Sermon: "He Ascended Into Heaven, And....” The gift of power – the same power which brings resurrection and ascension of Jesus – is also given to believers for life here and now – and for the future. This morning I hope you took a moment to look at the cover of the bulletin – to ponder this rather strange drawing – with two feet – a mark on each - a cloud - and a group of folks looking up to the sky. How odd. The drawing makes no sense whatsoever unless you know something of the story – the one we speak of weekly in the Apostles’ Creed – the story we have heard again today, from the Acts of the Apostles – as Luke begins his second volume on the life of Jesus and, now, the beginning of the early church. And even for you and me who know the story, the event we call the Ascension seems a rather exotic notion – there is something strange and other-worldly about it. And it is strikes us as rather unscientific and implausible. Jesus being raised up into the sky – like the Fifth Dimension song I remember from my youth - “Up, up and away, in my beautiful balloon” – but with no balloon. Like a lot of these great stories of our faith, sometimes we have our doubts. These fantastic stories seem so impossible and implausible that we dismiss – relegating them to a by gone, unsophisticated era - which is really to bad, because we loose so much. Part of us would like someone to explain these stories to us – to tell us what “really” happened – which of course is impossible. As I say a lot in bible studies, CNN was not there, video camera in hand. Part of us would like to “understand” these stories – to find some meaning in the story – to see how the story addresses our lives. This to me is a much more fruitful enterprise. As another pastor puts it: It's not a preacher's job to take the Bible's mysterious stories and make sense of them, to get rid of the strangeness or the wildness or the unpredictability. If a story is mysterious, then the church needs to practice being mystified…. Today we have such a story – the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – and here we can practice being mystified. According to Luke, following that first Easter Day, Jesus appeared in his resurrected presence to many people – for forty days - from that Easter Day until, on our calendar, last Thursday, May 1 – “Ascension Thursday.” Then, on that 40 th day, Jesus “was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of the disciples’ sight.” And the disciples are left gazing up into heaven. During those 40 days Jesus, Luke tells us that Jesus gave some instructions to his disciples – to wait - to stay in Jerusalem – to not be concerned about God’s timetables – and to be ready to “receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon” them. Today I want us to talk about this power. Next Sunday is Pentecost – the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit – the manifestation of this power. But today I want us to consider this power itself – a mysterious power to be sure – a power, which according to Paul – is the power which brought about the resurrection of Jesus as well as the ascension of Jesus – the very power which is, Paul says, available to us. Paul writes about this power in his letter to the Ephesians – which most scholars believe was not really written to the believers in the city of Ephesus – but was rather a circular letter, read in one church in one city, and then carried to another church in another city – and so on. So the letter is very much addressed to us right here and now – as much as to anyone, who seeks to follow Jesus. In his prayer - which Paul nearly always puts in the beginning of his letters – he prays that God would give us “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” as we come to know Jesus Christ –that the “the eyes of your heart” would be “enlightened” by God – at we would “know the hope to which God has called” us – and “the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.” And then – toward the end of the prayer, Paul prays that God would help us also to know this power. Listen how Paul describes this power – and how often he uses the word power in these few verses. Paul prays here that we may know: “the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” Last week I heard a news story on the radio about the land speed record – which apparently the British stole from the Americans some years back, and now there’s an effort to win it back. The North American Eagle Project, a joint American – Canadian effort, has built the Supersonic Land Speed Challenger – and they hope to use it to break the existing land speed record of 763 miles per hour. This vehicle – which at one time was a military jet - is 56 feet long, weighs 13,000 pounds, and has an enhanced General Electric engine with a hoped-for 52,000 horsepower of thrust. 52,000 horse power - that’s a lot of power. Just yesterday at the Derby we all saw many one-horse-power horses run that track – they are so powerful and so beautiful. A thoroughbred race horse – one horse power like one of those - can get up to 40 miles per hour in just three strides. Four legs, three strides – and 40 miles per hour of speed. That’s a lot of power too. But this power – this power Paul is telling us about - is “immeasurably great” – it cannot be measured in horsepower or foot-pounds or torque or gravity. It is beyond any measure or means of power we could ever come up with or even imagine. This power is the very power God used when God raised Jesus from the dead. This is the power of life – the power of life over death, a power victorious over death and sin and evil, over injustice and wrong – a power greater than any earthly power that could hurt or destroy us. This power is the very power that God used in the ascension of Jesus – as the risen Christ left a particular time and space reality and who is now available and present in the church in all time and in every place. John Calvin writes about this – Christ left us in such a way that his presence might be more useful to us — a presence that had been confined in a humble abode of flesh so long as he sojourned on earth ... As his body was raised up above all the heavens, so his power and energy were diffused and spread beyond all the bounds of heaven and earth." And this power is now vested in Jesus Christ – the risen and ascended One – who now is seated at the place of power - at the right hand of Father – whose power is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” This means that Christ has power greater than any earthly power that might try to lay claim to your life or my life. Many try to do just that. Some try to gain power over us and lay claim to our lives – telling us how we should look and dress, where we should live – how we should spend our money – how we should act – even what we should and should not believe. There are times in our lives when things happen to us and around us - and we feel powerless to stop them. We grow and change – we get sick and may face terrible illnesses. We move with a job, or for family reasons. We make mistakes, we mess up and we sin – knowingly and unknowingly. As one of my teachers put it, sometimes we live in the “painful rhythm of suffering and death.” (J. McClure) But through it all we have available to us this immeasurable power – above and below and around and inside us – this great power of God – a power that can move us to rise above and move beyond any present struggles – a loving and gracious power which lays claim to our lives that cannot be taken away, come what may. This power may not help us set a land speed record – or help us win at the Kentucky Derby. But this power is the transforming power of God – mysterious and awesome – beyond our explanation and understanding – a power that we can tap into to here and now – and a power that will see us all, when the time comes – into the full presence of the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul prays, may we all know this immeasurably great power – here and now, in our lives. And all God’s people say Amen. |