Ascension Day | Luke 24:50-53 | Acts 1

*Preached at Grace North Church May 12th, 2002.*

Our beloved senior pastor, Fr. Richard, is so obsessed with the story of Isreal that he included two readings from the Old Testament, and omitted the story regarding the Ascension of Jesus altogether. This is neither a complaint nor a critique. It is a simple observation made with the greatest possible affection.

As Luke tells the story, after Jesus' resurrection, Jesus shared a fish fry with his friends, after which he told them, "Behold, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." Then the disciples went away, praising God. End of episode, cue commercial.

Of course the first thing contemporary readers are concerned with is--did that really happen? Did Jesus really rise into outer space, and what did he do when he got into orbit? Well, only Luke and a corrupt, later version of Mark record the event; Mark himself does not know this story, and neither do Matthew or John. Furthermore, according to the memory of the Jewish Christians, after his resessutation, Jesus and his wife Mary Magdalen journeyed to live among the large Jewish population in Kashmir, where he had family and where there is a very ornate tomb clearly marked that stands to this day. Just so you know, I didn't make this up, and you can find out more at www.tombofjesus.com; which only goes to show you that the world is getting wierder exponentially.

Whether it happened the way that Luke records it is really unimportant; in fact, what really happened is unimportant. What is important is the STORY we are left with, and the story says, Jesus rose up into heaven. And since Luke tells the story twice, at the end of his gospel, and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, it is a story that has a formidable place in Christian mythology.

Why did Jesus need to ascend into heaven? Why did Elijah need to ascend into heaven? The answer, perhaps is in the story of the mantle in our reading from the Second Book of Kings. Elisha could not inherit Elijah's mantle until Elijah was taken. And Elijah did not die, of course; his spirit continued to live, not only in Elisha his successor, but in the heart and soul of Israel. To this very day there is a place set at the table for Elijah at every passover dinner celebrated by Jews the world over. He is there at all of them. But he would not have that power were he still in the body. It may be that he would not have the same power in the imagination if he had died as ordinary people do.

The story of Jesus' ascension is an echo of this tale. But in Luke's hands, it is pure Hollywood. Jesus rises up into the heavens, the angels say, "Why are your jaws on the floor?" and a month later the power of Jesus the man who went into the heavens falls from that same heaven with the force of hurracinous wind and refining fire; enters into the unsuspecting disciples and turns then into blathering madmen who change the course of history.

Just as Elijah had to be taken up in order to be present in every Jewish home, Jesus, while he is a man on earth, can only be in one place at a time; when Jesus goes up to the heavens, however, he is the Christ who fills the universe. This is a profoundly mystical teaching, which comes to us from the Pauline school of early Christianity. Paul, when preaching on Mars Hill, speaks of Christ "in whom we live, and move, and have our being." Christ is thus transformed in Paul's philosophy from a rural rabbi to the ground of all being. Christ is the personification of the indwelling divinity at the heart of all things.

It is a beautiful image, and one that will continue to develop and will strongly influence the theology of the early church fathers. Jesus thus becomes the Cosmic Christ, the face of the universe, the principle of incarnation, the image of the whole of the created order as the body of God. In Eastern Orthodox teaching, Jesus' resurrection reversed the chaos and devolution begun by Adam's fall, and instituted a new evolution of the cosmos which will eventually result in the divinization of all things.

This powerful teaching has been all but forgotten in the West, yet it echoes the mystical philosophy of nearly every developed religion. In Hinduism, the universe is the dance of Shiva; in Judaism, the Shekinah, God's feminine aspect fills the world; in Zen, all things have Buddha nature, whether they know it or not; in Taoism, all things flow and ebb from the Tao. It is a primal intuition that Creator and creation are intricately linked, that all things are connected, that we are not separate beings at all, but members one of another, each of us strands in the cosmic web, and that whatever happens to one happens to all.

While we in the West have suffered from an anemic theology on this score, there have been bright spots. Our tradition is full of mystics who perceived the reality of our union with God, even when it put them at odds with church teaching and religious authorities. Martin Luther, the great reformer, possessed a similar mystical streak when he taught his doctrine of ubiquity. This doctrine reveals just how deeply influenced Luther was by the Rhineland mystics, especially Meister Eckhart, about whom we heard in last summer's sermon series.

Unfortunately, Protestants have forgotten this tradition, even though it is foundational to Luther's thought, and most Protestants are suspicious of anything smacking of mysticism or pantheism in general. But this is unfortunate, for Luther's thought is impossible to broach without it. Luther, as many of his contemporaries did, struggled with the question of how Jesus could be seated at the right hand of the father, AND be present in the Eucharist at the same time.

