Way Beyond The Blue
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
Our worldview has changed dramatically throughout history. We no longer believe that the world is flat and that ships will fall off the edge if they get too close. Also, the heavens are no longer an impenetrable barrier for us, as our jaunts to the moon and our orbiting space station have demonstrated. We have now seen things from the other side of the atmosphere. With that in mind, how do we now look at the ascension of Jesus? Did he pass through the stratosphere and upper ionosphere, or is there some other meaning to those words? Carlos Wilton will write the main article, with Barbara Jurgensen writing the response. Illustrations, liturgical aids, and a children's sermon are also provided.
Way Beyond the Blue
Carlos Wilton
Acts 1:6-14
THE WORLD
"32% Of Prayers Deflected Off Passing Satellites," reads the newspaper headline. It's only a spurious headline from a recent issue of The Onion, the online newspaper parody, but it makes a point worth considering on Ascension Sunday. What sense does it make to speak of Jesus ascending into heaven, when we now know heaven can't possibly be "up there," above the clouds? We know, in our minds, the ascension of Christ had to take place in some way other than as Luke naively portrays it in Acts 1:6-14, but our hearts are still powerfully affected by the archetypal "up there" imagery. The Ascension is a difficult story to preach to people for whom space shuttle launches have become commonplace, but it's worth interpreting, all the same. The early church treasured this story because it's laden with theological meaning. It can be so for our people, as well, once we get beyond the outmoded cosmology.
-- http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/report_32_of_prayers
THE WORD
The work of the gospel writer, Luke, is chock-full of dazzling revelations, brimming over with radiant epiphanies. Luke, of course, is the author of both the gospel that bears his name and the Acts of the Apostles.
Two books, by the same author -- in movie lingo, a prequel and a sequel. Acts takes over, after a brief introduction, right where Luke leaves off: with a cliffhanger ending. The cliffhanger is Jesus' ascension into heaven.
Luke inserts into his story, at intervals, certain revelatory events. Were he assembling a railroad train, these radiant miracles would be the couplings between the cars. These events display Jesus in all his glory -- for those who have eyes to see.
At Jesus' birth, legions of angels sing, "Glory!" At his baptism, there's that resonant voice booming down from the heavens. At the height of his ministry, there's the transfiguration. Coming just after the lowest point -- his death on the cross -- is the resurrection. Now, there's this. The ascension just could be the most remarkable sign of all.
In the words of William Willimon:
For Luke, as for Paul, "the form of this world is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:31). Since Christ, all previously existing relationships of power are being transformed. It is not simply that the world is expected to end soon but that the worldview as it had been, the methods and values for determining worth and significance in the world, has ended. There is now a new reality.
For Luke, that new reality involved the vision of a Jesus who is raised to rule with the Creator of the universe. Death, the ultimate "ending" -- the master fact which determines most of our horizons, our values, our projects -- has been ended in the resurrection of Christ. Luke's "history" is the story of that new reality which has turned the world upside down, relativized all existing relationships, and enabled believers to live as people "between the times" -- between the end of an old age held by the powers of death and evil and a new age where the future is still to be fully realized, still open-ended to the movements of the Spirit.
-- William Willimon, Acts, Interpretation Commentary Series (Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), p. 19
CRAFTING THE SERMON
A sermon on this theme could begin by quoting the humorous article from The Onion:
"HOUSTON -- According to an official NASA report released Saturday, nearly 32 percent of all prayers exiting Earth are deflected off satellites orbiting the planet -- ultimately preventing the discharged requests for divine intervention from ever making it to the Gates of Heaven."
And what of the prayers that don't collide with passing satellites? It seems that, in the imagination of The Onion writers, there are a great many other obstacles up there, above the stratosphere:
"Of the remaining prayers, research confirms 64 percent fail to make it past the stratosphere because they aren't prayed hard enough, 94 percent of those with enough momentum are swallowed by a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and 43 percent are eaten by birds."
Is The Onion lampooning religious faith, here? Not exactly. If anything, the article's making fun of an outmoded cosmology that sees God as residing "up there," above the clouds. It's the same cosmology that has fueled a whole raft of newspaper and magazine cartoons, portraying the souls of the departed floating around on clouds. If our faith is to make sense in the modern era, we need to lose the three-tiered concept of the universe, with heaven above the flat earth and hell below it. Cosmology may be the container in which faith has sometimes been delivered in the past, but it's not the content. Cosmology can and does change, without affecting the essential truth of the Christian proclamation.
If that's so, then where does that leave us, when it comes to the ascension? Let's begin by highlighting a few essential facts about Jesus:
1) He rose from the dead, and was seen by a great many people.
2) We don't know, for certain, the nature of his resurrection body. Eyewitness reports are anecdotal. Some witnesses emphasize the material aspects of his presence, others the spiritual.
3) Unlike Lazarus, the risen Jesus did not die again.
4) There came a time when Jesus bade farewell to his closest followers, departing from physical existence as we know it.
