Easter 7 (5/4/08) “Ascended into Heaven”

Text: Acts 1.1-14

This past Thursday was Ascension Day, the 40^th day after Easter when Christians traditionally remember what we confess each week in the creed: “He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” We say the words, and yet of all the events in the New Testament, the ascension of Christ is perhaps the most difficult for us to comprehend. The idea of Jesus floating up into heaven just seems too incredible for the modern mind.

Of course those who first read Luke’s description today’s first lesson from Acts 1 would have found it a perfectly rational explanation of events. Back in the days when the world was flat, they understood the universe to have three sections: hell, which was on the bottom; earth, which was in the middle; and heaven, which was up above. They knew that someone going to heaven was going up, and it was a perfectly natural thing to think of Jesus just drifting up there on a cosmic elevator of some sort. For at least 15 centuries, Christian people who shared that view of the universe found the story perfectly natural and very wonderful. In the Middle Ages, Ascension Day was a great festival, with its own special customs. In the churches, they would rig up a statue of Jesus, standing in front of the church with a rope attached. Then at the dramatic moment of climax, the rope would be pulled and the statue would rise, slowly, slowly, until it disappeared through a hole in the ceiling; and as they watched it go, the people would wave their hands, sing songs of praise, and generally have a fine time.

Today our view of the universe is different. We know that heaven, whatever and wherever it may be, is not just the next story in the universal house. We know that if Jesus were going to heaven in just the way St. Luke describes, it would take quite a few light years to get there! He’d have to get past the moon, the sun, the stars, the galaxies, he’d have to get past space stations and satellites—it would be quite a journey! One of the contemporary hymns that always gives me a chuckle has a line in it that calls Jesus the “Lord of interstellar space”! Well, maybe those are terms in which we need to think today, but I’m frankly more interested in knowing him as the Lord of this world, and the Lord of my own life. Whatever this story of the Ascension of Jesus means, I don’t think it means that Jesus was the world’s first space traveler!

We often get into trouble, don’t we, when we try to visualize too precisely some of the stories in the Bible. The problem is that human language is just too feeble to tell with any precision the story of everything that God has done. St. Luke tells us that Jesus was taken up in the clouds, but he uses those words because that’s just the closest he can come to the glorious sight the disciples saw on the Judean hillside. St. Mark’s gospel tells us Jesus was taken into heaven to sit at God’s right hand, but we know in our minds and hearts that God doesn’t literally sit on a throne and that God doesn’t even really have a right hand. These are images and pictures the Bible uses because there is no other way to talk about great mysteries, far beyond our human comprehension.

So what are we to make of a story like this? I think we begin to understand it if we will listen to the words spoken to the disciples by those two men in white who suddenly appeared beside them on the mountain: “Galileans, why are you standing there looking up at the sky?” The disciples, you see, however primitive their view of the universe, were dumbfounded by what they had just seen. They may have thought of heaven as being a physical place right above the earth, but it was still a bit of a shocker to see somebody making the journey right there before their eyes! So they were staring up at the sky, staring at the place where Jesus had suddenly disappeared. They were so preoccupied that they didn’t notice these men in white—angels, we would call them—who suddenly stood there beside them. But the angels told them just what they needed to hear: “Hey, you guys! What are you looking at? Your concern isn’t up there in the clouds, but right here on earth!” And those words from the angels freed the disciples to stop starring up into heaven, and get back to Jerusalem, where God had work for them to do!

It is that work awaiting them which defines what this ascension means for us. Its significance for us is not up there in the clouds where Jesus seems to have gone, but it is here, among us, right here on earth. For what the disciples come to understand, you see, is that Jesus in his physical body has left the earth. But he has left behind disciples, he has commissioned them to do his work, he has told them that they are now to be his body.

Some years ago Temple University in Philadelphia granted the degree of Doctor of Medicine to Francis Salerno, who had been blind from birth. He was the first blind person ever to be certified as a doctor of internal medicine in the United States. How could he accomplish this seemingly impossible feat? He simply learned to practice medicine with other people being his eyes. They would report the symptoms to him that could only be seen; he would administer the tests, and use his hands and ears and his knowledge to make the diagnosis.

His use of other people as his eyes, you see, is something like how Christ uses us after his ascension. He no longer stands physically on earth, to heal and teach and offer the warm compassion of his touch. But now we are his body. We are the ones who heal and teach and touch, we are the ones who do his work. But we always do it on his behalf, and not our own! The nurse who helps the young blind doctor only does what he instructs, and answers what he asks; it is the doctor whose knowledge and medical training makes the diagnosis and prescribes the treatment. And in the same way, we respond only to what Christ directs. When we reach out to touch somebody who needs our touch, it is because Christ sees the need and directs us to act. When we give freely of ourselves to feed hungry people, it is not our own goodness that moves us, because we’re not particularly good when left to our own devices. But it is Christ who sees the need and who is moved with compassion, and it is Christ who directs us to do something about it.

Do you understand what I’m saying? Jesus ascended into heaven—his physical body is no longer here. But now we are his body! We have been called to give up our own priorities and our own tasks and concerns, and instead use our lives to take up Christ’s tasks and concerns, to do his work. We are his hands, those hands that reached out and touched a leper and made him whole. We are his feet, those feet that walked ceaselessly from town to town, bringing a message of hope to all who would hear. We are his eyes, those eyes that stared with such love and compassion that the hardest and cruelest hearts were melted into humble service. We are his lips, those lips that spoke words of grace and forgiveness to those in despair. We are his body, that body that was so despised and rejected, that body that ended up being broken and hung on a cross.

The story is told of the great composer Puccini, whose operas number among the world’s favorite--Madame Butterfly, La Boheme, Tosca. Even after he was stricken with cancer in 1922, Puccini was determined to write a final opera, Turandot, which many consider his best. Battling his disease, his friends and students begged him to conserve his strength. But he persisted, remarking at one point, “If I do not finish my music, my students will finish it.”

In 1924, Puccini died following surgery for his cancer. His students did finish Turandot, and it had its gala premier in 1926 at La Scala Opera House in Milan under the baton of Puccini’s favorite student, Arturo Toscanini. Things were going wonderfully until they reached the point where Puccini had been obliged to put down his pen. Toscanini, his face streaming with tears, halted the production, put down the baton, turned to the audience and cried out, “Thus far the master wrote, but he is gone!” The audience sat in stunned silence. But after a moment or two, Toscanini picked up the baton again and cried out, “But his disciples finished his work!”

His disciples finish his work. I don’t suppose we will ever completely finish the work of our Master, but that does not prevent us from trying! Much of the time, perhaps most of the time, we fell unworthy, inadequate, unable. But Christ has promised us the necessary strength. We heard, in our gospel lesson today, how he prayed for us, how he still prays for us, that we might fulfill his plan. You know he never promised that it would be easy. He never promised that there wouldn’t be sorrow, suffering, setbacks. He doesn’t even promise that we will succeed, as least as the world judges success. He does promise that his Spirit will be with us, and that we will have everything we need to do his work. He knows that we will accept the challenge, that we will do his work. That is what we mean when we say, “He ascended into heaven.”