Luther's answer was his doctrine of ubiquity, that Jesus is present not only at the right hand of God, but in every place in the universe silmutaneously, resident in every heart, and present therefore in every celebration of bread and wine. This is Luther's con-substantiation, the teaching that the bread and wine do not turn into the body and blood of Christ, but that Jesus is mystically present, alongside, or "underneath" the still-present bread and wine.

There are less mystical ways of understanding the implications of this story, as well, many of them just as profound. In the language of neurolinguistics, Jesus was a guy with some great ideas, but when he was no longer bodily present, he became a meme which was unstoppable and changed the lives of all who were infected with it, an idea so pervasive and so subversive that it toppled empires and changed the history of the world.

In the language of Process theology, the creativity of Jesus so radically recontextualized the lives of his followers that he created a field of force that survived his death. The church has as its mission the perpetuation and acceleration of this field of force. The force of Jesus' creativity continues to impact our decisions, and we as his followers are the growing edge of this field of force wherever we go.

We can also understand it cynically and say that Jesus, as a man, was very limited. Paul needed to dispense with Jesus the man so that Christ the idea could take over the world. And perhaps Paul was right. Perhaps Jesus' own vision was too narrow. After all, Jesus preached only to the Jews, and never wanted to take over the world. But Paul does, and in his ingenious theology, the world, nay the universe, has already been subjected, subdued, and subsumed into the body of Christ.

The implication of Paul's theology is clear: that the same Spirit of the living Christ that fills the world and the far reaches of interstellar space, that same spirit which fell upon the disciples in the upper room with the power of wind and flame is available to us, today; indeed, to anyone who has ever witnessed this story. To the Christian church, it has profound implications, for it means that every home you enter has Christ dwelling within it, every person you pass on the street is Jesus, every meal is a Eucharist.

Not long ago, I was walking with an acquaintance in San Francisco, a young man who had become a Christian when he had the insightful epiphany that he really was not a very nice person. I have to give him credit for trying to correct what he perceived to be a deep character flaw. But as we were walking we were approached by several homeless people. I have a personal rule that any change in my pockets are forfiet to the first person who asks me for it, but my dollar bills are my own. As you can imagine, this has left me cursing my own generosity in front of a parking meter many many a time. On this occasion, however, as I was emptying my pockets of silver, my young acquaintance wrinkled his nose at my almsgiving. "Don't do that," he scowled. "They deserve to be poor. They are just lazy."

"Uh, okay," I said, taken aback by this attitude, "and they are also Jesus. Every one of them." It was his turn to be taken aback. "Yeah, I guess," he finally said, but then added, "but Jesus wouldn't be so poor if he weren't so lazy." I resisted pointing out to him that, despite his best efforts, he still wasn't a very nice person.

The truth is you may be the only Jesus someone will ever know. What it means to be the church is that we are Christ's body on earth. Though Christ may be, as Luther states it, ubiquitous, it is our duty as Christians to be aware of this fact, and to be likewise aware that we are supposed to be Jesus for each other every day, in every moment. Of course, this is not easy to do. Christianity is not a religion that you convert to once. Conversion happens every time I swing my legs out of bed in the morning. Every day I need to remind myself that, as St. Theresa put it, Jesus has no hands on earth but mine.

The Ascension is a powerful mythology that tells us that Jesus is no longer trapped in a human body, but that his goodness and grace has been released to fill the universe, that the power and healing presence that was in him is also in us, and that there is no place we can go where we can escape his love.

But, as Toby McGuire says in the new Spider-Man movie, "with great power comes great responsibility." We not only have Jesus' healing power available for ourselves, but we have the dire responsibility to be Jesus to one another. It is up to us to remake the world, to remind our fellows of their potential, to help and forgive each other when we have fallen. Jesus is not just a country preacher from the era of the toga-operas; he is seated beside you this morning, he begs quarters from you outside the grocery store, he waits to nourish your soul with this bread and wine. "People of Berkeley, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, is now to be found in every home, in every heart, feeling the ache of every hurt, sharing the joy of every victory." Let us pray

Lord of Compassion, there are no tears that escape your notice, no heartfelt laughter that you do not share in. Help us to grasp the awesome power and responsibility that are ours when we decide to take up the cross and follow you. Help us to share in your mind, and to be willing to share in the pain and struggle of the world, even as we strive to heal what has been hurt, and build your community, where none are hungry, where none are alone, and where no tear goes unnoticed or uncomforted. Come upon us with the power of wind and flame, and make of us living witnesses in the world to your ubiquitous presence. For in you do we live, and move, and have our being, now and forever. Amen.