5) Contemporary witnesses described his departure in terms of their own cosmology.
How closely did those witnesses' description of the ascension match the real event, and how much it may have been a poetic attempt to describe a reality that's essentially indescribable is hard for us to determine.
When astronauts go rocketing up through the stratosphere, they no longer come back saying, as one early Soviet cosmonaut did, "I didn't see God!" When it comes to space travel, the concept of "up" loses all meaning. Because the earth is round, blasting off from its surface is more like going "out" than "up."
If heaven is "up," is it located over the North Pole, or the South Pole? (If it's "up" from anyplace else, we'd have to ask what time of day it is, before taking off in our hypothetical rocket ship -- because the earth spins on its axis.) As we can easily see, taking the ascension literally presents certain problems. We just might have to join the Flat-Earth Society and deny there's any such thing as outer space.
The truth is, we don't know what happened, exactly, on Mount Olivet. The eyewitnesses described it the best way they could, using the best scientific knowledge at their disposal. Maybe they were thinking of that story from 2 Kings of Elijah rising up into the heavens in that chariot of fire. Some things -- like the literal details of the ascension -- are better left to the poetic imagination.
There's a persistent message resonating out of this story: a refrain still ringing in our ears, as we pick our way down the winding trail from the summit. Maybe it's the real message of the ascension. It's the message of the men in white: "Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"
Why, indeed? Why do we stand looking up toward heaven, when there's work to be done on this earth? Oh, a little glimpse of heavenly glory is all right, from time to time -- no one would fault us for seeking that sort of memorable experience -- but if we spend our entire lives hunting ecstatic experiences, rooting around churches and cathedrals and holy places like some desperate junkie scrambling for the perfect high, then we're failing our calling as disciples.
The time comes, in the Christian life, when worship is no longer solely what we're called to do, when praying and pondering about the faith are not enough. The time comes when God calls us to commit ourselves: to get up, discover our talents, and respond to the call of Christ.
Those disciples who just stood there, frozen like deer in the headlights, misunderstood what was really happening in the ascension. They thought this miraculous event marked the end. They thought Jesus, who had been crucified and raised from the dead, was now departing from them for good.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus was going to heaven, to be sure, but he was going there not merely to dwell, but to reign. The ascension is not the end. Rather, it is the beginning of a new, universal order. "He ascended into heaven," says the creed, "and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."
Heaven, in the Christian way of looking at things, is not some insubstantial place, impossibly far-removed from the joys and struggles of everyday life. Heaven is not some vague reward, waiting for us in a distant afterlife. No, in the Christian view, heaven is the seat of ultimate power in this life, in the here and now. It is the place where the present and future of this world is shaped and guided.
It is the place where our Lord reigns.
The letter to the Ephesians puts it clearly. God "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" (1:22-23).
Together, we are the body of Christ, his continuing presence in the world. As we gather, week by week, in worship, hearing the scriptures and praying the prayers, he is here. As we sit down to eat at a communion table open to all, he is here. As we gather to wash new members in baptism, gently welcoming them into the fold, he is here. As we discover the courage, in our own lives, to go out into whatever godforsaken place we may be sent, to do what he would have us do, he is here.
Why do we stand looking up toward heaven?
ANOTHER VIEW
Barbara Jurgensen
Today is Ascension Sunday, the day when we celebrate that Jesus, having finished all his work here on earth, said good-bye to his followers and went back to heaven.
How do you picture that moment? Jesus was standing there, giving his disciples and friends his final words of instruction and encouragement, then suddenly he took off and was gone from their sight.
The Bible tells us of other people who made dramatic exits: Elijah was carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire; Enoch walked with God, and then, somehow, he was not. And Moses, after he'd led the people for forty years through the wilderness, as they neared the Promised Land, went to be with his God without anyone else being present.
A number of biblical writers refer to the Jesus' ascension: Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul. They speak of Jesus being:
-- Taken up (Mark 16:19 and Luke 9:51)
-- Received up (Mark 16:19 KJV)
-- Carried up (Luke 24:51)
-- Lifted up (Acts 1:9)
And they speak of Jesus ascending (John 6:62; Ephesians 4:8).
We can smile at their lack of understanding of cosmology in their pre-scientific age. So they saw our earth as centered between the heaven that was above it and the hell that was beneath it. Does that in any way lessen the importance of the ascension event?
Which way is up, anyway? Is there an "up" to our universe? On our maps of the world, we usually show north at the top of the page and south at the bottom -- probably because the early mapmakers lived in the northern hemisphere. If they'd lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or Adelaide, Australia, they might have put the southern hemisphere on top.
So, almost 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus, we've built large telescopes and sent people out into space to look around -- and they haven't seen any heaven above us or hell below us. Does that mean that there are no such places?
When we say the Apostles' Creed together in church, we remember that all down through the ages the church has believed that, after he was crucified, Jesus "descended into hell" and "ascended into heaven."
