The Ascension of Jesus

 

Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

Whenever I think about the Ascension, I think about a cell phone. Let me explain.

With a cell phone, I can speak into a little microphone and it will transform my speech into a radio wave that can be sent to my brother’s phone in Vancouver, or just about anywhere else on the planet. … But there is a strange transformation that has to happen to my voice in order for my brother to hear it. My voice, which is audible to those standing near me, has to be transformed into radio waves, which are invisible and inaudible. In fact, my voice becomes completely imperceptible when it is transformed into radio waves. If my brother in Vancouver wants to hear my voice it has to be transformed into a state that can’t be heard.

I think about that when I think about the Ascension of Jesus because Jesus was visible and audible. He was with his disciples for 40 days after he was resurrected from the dead. He met with them, they touched him, they ate with him. Then we read in Acts 

“… as [the disciples] were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).

 At that point they didn’t see him, they didn’t touch him, and they didn’t hear him (at least not by way of his vocal chords). … Judging by the usual human senses, Jesus was gone.

It took me a long time to understand that this wasn’t about him leaving. It was about him becoming much more present to us. Just as my voice is limited by my volume, so experiencing Jesus was limited by his physical presence on earth. If you wanted to experience Jesus, you had to be physically, geographically, close to him. And as my voice is able to extend across the world when it is transformed to radio waves through my cell phone, so Jesus is able to be much more present when he transcends the physical world and enters the dimension of heaven.

Before his Ascension only those physically around Jesus could experience him. If he was with his disciples in Jerusalem, he wasn’t in Nazareth, or China, or Nigeria. But after his Ascension, after entering into the dimension of heaven, he was no longer limited by time or space and so was able to be present by his Spirit to his disciples in Jerusalem, Nazareth, China, Nigeria, or wherever. And so Jesus’ Ascension was not about Jesus leaving, but about Jesus being with us in a more intimate way, and being with us no matter where we are.

So if you were a disciple watching Jesus be enveloped by the cloud of God’s glory as he entered heaven you would have seen less and less of him. … But, from Jesus’ point of view, as he was enveloped by heaven, he would have seen more and more of humanity. … I think that is the first point I want to make. That Jesus entered a different state of being, and that allowed him to be more present to us.

St. Leo the Great (d. 461AD) said that Jesus has now become present to us in a new way because of his Ascension. He said, 

“our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments”.

 Jesus becomes visible to us in the sacraments- In the gospel sacraments- in the bread and the wine, and in the act of baptism. And tied to those 2 sacraments, and flowing from them, is the absolving of sin, anointing the sick, confirmation, marriage, and ordination. They are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. As one theologian said, another name for ‘grace’ is ‘Jesus Christ’.

But we can dare to extend this as well. The church is called the “Body of Christ”. Paul says in Galatians, 

“I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

 In his 1st letter to the Corinthians he says, 

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Cor 12:27; see also Romans 12:5).

 This is expressed in many places in Paul’s letters. … We are called “Christians”, which means “little Christs”. We become a means by which Christ is visible in the world. We are humbled by that, and we pray for it to become a more and more accurate reality. We pray that we will become mirrors reflecting Christ into the world. St. Theresa of Avila said,

“Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which He looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are His body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

The Ascension is what makes this possible. By entering the dimension of heaven, he is able to be with us in ways that wouldn’t have been possible while remaining in the limited reality of our world.

As we read through Acts, we see that the Apostles do the things Jesus did. Peter heals a beggar at the entrance to the temple (Acts 3). Just as the people brought the sick to Jesus, so they brought them to the Apostles. In Acts 5:14-16 we read, 

“more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by. A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.”

In Acts 9 Peter is involved in raising a woman named Tabitha from the dead. If you exchanged Peter’s name with Jesus, it sounds like a story taken straight from a Gospel. In both Acts 9 and Mark 5 (Mk 5:38-42), someone comes to Jesus or Peter asking for help. When they arrive, they both send out the mourners from the room. Peter prays, and Jesus grabs the little girl’s hand. And they both say, “get up”. And the women come back to life.

The Apostles were also persecuted as Christ was. As Stephen is being stoned to death, he prays for forgiveness for those who are killing him, just as Jesus did. … The famous preacher John Stott said that a more accurate title for the book of Acts is the “The Continuing Words and Deeds of Jesus by his Spirit through his Apostles”.

As Jesus entered the dimension of Heaven, he took a human body into the very heart of God. A human body, enveloped in God, sits on the throne of the universe. A human who understands what it is like to live as a human being- to know hunger, and sadness, grief, and loss, betrayal, and temptation. And he has made the Divine life of God available to humanity. He has made his presence available to humanity. And he has given us a mission, to continue his acts in the world. To be his body in this world. To acts as representatives of his kingdom to reclaim territory from chaos and evil. AMEN.