Weekly Sermon
Ascension Sunday 2025 Fremont
If I asked you to think back over the last couple months, say back to mid-April, I’m sure many things would come to mind for you. Hopefully you would remember some good things, some happy times and events, but perhaps you would remember some harder times as well, times that tried your patience, or your faith. Perhaps some things happened that you had a hard time processing, things that might have provoked you to say, “I can hardly even believe this is happening.” Time may have moved very quickly, or it may have crawled along.
I can say that these things probably happened for you with some authority because we are all human and this is what life tends to be like for us. And so, it was for the followers of Jesus. Imagine for a moment that you are there. The year is thirty-something and you have been a follower, a disciple of Jesus, traveling with him over the three or so years of his ministry. And if someone asked you to think about these last sixty days or so, chances are you would have a lot to remember – some good times, some really, awful times. You might recall some things that you just could not believe were happening, some things that you could make no sense of, no matter how hard you tried…sixty or so days ago, you would have watched as Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey, creating a stir as his followers cried, Hosanna, Hosanna – have mercy, have mercy. You might have heard how his closest friends gathered later that week for a meal, heard them talk about what Jesus did and said that night – washed feet, blessed bread and wine and shared it with them, and offered an emotional speech that felt like a farewell address to those who loved him. You may have heard that one of his closest friends betrayed him and then seen how quickly events took place, one hard on the last – an arrest, a sham trial, the crowd clamoring for his crucifixion – and all that followed from that. You may have heard that his closest friends betrayed him in various ways, and perhaps this broke your heart, or maybe you were terrified into silence and denial right along with them. The unthinkable horror of his death by crucifixion might have devastated you as you heard about his mother, there to the end, his few faithful ones making sure he was buried – and then that awful emptiness as the reality dawns – Jesus is dead. You might begin to grieve, perhaps together with other followers, and surely to wonder about what would happen now. I’m sure there was talk, remembering the things he said, the promises he made – and you wonder now how any of this could be. A long day and night pass, and then the rumors start flying – Jesus was not in the tomb where he had been buried. The women report news that he is risen. But can you even hope that could be true? Reports start to circulate that he has been seen – in the garden, on the road…his followers begin to gather, but carefully, secretly – everyone is still afraid. And then there he is! For forty days, he keeps showing up, offering whatever is needed to believe that yes, he truly is risen. Imagine the joy – Jesus is back! Oh, but then he tells everyone that he cannot stay - he must leave this earth, return to God – but he promises that an “advocate,” the Spirit will come and will empower every single one of his followers to continue his mission and ministry. And then he is there for that final meeting, making that promise again for the last time, “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." And then, somehow, he was “lifted up” and was gone from them. Imagine the overwhelming feelings in that moment – Jesus is gone again, not in death, but in some mysterious way that the mind cannot process, even, I would guess, for those who witnessed it.
This is a momentous day. It is in a very real sense the end of a story. But it is the kind of ending that a writer offers who has already written the sequel – leaving with reader with some certainty that this ending is simply another beginning. The end of Jesus’ earthly life has come – but at the same time – he is still alive, still risen and still among those who follow him – back in Jerusalem and here and now. The Incarnation was momentous – the coming of Jesus divided time into before and after, and though it changed, it did not end as Jesus earthly life was completed. That sequel begins with our celebration of the Feast of Pentecost next Sunday – with the day we sometimes call the birthday of the church. With the arrival of the promised Spirit we begin another part of the endless story of God and God’s people as the Advocate that Jesus has promised DOES anoint Jesus’ followers and empowers them to carry on his ministry and mission in his name.
Much of the last sixty days of Jesus’ life is the core of our faith, and much of it is simply part of the mystery of our faith, of something that is so much bigger than our human sensibilities can easily grasp. Jesus’ life, his ministry, his teaching while he was on earth offer us a blueprint for how to live as his followers, but it was his death, resurrection and ascension in tandem with the coming of the Spirit that actually makes it possible for us to actually do that.
At the end of this morning’s reading from Acts, we see the arrival of “two men in white robes” who remind those present that they need not “look up to heaven” to find Jesus, but that he “will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” I hear this as a promise to them and to us that Jesus remains with us, a reminder of again the mystery that he is the one who is coming, has come and is yet to come. As we gather in community to literally re-member him in the Eucharist – he is truly present in the midst of us.
In these times when many of us find anxiety a constant companion, when we are concerned about what is happening and what might still be to come in our country, on our planet, when we see the divisiveness between people, hear of our beloved neighbors living in fear, perhaps we can relate to the uncertainty of Jesus’ followers who lived through those last sixty days with him. And perhaps we can take comfort from knowing that they did receive the power of the Spirit, by remembering that they were so empowered that they carried on Jesus’ mission and ministry in their time, and that they inspired a legacy of followers who carried it to this day, so that over two thousand years later, here we are – still being the church, his body on earth, doing our best to follow the way of Jesus, the way of love – relying on the power of the indwelling Spirit that he promised in order to follow his commandment to love God and one another as he did. Amen.