So where is heaven? Maybe it's not so far out that our strongest telescopes can't pick it up. Rather, maybe it's so close in that our earth itself may be superimposed upon it -- but we can't see it with our present eyes. Just wait until we get our new heavenly ones!
After Jesus was raised from the dead, remember how he could walk through walls and locked doors -- he had a new type of body. He was, we could say, in another dimension -- as we will be some day.
Remember how the Russian astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, after making his historic ride through space back in the 1960s, said he didn't see God out there? If we limit heaven to what we can currently see with our earthly eyes, we're ruling out what is most important. As Paul says, we need to look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe" (John 20:29).
Regarding Jesus' ascension into heaven, the question is not, "Which way is up?" but rather the question is the same question the two men in white robes asked Jesus' followers as they were gazing up, watching him leaving them. The question is: "[People] of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"
In other words, "People of (insert the name of your congregation or town here), don't waste your time wondering where heaven is, whether it's up or down or some other direction. Instead, remember the further words of those two men in white: "This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11).
Remember Jesus said that he's gone to prepare a place for us to be with him (John 14:2-3). What were his words to us just before he ascended? He said, "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" (Acts 1:8).
Those were his last words to us, his very last words. In other words, he said, "Get busy! Don't stand around on this Ascension Sunday, wondering which way is up, and where heaven can be if you can't find it on your celestial GPS."
It's easier, of course, to stand around. But there's a blessing waiting for us in getting busy and doing the Lord's work with him.
ILLUSTRATIONS
In our space age mentality, when talking about the ascension, it is important to pay attention to the text. "He was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight." The cloud in biblical language is a symbol for the presence of God. Exodus 16:10 suggests God's presence as a cloud. It was also a cloud that led them by day through the wilderness. This same cloud representing the presence of the invisible God was present at the transfiguration (Luke 9:34). So we could paraphrase that while they were still looking, God came and took him out of their sight.
* * *
When I was a boy, I used to love to read comic books about Superman. In those comics, it told how Superman had come to Earth in a spaceship as a baby and he was found and reared by a human family. Then we had the stories of Superboy that are again illustrated by the recent series called Smallville on TV. Of course, it was all leading up to the story of Superman. But there the story stopped. There were never any stories about ancient Superman as an old man. The stories of Jesus tell the same series of events but the story couldn't just stop. He was a historical figure. If he stayed, he would grow old. The ascension is the completion of the story. It is the moment when the human Jesus was taken up into the godhead and was not constrained by the passage of time. Jesus, who lived within the confines of time, was now part of eternity.
* * *
It is important to also realize that, by the ascension, Jesus also transcended the particular finite space that his human body had exercised. Early on in the first experiences of going into space, some of the astronauts would report the amazing vision of seeing the Earth and noting that there were no lines dividing one country from another. All of these lines were the invention of humans and only had reality in the human imagination. The truth was that we were one world. Jesus, in being lifted up, became the Christ of the whole world and transcended the divisions of religion and race that were separating the world. "For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us" (Ephesians 2:14).
* * *
There is a powerful song by Eric Clapton, written after his young son died. It's called "Tears in Heaven." It asks the questions that only a grieving parent can ask, longing to see his son once again. What is heaven like? Is it a place where we will know one another, where I can touch your hand, know your name? Here are some of the words...
Tears In Heaven
Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?
Would you hold my hand If I saw you in heaven? Would you help me stand If I saw you in heaven?
Beyond the door, There's peace I'm sure, And I know there'll be no more Tears in heaven.
Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?
-- by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings. For further information regarding the inspiration for this song, see: http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/tears.asp
* * *
I remember once reading a short story about a young pastor called into the room of a 12-year-old girl in his congregation, dying of cancer. The girl asked for her pastor to come. She wanted to talk to him alone, without her parents, behind closed doors. When her pastor arrived and sat down, he began with small talk, but the 12-year-old had no time. She cut him off, looked him in the eye and said, "Tell me what heaven is like because I don't have much time. And you had better be telling me the truth!" In other words, she didn't want to hear about a mansion up there in the sky. She didn't want to hear about angels and streets paved with gold. She wanted the truth. Where would you begin?
* * *
There is a great ABC News article by Barbara Walters that talks about how different cultures view heaven and the afterlife. The link is
Like our talk about separating fact from fiction in our cosmology, we understand from this article that such beliefs run deeply.
* * *
In thinking about the ascension of Jesus, we can fall victim to a simplistic cosmology where heaven is "up there" and hell is "down there"... as if one can locate the holy and the profane geographically. Shakespeare also challenges the notion of a then-prevalent cosmology... particularly astrological notions of the influence of stars, constellations, moons, and suns over human behavior. Thus, these words find their way into the mouth of Edmond, the "out-of-wedlock" son of Gloucester. He asks rather convincingly whether we are responsible for our own behaviors or whether some kind of spherical influences have power to direct our lives:
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune, -- often the surfeit
of our own behavior, -- we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star! My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.
