
“you’ve got work to do”
Today if you haven’t noticed is a Thursday. Some people think that Christianity is just something you do on Sundays - well they forgot to tell Jesus. I mean what’s all this about ascending into heaven on a Thursday? Surely he knew he was meant to do it on a Sunday? But of course not, because for the disciples as for us following Jesus isn’t something we can pigeonhole into one day a week.
{concept by William Baeta in a sermon on this site}
Once Jesus has gone back into heaven he tells them “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 not a faith you restrict to a Sunday, that’s a seven day a week faith. The Apostles could not take the Gospel to the end of the earth as a once a week hobby - and we cannot either.
As the prayer of St Teresa of Avila goes “Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world. Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now. Ours are the feet with which [Jesus] is to go about doing good.”
Jesus’s going up to heaven is part of an equation:
he goes up - so the Spirit might come down - so we might go out.
We are to be “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth”
“in barkingside, London, Essex and to the ends of the earth”. On Thursdays, Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Norman Cates shared the humorous story of a Christian (perhaps one of us Anglicans?) who was very keen on the IDEA of sharing his faith but didn’t really want to do it...
Every morning our devout Anglican would pray this prayer:
"Lord, if you want me to witness to someone today, please give me a sign to show me who it is."
One day he found himself on a bus when a big, burly man sat next to him. The bus was nearly empty but this guy sat next to the Christian. The timid Christian anxiously waited for his stop so he could exit the bus.
But before he could get very nervous about the man next to him, the big guy burst into tears and began to weep.
He then cried out with a loud voice, "I need to be saved. I’m a lost sinner and I need the Lord. Won’t somebody tell me how to be saved?"
He turned to the Christian and pleaded, "Can you show me how to be saved?"
The Anglican reverently put his hands together, bowed his head and prayed, "Lord, is this a sign?"
I’m sure we at Holy Trinity Barkingside are not like that. In fact, I have seen many of you do a lot to share your faith. But if we are feeling timid, we are not going to have to do it on our own. “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
He goes up - so the Spirit might come down - so we might go out.
Imagine an aircraft standing on an airport runway. It weighs many tons and is firmly clamped to the ground by the force of gravity. It cannot possibly fly. That is until the power of the jet engines are turned on and the laws of aerodynamics come into their own, proving that there is a force which can overcome gravity. So it was with the Lord Jesus. Death and the grave could not hold him when his Father raised him from the dead in a glorified body, and in like manner the Earth could not hold him when the time came for him to return to his Father. He was simply lifted up operating under higher supernatural laws. {sermon by william baeta on this site}
And under a similar power, he sends down the Holy Spirit to enable us to do the impossible and change the world. As a man called Vance Havner said, "We are not going to move this world by criticism of it nor conformity to it, but by the combustion within it of lives ignited by the Spirit of God."
He goes up so the Spirit might come down so we might go out.
Richard Daly was mayor of Chicago for 21 years (1955-1976). He was known as a rather forbidding guy to work for. One day one of Mayor Daly’s speech writers came in and asked for a pay rise. Mayor Daly responded in his usual smug way. He said “I’m not going to give you a raise. You are getting paid more than enough already. It should be enough for you that you are working for a great American hero like me.”
And that was the end of it...or so the mayor thought.
Two weeks later Mayor Daly was on his way to give a speech to a convention of veterans. The speech was going to receive nationwide attention. Now one other thing Mayor Daly was famous for was not reading his speeches until he got up to deliver them.
So there he stood before a vast throng of veterans and nationwide press coverage. He began to describe the plight of the veterans.I’m concerned for you. I have a heart for you. I am deeply convinced that this country needs to take care of its veterans. So, today I am proposing a seventeen point plan that includes the city, state and federal government, to care for the veterans of this country.”
Now by this time everyone, including Mayor Daly, was on the edge of their seat to hear what the proposal was.
He turned the page and saw only these words:
“You’re on your own now, you great American hero.”
Today we celebrate that we are NOT on our own.
That Jesus is sitting at the Father’s right hand to intercede for us, and that he sends his Holy Spirit down to give us power to change the world
He goes up - so the Spirit might come down - so we might go out.
