Sermon for May 4th

This last Thursday, May 1st, Christian churches around the world celebrated ascension day, a remembrance of the resurrected Jesus floating up into heaven right before his disciples’ eyes. This is one of the weirdest and most misunderstood events in Jesus’ life. I mean, really. As if Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t shocking enough for his disciples, imagine how they must have felt when Jesus just flew up into the clouds! Don’t ask me how this happened, how he did it, because I don’t have a clue. I do, however, believe I can give you some good news about why he did it?

Was the ascension necessary? Yes and no. He wouldn’t have had to I guess, but I’m sure glad he did for your sake. But, before I can tell you why Jesus ascended into heaven, it will be most helpful, I think, to go over a couple of misunderstandings first.

The first misunderstanding. Jesus was only raised as a spirit. That is, people often believe that Jesus ascended into heaven without a physical body. Like he was a phantom or a ghost or some kind of an ethereal person. How does this misunderstanding occur? Because there is a misunderstanding of Jesus’ resurrection.

Being raised from the dead isn’t a normal thing to happen. We can’t imagine somebody dying and then coming back to life . . . especially after three days of decomposition. Apart from science fiction or horror movies, this concept is beyond our understanding and, so, it is easier to think of it spiritually. If people even still believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is often only because they imagine Jesus is just a spirit.

We aren’t the first people to come up with this idea . It was originally made famous by the philosopher Plato who argued that when a person died, their soul was released from their skin suit to live forever. He called this the “immortality of the soul”. The argument goes something like this: the body is bad, evil, dirty, sinful, perishable and can be killed, but the soul is good, clean, enlightened, and the true part of yourself that never dies. In other words, your body will die, but you’ll live forever as a soul.

A lot of Christians, including many of you perhaps, believe in something like this. There is even a Bible passage that is sometimes used to bolster this opinion. In the gospel of John, Jesus shows himself, resurrected, to the women at the tomb and tells them, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” This verse is taken to mean something like, “Don’t touch me or I’ll pop!” Or, “If you get me dirty, I’ll have to stay in my body foreverrrr!” The thing is, Jesus COULD have been held onto. Because he was raised IN HIS BODY! And touching him wasn’t going to like pop him like a bubble. Jesus tells these women not to hold onto him because there was more to come.

The thing is, the “immortality of the soul” is NOT where your hope lies in Jesus Christ. Jesus was not raised as a soul, but as a body AND soul together, a whole human person with wounds still visible on his hands and feet. Jesus died completely, body, soul, spirit and everything and was raised from the dead completely, body, soul, spirit and everything. Saint Paul puts it this way in the book of 1st Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” But Christ was raised, and raised IN HIS BODY.

There is a poem, by John Updike, that I think really gets to this point. It applies just as well to Jesus’ ascension as to his resurrection.

“Seven Stanzas at Easter” from Telephone Poles and Other Poems by John Updike.

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of Enduring Night
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the Door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Embarrassed by the miracle of a bodily resurrected Jesus. Crushed by remonstrance, the body of evidence that proves the just spiritual Jesus wrong. And make no mistake, if Jesus ascended at all, it was as His body as well just as he was resurrected. And if not, the church will fall.

Another misconception about Jesus’ ascension is this. That he left us to fend for ourselves and is watching us from his throne. This couldn’t be further from the truth, but I find this to be a trap that is easy to fall into. Here’s the problem in a nutshell. Jesus ascended into heaven. The disciples saw him and we heard about it in the reading today. We even say that he is seated at the right hand of God the Father. That seems to leave us with nothing but a spirit, albeit the Holy Spirit. The other two-thirds of the Trinity seem to be sitting on their thrones somewhere up in heaven watching us from far away.

A famous Swiss reformer named Albert Zwingli, the founder of the Reformed church, posed the issue in another way as it relates to the Lord’s Supper. Martin Luther argued that when Jesus distributed bread at the Last Supper to his would be betrayers, his very own disciples, he said, “This is my body,” and he meant it. The bread was still bread as well as the body of Jesus Christ. The wine was still wine as well as Jesus’ blood given for the forgiveness of sins.

Zwingli, on the other hand, argued that when Jesus handed out the bread and said “This is my body” he meant “This bread symbolizes my body.” The bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper couldn’t really be Jesus’ body and blood at the same time. Why? Because Jesus is sitting in heaven and he can’t be two places at once! Thus the problem of Jesus floating into heaven. How can he be up there and down here at the same time! Well, that, my friends, is the glorious promise of Jesus’ ascension.

If Jesus rose from the dead, then Jesus rose from the dead IN HIS BODY. If Jesus ascended into heaven, then Jesus ascended into heaven IN HIS BODY. If Jesus sits at the right hand of God, then Jesus sits at the right hand of God IN HIS BODY. And if Jesus is truly God, one and the same with God the Father and the Holy Spirit ,who is present everywhere at all times, then Jesus is also present everywhere at all times IN HIS BODY. You can see why it is easier just to call him a spirit. If Jesus always comes and goes IN HIS BODY, it suddenly feels very crowded in your pew.

Jesus was sent from heaven above to earth in his body. He died in his body. He rose from the dead in his body. He ascended into heaven in his body. He sits at the right hand of God the Father in his body and he is sitting right here, right now, with you in his body.

Of course, this can seem very excessive and it is. You’d rather have your space. Who gives Jesus the right to take up so much room. Your reason and intelligence, feeling suddenly squished and claustrophobic reminds you quickly that, well it can’t be! I don’t see anything. I can’t feel anything. And my question for you is this: Was it easier to believe in Jesus’ resurrection when he was just a spirit? A spirit that you couldn’t see or couldn’t feel?

Jesus is right here, right now, with you IN HIS BODY. This is the awesome promise of the ascension. You see, the question is, why did Jesus ascend into heaven? The answer is because you needed him to. Jesus ascended into heaven so you might believe that he is just as much your Savior today as he was the Savior of his disciples. So that you might believe that Jesus is just as much here now in Cornwall, as he was 2000 years ago in Jerusalem.

Perhaps it makes more sense to just say it this way. Jesus ascended into heaven so that he would never have to leave the Earth. He wasn’t trying to escape or abandon creation. Jesus did all of this for you. For the sake of your faith. So that you might believe that he will never leave you or forsake you. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells his disciples that he must leave them so that he can send the Holy Spirit. You see, only the Holy Spirit can give you the faith to believe in Jesus in the first place, and to believe that he will always be right here, right now, with you.

But there is one last thing: those two men in white robes that we assume were angels. 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.” For now, we believe that Jesus is here in a body that we cannot seem to see, or realize we are touching, or hearing, or smelling. We live by faith in Jesus Christ and know him only through the eyes of faith. There will come a day, when you will look up at Jesus and see him face to face. Him, resurrected in his body, coming down from heaven and you, resurrected in your body, called out of your grave, to the reality of eternal life with Jesus forever. Amen.