-- King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2
To be sure, you will find a horoscope in every newspaper, and lots of us "check it" just for fun... but do we really believe that the stars have such influences. Is the ascension of Jesus merely some kind of geographical event... or is the Bible pointing to something much deeper than that?
* * *
In the biblical tradition, God's nature is revealed always in relationship... in community, as it were. It comes then as no surprise that Jesus would ascend to the right hand of God to judge the living and the dead. God is community... a dynamic community creating, saving, and sanctifying -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is not a doctrine called the Trinity; God is a dynamic community intimately involved with the world he loves and gave his Son for. Thus, "no man is an island" as John Donne would say; every one of us is a parent, a child, a sister or brother, a colleague... we are all a community of people inextricably woven one to another for good or ill. With the ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God, a decisive challenge has been issued to make that community good!
* * *
It has been said that the more godlike God becomes, the more genuinely human God is; and conversely the more genuinely human we are, the more godlike we too become. Thus, in the wondrous work of the likes of Michelangelo, these kinds of words become possible:
My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through earth's loveliness.
-- Michelangelo
As we mark the ascension of Jesus let us keep in mind the ineffable quality of both heaven and earth and resist the temptation to trivialize either.
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call To Worship
Leader: The hour has come to worship our God,
People: to gather as people of faith
to glorify the God of all grace.
Leader: The time has come to devote ourselves to prayer,
People: to bring the burdens we carry,
to lift our hopes to the God who hears us.
Leader: The hour has come to rejoice and make God's name known,
People: to lift a song of thanksgiving,
to praise God for all our blessings.
Prayer Of The Day
Your love is so limitless
that the needy receive goodness,
and the prisoner finds
a well-paying job;
the homeless find your heart
open to them,
and all can place their worries
in your hands.
Parent of Orphans,
we will make your name known
to all the world.
We gaze at the sky
looking for you,
when you can be found
in the laughing play of children;
we wonder
where you have gone,
while you are all around us
in our sisters and brothers.
Cloud Rider,
we will sing of your name
to all the world.
When our hearts
are hardened by fears,
you melt them
with your hope;
when our lips
can only utter boasts,
you teach us
>songs of humility.
Caregiver of Widows,
we will exult your name
in all the world.
We will make your name known,
God in Community, Holy in One,
even as we pray as we have been taught,
Our Father...
Call To Reconciliation
When we look to God in prayer, are we looking for condemnation and punishment? Or, do we look for the One who promises to forgive us and make us new? Let us pray to God for mercy, as we offer our confessions, saying,
Unison Prayer Of Confession
We cannot put it off any longer, Gracious God, it is time to confess our unfaithfulness. Our appetites for all things threaten to devour us like hungry animals. We are reluctant to humble ourselves to serve others, believing we are special. We are afraid to share in the sufferings of children and the elderly.
Forgive us, Voice of Mercy and Hope. Bless us with grace and life, so we might rejoice in your love, tell of your faithfulness, and join Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in making you known to all people.
Silence is kept
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: Unfailing love, the Spirit of healing, the life of faith in Christ -- all are Easter gifts God offers to us.
People: We rejoice and are glad. We are blessed: with mercy, with hope, with joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Holding us up
Object: a tire jack
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you (v. 10).
Good morning, boys and girls. Life is not always easy is it? (let them answer) How do you feel when your friend is unhappy with you? (let them answer) How do you feel when everyone is picking on you? (let them answer) Sometimes it is a brother or a sister, sometimes the teacher at school, or the bus driver tells you to be quiet and you didn't even say anything. Sometimes your dog or your cat won't even come when you call.
Once in a while, it is because you are a Christian. Let's suppose it is time for you to be in church and a friend who doesn't go to church wants you to go somewhere really special with his family. You tell him you are going to church first but if he waited, you would love to go with him. He tells you that he can't wait and then your friend says he will invite someone else who is not a Christian and going to church. That hurts.
What do you do when you bow your head before eating your lunch at school and say a prayer and someone makes fun of you? (let them answer) How does that make you feel? (let them answer) But just because people make fun of us doesn't mean that we should stop acting in Christian ways. Remember Jesus suffered a lot for you. Jesus taught us the truth about God even though people shouted at him and threw rocks at him. But Jesus never stopped loving us.
How many of you have ever had a flat tire while riding in a car? (let them answer) That is really rough. The car is sagging, you can't drive it, and no matter where you are going, you are going to be late. You could just sit in the car and pout or you could help your mom or dad and get the tire fixed. No matter how heavy the car is, a tire jack (show the tire jack) will lift the car so that you can change the bad tire and replace it with a good tire. If everyone in the car tried to lift the car, they would all fail. But this little jack can lift the biggest car up and hold it up so that the tire can be fixed.
Jesus is like this tire jack. No matter how big your problem is that makes you feel bad, Jesus will lift you and make you feel good again. It doesn't matter how long it takes. Jesus is there giving you another chance to have a good day.
