When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. The Ascension of Jesus.

The little community is fearful, waiting, anxious, and bewildered. It has no power of its own. It has no power, nor can it generate any. It has neither claim nor any reason for self-congratulation. And yet, amazingly, power is given this fragile little community, power that gives it energy, courage, imagination, and resources — completely disproportionate to its size. How did this happen? How did that bankrupt little gathering of disciples become such a powerful force in the world? This transformation happened because of the Ascension, which we celebrate this week, and Pentecost, which we celebrate next week. That's how God, with inscrutable generosity, transformed that wounded little community so that it became the church. (Much of this is emended from Bruggemann, Texts for Preaching, Louisville: WJK Press, 1995, p. 309).

The Ascension of Jesus Christ is often misunderstood or ignored. A popular understanding of the Ascension is that Jesus is going into heaven to be with his father, that Jesus is going away from his disciples and the church, to be replaced by that vague and ephemeral holy ghost. It's like a CEO has ascended to the 100th floor of a 100 story skyscraper, has finally ascended to the place of supreme power and control, where he controls his organization through his underlings. Part of this is due to the up up and away images used in our passage from Acts — that as they were watching, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. Up up and away, my beautiful balloon. The ascension is often understood to mean that Jesus ascends to his power, leaving the church on earth, to be with his father in heaven. But in fact the ascension means the opposite. It means that Jesus is going to be more present with us, not less. The ascension of Jesus means that the spirit is freed to come among us, to make the risen Christ more present rather than less. The ascension of Jesus is also part of atonement — what God does to us. And the ascension of Jesus means that God is forever after transformed by the human — that now human being is part of the inner nature of God. These three lessons at any rate are part of what the Church teaches about the Ascension of Jesus Christ. With your permission I'd like to explore these things with you a little this morning.

The Ascension of Jesus means that Jesus is more present with us rather than less. Jesus didn't go to heaven merely to be seated at the right hand of the father. Jesus went so the spirit could come. As a human being, Jesus was bound in one space and time, one spatial temporal location. He could only be once place at once. Because of the Ascension, however, Jesus can become present everywhere through the Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings the presence of Christ. That's why we can claim that everywhere the Eucharist happens, everywhere we serve the bread and the wine, Christ is truly present. All over the world, all at once, Christ can be present through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Though the physical lilac bush is only once place, the intoxicating smell of the lilac blossom is everywhere. It's a little like that anyway. This is what the Reformers called the Doctrine of Ubiquity. Christ can be present everywhere at once because he is no longer bound to one specific place and time as he was when he was an earth bound human. That's one function of the ascension: Christ is everywhere and everytime, Christ is always present in the eternal now of the kingdom.

The Ascension of Jesus functions secondly as part of Atonement. I admit I'm a little unsteady here, and I hope this point isn't too convoluted and weird. I'm stretching to apply something that James Alison taught us about atonement during his visit with us. Typically we think of atonement as something done to God. A sacrifice needs to be made to satisfy God. The argument usually goes like this: God's a holy God. We are unholy and can't come into God's presence. Someone has to die. So Jesus becomes the willing sacrifice and dies so that we can come to God. But James Alison inverted this. It's not God who has the problem, it's us. It's not God who's filled with murderous violence, we are. So God works atonement on us. To make this point, James Alison reconstructed the first Jewish Temple. Ordinarily we think of the high priest as going into the Holy of Holies to make a sacrifice where the Ark of the Covenant was and the mercy seat. Remember the visuals on this from Raiders of the Lost Ark? That actually paints a pretty accurate portrait of the Ark of the Covenant. An altar with two cherubim on either side - two angels, that is, on either end of the Mercy Seat altar. What did Mary see when she looked into the empty tomb? A burial table with two angels in white standing on either end — in other words, the empty tomb symbolized the Ark of the Covenant. At the original temple we've been taught to think that the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies to make a sacrifice before God — to atone God for the sins of the people. James Alison showed us how the opposite was true. The high Priest went into the temple in order to come back out. The High Priest represented Yahweh, the Lord, and he emerged out of the Holy of Holies and came out into creation, came out toward the people. When Mary looked into the empty tomb she saw the two angels in white signifying the Ark of the Covenant — and the idea was that Jesus too came out of the Ark toward the people. Well look what we have here in Acts 1. Amazingly we meet the two men in white again, the same two men that were in the tomb, the same two cherubim who symbolized the Ark of the Covenant. Here we again have the Lord coming toward the people — only this time, Jesus has to ascend to heaven, so the Spirit can come out of heaven toward earth. It's lovely and wonderful symbolism. "People of Galilee" the Cherubim said, "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." That's not the second coming that's being described; it's Pentecost. In other words the same movement that happened at the original temple and at the tomb of Jesus is happening here. God is coming toward God's people to atone them, to expiate their sins, to save their lives. God is coming toward us in the presence of the Holy Spirit to heal us, to set us free, to soften our hearts, and to liberate us from our murderous rivalry and violence. Come Lord Jesus, atone us now. This is a second function of the Ascension of Jesus Christ: we are being atoned, God is coming toward us.

A third function of the Ascension is that now, once and for all, God has taken the human into God's very nature. When the human Jesus ascended to the father, God's nature changed. Now God has become human - if that makes any sense. It's not that God is just human, not at all. But God has absorbed humanity into God's very self. This by the way is a deeply traditional and Lutheran way of understanding the work of Christ — though it may sound shocking to us. God has taken on human nature. Now forever after when the Sprit comes to us, she uses human categories. It's not so much that we learn to relate to God; God has learned to relate to us. God's humanity means that God, forever after, enters the fray and fracas of the human story, enters our situations, enters our lives, enters our world, not as some radically different being, but as someone who intimately knows us because somehow we have become part of God. God understands your tears, your laughter, your hurt and pain, your loneliness and joy. God gets it, all of it, the whole messy muddy human predicament, because at the ascension of Jesus Christ God took our nature into God's self. This is another function of the Ascension of Christ: God becomes radically humanized.

As you can see, the Ascension is a rich tapestry of symbolism and theological truth. It's a wonderful day in the life of the church and deserves our attention and wonder. It's good to celebrate the Ascension because of what it unleashes for the church. In another sense though the Ascension is only a preface — the really good stuff comes next week, with Pentecost. That's when the Spirit comes. That's when we — the rag tag little community, fearful, waiting, anxious, and bewildered — that's when we become the church. That transformation happens because of the Ascension, which we celebrate this week, and Pentecost, which we celebrate next week. That's how God, with inscrutable generosity, transforms our wounded little community so that we become the church. Thanks be to God.  —   Amen.