ASCENSION DAY GREETINGS FROM YOUR PASTOR-ELECT
Happy Ascension Day!
Although I will offer a short reflection on the meaning of this holy day in just a moment, I want to begin by reiterating just how thrilled and humbled I am at your decision to call me as your next pastor. Pat and I are still talking about our celebration with you on April 30th, and how much we miss worshipping at Holy Trinity on Sundays. I can’t wait to join you officially in September!
In the meantime, I am preparing for another summer season at my lovely chapel in Manchester-by-the-Sea, which runs from the first Sunday in June through Labor Day weekend. Many of you have kindly inquired about our services. Please know that you are more than welcome to visit if you’re looking for a worship experience by the sea. We are about a 50-minute drive from Holy Trinity and our little coastal town is quite scenic. The church itself is just a stone’s throw from Singing Beach, one of the nicest beaches around. Our principal service is at 10 a.m. For more information, see www.emmanuelmanchester.org or email me at pastorluther@htelc.com for help in planning a visit.
Now, back to Ascension Day! Although it is a “major feast day” on both the Lutheran and Episcopal church calendars, Ascension Day is perhaps the least observed and understood of the major Christian holy days. This is unfortunate because it really does matter!
Luke is our primary source for the Ascension, and he offers accounts of it in both his gospel (Luke 24:44-53) and in the Acts of the Apostles (1:1-11). In a nutshell, Luke writes that forty days after his resurrection, Jesus "was taken up before the disciples’ very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight," and so he was "taken from them into heaven."
If you think this sounds somewhat fantastical as a piece of history, you are not alone. Even for many faithful believers, the spectacle of the risen Christ floating off into the heavens seems just too much to swallow. At the end of the day, however, I’m not sure that the literal accuracy of Luke’s attempt to describe what happened that day is the real point. God’s movement in and through space and time is a mystery after all, and human attempts to fully capture things like the Incarnation, the Resurrection or the Ascension are bound to fail. Luke did his best to describe the indescribable.
My conviction is that the importance of the Ascension lies less in the “mechanics” of “what happened” and more in the “why of its happening.” This is how the philosophical theologian Stephen Davis of Claremont University puts it: "I do not believe that in the Ascension Jesus literally went up in the air, kept going until he achieved escape velocity from the earth, and then kept moving until he got to heaven, as if heaven were located somewhere in space. Rather, the Ascension of Jesus was primarily a change of state rather than a change of location. Jesus changed in the Ascension from being present in the realm of space and time to being present in the realm of eternity, in the transcendent heavenly realm."
Understood this way, the Ascension is about the glorification of the resurrected Jesus before God, not his elevation to a geographical place called heaven "up there."
So, why does all this matter? It matters because it assures us of the co-equality and intimate connection between God the Son and God the Father. Jesus was not just some great human teacher, here today and then gone tomorrow. Rather, Jesus was and is eternally present with God, both before and after his time on earth.
Sometimes such admittedly paradoxical, theological truths are best approached through artistic expression. In this vein, I commend to you and will conclude with this lovely sonnet about the Ascension from the Anglican priest and poet, Malcolm Guite, taken from his book, Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (2012). His words are so much more beautiful than mine!
We saw his light break through the cloud of glory Whilst we were rooted still in time and place As earth became a part of Heaven’s story And heaven opened to his human face. We saw him go and yet we were not parted He took us with him to the heart of things The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings, Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness, Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight, Whilst we ourselves become his clouds of witness And sing the waning darkness into light, His light in us, and ours in him concealed, Which all creation waits to see revealed.
Here ends your theology lesson for the week!
Until next time, Pat and I offer our love in the name of the ascended Christ, Pastor Luther