The next time you look in the trunk of your car and you see the tire jack, I want you to remember it is like Jesus when it comes to lifting us up and fixing our problems. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, May 4, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
Way Beyond the Blue
Carlos Wilton
Acts 1:6-14
THE WORLD
"32% Of Prayers Deflected Off Passing Satellites," reads the newspaper headline. It's only a spurious headline from a recent issue of The Onion, the online newspaper parody, but it makes a point worth considering on Ascension Sunday. What sense does it make to speak of Jesus ascending into heaven, when we now know heaven can't possibly be "up there," above the clouds? We know, in our minds, the ascension of Christ had to take place in some way other than as Luke naively portrays it in Acts 1:6-14, but our hearts are still powerfully affected by the archetypal "up there" imagery. The Ascension is a difficult story to preach to people for whom space shuttle launches have become commonplace, but it's worth interpreting, all the same. The early church treasured this story because it's laden with theological meaning. It can be so for our people, as well, once we get beyond the outmoded cosmology.
-- http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/report_32_of_prayers
THE WORD
The work of the gospel writer, Luke, is chock-full of dazzling revelations, brimming over with radiant epiphanies. Luke, of course, is the author of both the gospel that bears his name and the Acts of the Apostles.
Two books, by the same author -- in movie lingo, a prequel and a sequel. Acts takes over, after a brief introduction, right where Luke leaves off: with a cliffhanger ending. The cliffhanger is Jesus' ascension into heaven.
Luke inserts into his story, at intervals, certain revelatory events. Were he assembling a railroad train, these radiant miracles would be the couplings between the cars. These events display Jesus in all his glory -- for those who have eyes to see.
At Jesus' birth, legions of angels sing, "Glory!" At his baptism, there's that resonant voice booming down from the heavens. At the height of his ministry, there's the transfiguration. Coming just after the lowest point -- his death on the cross -- is the resurrection. Now, there's this. The ascension just could be the most remarkable sign of all.
In the words of William Willimon:
For Luke, as for Paul, "the form of this world is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:31). Since Christ, all previously existing relationships of power are being transformed. It is not simply that the world is expected to end soon but that the worldview as it had been, the methods and values for determining worth and significance in the world, has ended. There is now a new reality.
For Luke, that new reality involved the vision of a Jesus who is raised to rule with the Creator of the universe. Death, the ultimate "ending" -- the master fact which determines most of our horizons, our values, our projects -- has been ended in the resurrection of Christ. Luke's "history" is the story of that new reality which has turned the world upside down, relativized all existing relationships, and enabled believers to live as people "between the times" -- between the end of an old age held by the powers of death and evil and a new age where the future is still to be fully realized, still open-ended to the movements of the Spirit.
-- William Willimon, Acts, Interpretation Commentary Series (Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), p. 19
CRAFTING THE SERMON
A sermon on this theme could begin by quoting the humorous article from The Onion:
"HOUSTON -- According to an official NASA report released Saturday, nearly 32 percent of all prayers exiting Earth are deflected off satellites orbiting the planet -- ultimately preventing the discharged requests for divine intervention from ever making it to the Gates of Heaven."
And what of the prayers that don't collide with passing satellites? It seems that, in the imagination of The Onion writers, there are a great many other obstacles up there, above the stratosphere:
"Of the remaining prayers, research confirms 64 percent fail to make it past the stratosphere because they aren't prayed hard enough, 94 percent of those with enough momentum are swallowed by a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and 43 percent are eaten by birds."
Is The Onion lampooning religious faith, here? Not exactly. If anything, the article's making fun of an outmoded cosmology that sees God as residing "up there," above the clouds. It's the same cosmology that has fueled a whole raft of newspaper and magazine cartoons, portraying the souls of the departed floating around on clouds. If our faith is to make sense in the modern era, we need to lose the three-tiered concept of the universe, with heaven above the flat earth and hell below it. Cosmology may be the container in which faith has sometimes been delivered in the past, but it's not the content. Cosmology can and does change, without affecting the essential truth of the Christian proclamation.
If that's so, then where does that leave us, when it comes to the ascension? Let's begin by highlighting a few essential facts about Jesus:
1) He rose from the dead, and was seen by a great many people.
2) We don't know, for certain, the nature of his resurrection body. Eyewitness reports are anecdotal. Some witnesses emphasize the material aspects of his presence, others the spiritual.
3) Unlike Lazarus, the risen Jesus did not die again.
4) There came a time when Jesus bade farewell to his closest followers, departing from physical existence as we know it.
5) Contemporary witnesses described his departure in terms of their own cosmology.
How closely did those witnesses' description of the ascension match the real event, and how much it may have been a poetic attempt to describe a reality that's essentially indescribable is hard for us to determine.
When astronauts go rocketing up through the stratosphere, they no longer come back saying, as one early Soviet cosmonaut did, "I didn't see God!" When it comes to space travel, the concept of "up" loses all meaning. Because the earth is round, blasting off from its surface is more like going "out" than "up."
If heaven is "up," is it located over the North Pole, or the South Pole? (If it's "up" from anyplace else, we'd have to ask what time of day it is, before taking off in our hypothetical rocket ship -- because the earth spins on its axis.) As we can easily see, taking the ascension literally presents certain problems. We just might have to join the Flat-Earth Society and deny there's any such thing as outer space.
The truth is, we don't know what happened, exactly, on Mount Olivet. The eyewitnesses described it the best way they could, using the best scientific knowledge at their disposal. Maybe they were thinking of that story from 2 Kings of Elijah rising up into the heavens in that chariot of fire. Some things -- like the literal details of the ascension -- are better left to the poetic imagination.
There's a persistent message resonating out of this story: a refrain still ringing in our ears, as we pick our way down the winding trail from the summit. Maybe it's the real message of the ascension. It's the message of the men in white: "Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"
Why, indeed? Why do we stand looking up toward heaven, when there's work to be done on this earth? Oh, a little glimpse of heavenly glory is all right, from time to time -- no one would fault us for seeking that sort of memorable experience -- but if we spend our entire lives hunting ecstatic experiences, rooting around churches and cathedrals and holy places like some desperate junkie scrambling for the perfect high, then we're failing our calling as disciples.
The time comes, in the Christian life, when worship is no longer solely what we're called to do, when praying and pondering about the faith are not enough. The time comes when God calls us to commit ourselves: to get up, discover our talents, and respond to the call of Christ.
Those disciples who just stood there, frozen like deer in the headlights, misunderstood what was really happening in the ascension. They thought this miraculous event marked the end. They thought Jesus, who had been crucified and raised from the dead, was now departing from them for good.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus was going to heaven, to be sure, but he was going there not merely to dwell, but to reign. The ascension is not the end. Rather, it is the beginning of a new, universal order. "He ascended into heaven," says the creed, "and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."
Heaven, in the Christian way of looking at things, is not some insubstantial place, impossibly far-removed from the joys and struggles of everyday life. Heaven is not some vague reward, waiting for us in a distant afterlife. No, in the Christian view, heaven is the seat of ultimate power in this life, in the here and now. It is the place where the present and future of this world is shaped and guided.
It is the place where our Lord reigns.
The letter to the Ephesians puts it clearly. God "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" (1:22-23).
Together, we are the body of Christ, his continuing presence in the world. As we gather, week by week, in worship, hearing the scriptures and praying the prayers, he is here. As we sit down to eat at a communion table open to all, he is here. As we gather to wash new members in baptism, gently welcoming them into the fold, he is here. As we discover the courage, in our own lives, to go out into whatever godforsaken place we may be sent, to do what he would have us do, he is here.
Why do we stand looking up toward heaven?
ANOTHER VIEW
Barbara Jurgensen
Today is Ascension Sunday, the day when we celebrate that Jesus, having finished all his work here on earth, said good-bye to his followers and went back to heaven.
How do you picture that moment? Jesus was standing there, giving his disciples and friends his final words of instruction and encouragement, then suddenly he took off and was gone from their sight.
The Bible tells us of other people who made dramatic exits: Elijah was carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire; Enoch walked with God, and then, somehow, he was not. And Moses, after he'd led the people for forty years through the wilderness, as they neared the Promised Land, went to be with his God without anyone else being present.
A number of biblical writers refer to the Jesus' ascension: Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul. They speak of Jesus being:
-- Taken up (Mark 16:19 and Luke 9:51)
-- Received up (Mark 16:19 KJV)
-- Carried up (Luke 24:51)
-- Lifted up (Acts 1:9)
And they speak of Jesus ascending (John 6:62; Ephesians 4:8).
We can smile at their lack of understanding of cosmology in their pre-scientific age. So they saw our earth as centered between the heaven that was above it and the hell that was beneath it. Does that in any way lessen the importance of the ascension event?
Which way is up, anyway? Is there an "up" to our universe? On our maps of the world, we usually show north at the top of the page and south at the bottom -- probably because the early mapmakers lived in the northern hemisphere. If they'd lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or Adelaide, Australia, they might have put the southern hemisphere on top.
So, almost 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus, we've built large telescopes and sent people out into space to look around -- and they haven't seen any heaven above us or hell below us. Does that mean that there are no such places?
When we say the Apostles' Creed together in church, we remember that all down through the ages the church has believed that, after he was crucified, Jesus "descended into hell" and "ascended into heaven."
So where is heaven? Maybe it's not so far out that our strongest telescopes can't pick it up. Rather, maybe it's so close in that our earth itself may be superimposed upon it -- but we can't see it with our present eyes. Just wait until we get our new heavenly ones!
After Jesus was raised from the dead, remember how he could walk through walls and locked doors -- he had a new type of body. He was, we could say, in another dimension -- as we will be some day.
Remember how the Russian astronaut, Yuri Gagarin, after making his historic ride through space back in the 1960s, said he didn't see God out there? If we limit heaven to what we can currently see with our earthly eyes, we're ruling out what is most important. As Paul says, we need to look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe" (John 20:29).
Regarding Jesus' ascension into heaven, the question is not, "Which way is up?" but rather the question is the same question the two men in white robes asked Jesus' followers as they were gazing up, watching him leaving them. The question is: "[People] of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"
In other words, "People of (insert the name of your congregation or town here), don't waste your time wondering where heaven is, whether it's up or down or some other direction. Instead, remember the further words of those two men in white: "This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11).
Remember Jesus said that he's gone to prepare a place for us to be with him (John 14:2-3). What were his words to us just before he ascended? He said, "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" (Acts 1:8).
Those were his last words to us, his very last words. In other words, he said, "Get busy! Don't stand around on this Ascension Sunday, wondering which way is up, and where heaven can be if you can't find it on your celestial GPS."
It's easier, of course, to stand around. But there's a blessing waiting for us in getting busy and doing the Lord's work with him.
ILLUSTRATIONS
In our space age mentality, when talking about the ascension, it is important to pay attention to the text. "He was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight." The cloud in biblical language is a symbol for the presence of God. Exodus 16:10 suggests God's presence as a cloud. It was also a cloud that led them by day through the wilderness. This same cloud representing the presence of the invisible God was present at the transfiguration (Luke 9:34). So we could paraphrase that while they were still looking, God came and took him out of their sight.
* * *
When I was a boy, I used to love to read comic books about Superman. In those comics, it told how Superman had come to Earth in a spaceship as a baby and he was found and reared by a human family. Then we had the stories of Superboy that are again illustrated by the recent series called Smallville on TV. Of course, it was all leading up to the story of Superman. But there the story stopped. There were never any stories about ancient Superman as an old man. The stories of Jesus tell the same series of events but the story couldn't just stop. He was a historical figure. If he stayed, he would grow old. The ascension is the completion of the story. It is the moment when the human Jesus was taken up into the godhead and was not constrained by the passage of time. Jesus, who lived within the confines of time, was now part of eternity.
* * *
It is important to also realize that, by the ascension, Jesus also transcended the particular finite space that his human body had exercised. Early on in the first experiences of going into space, some of the astronauts would report the amazing vision of seeing the Earth and noting that there were no lines dividing one country from another. All of these lines were the invention of humans and only had reality in the human imagination. The truth was that we were one world. Jesus, in being lifted up, became the Christ of the whole world and transcended the divisions of religion and race that were separating the world. "For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us" (Ephesians 2:14).
* * *
There is a powerful song by Eric Clapton, written after his young son died. It's called "Tears in Heaven." It asks the questions that only a grieving parent can ask, longing to see his son once again. What is heaven like? Is it a place where we will know one another, where I can touch your hand, know your name? Here are some of the words...
Tears In Heaven
Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?
Would you hold my hand If I saw you in heaven? Would you help me stand If I saw you in heaven?
Beyond the door, There's peace I'm sure, And I know there'll be no more Tears in heaven.
Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?
-- by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings. For further information regarding the inspiration for this song, see: http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/tears.asp
* * *
I remember once reading a short story about a young pastor called into the room of a 12-year-old girl in his congregation, dying of cancer. The girl asked for her pastor to come. She wanted to talk to him alone, without her parents, behind closed doors. When her pastor arrived and sat down, he began with small talk, but the 12-year-old had no time. She cut him off, looked him in the eye and said, "Tell me what heaven is like because I don't have much time. And you had better be telling me the truth!" In other words, she didn't want to hear about a mansion up there in the sky. She didn't want to hear about angels and streets paved with gold. She wanted the truth. Where would you begin?
* * *
There is a great ABC News article by Barbara Walters that talks about how different cultures view heaven and the afterlife. The link is
Like our talk about separating fact from fiction in our cosmology, we understand from this article that such beliefs run deeply.
* * *
In thinking about the ascension of Jesus, we can fall victim to a simplistic cosmology where heaven is "up there" and hell is "down there"... as if one can locate the holy and the profane geographically. Shakespeare also challenges the notion of a then-prevalent cosmology... particularly astrological notions of the influence of stars, constellations, moons, and suns over human behavior. Thus, these words find their way into the mouth of Edmond, the "out-of-wedlock" son of Gloucester. He asks rather convincingly whether we are responsible for our own behaviors or whether some kind of spherical influences have power to direct our lives:
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune, -- often the surfeit
of our own behavior, -- we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star! My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.
-- King Lear, Act 1, Scene 2
To be sure, you will find a horoscope in every newspaper, and lots of us "check it" just for fun... but do we really believe that the stars have such influences. Is the ascension of Jesus merely some kind of geographical event... or is the Bible pointing to something much deeper than that?
* * *
In the biblical tradition, God's nature is revealed always in relationship... in community, as it were. It comes then as no surprise that Jesus would ascend to the right hand of God to judge the living and the dead. God is community... a dynamic community creating, saving, and sanctifying -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is not a doctrine called the Trinity; God is a dynamic community intimately involved with the world he loves and gave his Son for. Thus, "no man is an island" as John Donne would say; every one of us is a parent, a child, a sister or brother, a colleague... we are all a community of people inextricably woven one to another for good or ill. With the ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God, a decisive challenge has been issued to make that community good!
* * *
It has been said that the more godlike God becomes, the more genuinely human God is; and conversely the more genuinely human we are, the more godlike we too become. Thus, in the wondrous work of the likes of Michelangelo, these kinds of words become possible:
My soul can find no staircase to heaven unless it be through earth's loveliness.
-- Michelangelo
As we mark the ascension of Jesus let us keep in mind the ineffable quality of both heaven and earth and resist the temptation to trivialize either.
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Call To Worship
Leader: The hour has come to worship our God,
People: to gather as people of faith
to glorify the God of all grace.
Leader: The time has come to devote ourselves to prayer,
People: to bring the burdens we carry,
to lift our hopes to the God who hears us.
Leader: The hour has come to rejoice and make God's name known,
People: to lift a song of thanksgiving,
to praise God for all our blessings.
Prayer Of The Day
Your love is so limitless
that the needy receive goodness,
and the prisoner finds
a well-paying job;
the homeless find your heart
open to them,
and all can place their worries
in your hands.
Parent of Orphans,
we will make your name known
to all the world.
We gaze at the sky
looking for you,
when you can be found
in the laughing play of children;
we wonder
where you have gone,
while you are all around us
in our sisters and brothers.
Cloud Rider,
we will sing of your name
to all the world.
When our hearts
are hardened by fears,
you melt them
with your hope;
when our lips
can only utter boasts,
you teach us
>songs of humility.
Caregiver of Widows,
we will exult your name
in all the world.
We will make your name known,
God in Community, Holy in One,
even as we pray as we have been taught,
Our Father...
Call To Reconciliation
When we look to God in prayer, are we looking for condemnation and punishment? Or, do we look for the One who promises to forgive us and make us new? Let us pray to God for mercy, as we offer our confessions, saying,
Unison Prayer Of Confession
We cannot put it off any longer, Gracious God, it is time to confess our unfaithfulness. Our appetites for all things threaten to devour us like hungry animals. We are reluctant to humble ourselves to serve others, believing we are special. We are afraid to share in the sufferings of children and the elderly.
Forgive us, Voice of Mercy and Hope. Bless us with grace and life, so we might rejoice in your love, tell of your faithfulness, and join Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, in making you known to all people.
Silence is kept
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: Unfailing love, the Spirit of healing, the life of faith in Christ -- all are Easter gifts God offers to us.
People: We rejoice and are glad. We are blessed: with mercy, with hope, with joy. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Holding us up
Object: a tire jack
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you (v. 10).
Good morning, boys and girls. Life is not always easy is it? (let them answer) How do you feel when your friend is unhappy with you? (let them answer) How do you feel when everyone is picking on you? (let them answer) Sometimes it is a brother or a sister, sometimes the teacher at school, or the bus driver tells you to be quiet and you didn't even say anything. Sometimes your dog or your cat won't even come when you call.
Once in a while, it is because you are a Christian. Let's suppose it is time for you to be in church and a friend who doesn't go to church wants you to go somewhere really special with his family. You tell him you are going to church first but if he waited, you would love to go with him. He tells you that he can't wait and then your friend says he will invite someone else who is not a Christian and going to church. That hurts.
What do you do when you bow your head before eating your lunch at school and say a prayer and someone makes fun of you? (let them answer) How does that make you feel? (let them answer) But just because people make fun of us doesn't mean that we should stop acting in Christian ways. Remember Jesus suffered a lot for you. Jesus taught us the truth about God even though people shouted at him and threw rocks at him. But Jesus never stopped loving us.
How many of you have ever had a flat tire while riding in a car? (let them answer) That is really rough. The car is sagging, you can't drive it, and no matter where you are going, you are going to be late. You could just sit in the car and pout or you could help your mom or dad and get the tire fixed. No matter how heavy the car is, a tire jack (show the tire jack) will lift the car so that you can change the bad tire and replace it with a good tire. If everyone in the car tried to lift the car, they would all fail. But this little jack can lift the biggest car up and hold it up so that the tire can be fixed.
Jesus is like this tire jack. No matter how big your problem is that makes you feel bad, Jesus will lift you and make you feel good again. It doesn't matter how long it takes. Jesus is there giving you another chance to have a good day.
The next time you look in the trunk of your car and you see the tire jack, I want you to remember it is like Jesus when it comes to lifting us up and fixing our problems. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, May 4, 2008, issue.
Copyright 2008 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
