Year C Ascension Day May 28 2025 - Sarah Cooper

What must it have been like for the disciples to see their beloved leader, their Messiah, to vanish into a cloud.

Just when they had got him back

Just when they had started to understand all his teaching

Just when they thought they had lost him forever, but he rose from the dead and came back to them

And now He disappears from sight

They are left looking at the space where he had been, gazing up into heaven, gazing at the hole he had left in their lives

In the words of Christina Rossetti

When Christ went up to Heaven the Apostles stayed”Gazing at Heaven with souls and wills on fire,Their silence spake: “Lord, why not follow Thee?

Home is not home without Thy Blessed Face,

Just as we do when we lose somebody we love, we focus on the chair they used to sit in perhaps

Just as a beloved dog will sit by the door, waiting for the  master to come home

But he has not left them, they are not without hope and as we celebrate his glorious Ascension, neither are we.

The disciples who accompany Jesus to the mountaintop, who stand there looking up to heaven, are different people from the disciples who fled rather than accompany him to the cross.

They have been broken, and they have been healed, and in this process they have been reshaped: into people who are ready for the Spirit, who can do God’s will without Jesus being physically there with them

In the words we have just heard from Luke’s Gospel and Acts …..

Jesus reassures them of his continued presence

Jesus promises them power through the Holy Spirit

Jesus reminds them of the promise God has made

Presence, power and promise

Jesus will in many ways be more present than before. When he was on earth he was Son of God but was fully human, and was confined by earthly rules. But now that he has ascended, or rather returned to heaven he can be present in a new way, through the Holy Spirit.

Martin Luther in his sermon of 1523 said

What good will it do you if you merely preach that he ascended up to heaven and sits there with folded hands? For this purpose did he ascend up thither, that he might be down here, that he might fill all things and be everywhere present; which thing he could not do had he remained on earth.

The Spirit will be always with them, will sustain and strengthen them. The Spirit will guide them, so the risen Christ, and therefore God will be with them….and us… always.

Their power will come through the Spirit, from God on high. Jesus will be seated at the right hand of God and, far above any   earthly power and authority.

And that power will give us what we need to bear witness, for this are we charged.

Jesus’ words encapsulate the whole of the story of God’s promise to us…and our response to that promise

The scriptures in their entirety, from Moses, to the prophets to the psalms tell us of God’s plan.

From the beginning of his teaching to his Ascension Jesus has embodied God’s plan…..he came down from heaven to be among us, he taught, he healed, we followed….he died and was raised from  the dead, just as we  were told he would.

The disciples have then had another 40 days of convincing proofs, of truly and finally understanding and have heard anew the promise of the Father of the kingdom of Heaven

Everything, everything has led to this

Incarnation, death, resurrection, salvation and ascension

He came to save all nations

We now go out to bear witness to all nations and Jesus returns to the Father

This is the clear statement of mission to us all, then and now

We are called to do what he did

To heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to fight oppression and evil, to work for justice and peace, to seek reconciliation and teach others to do these things too

Presence, power and promise…the gifts of the Ascension.

May the miracle of the Ascension bring joy to our hearts, purpose to our lives and praise to our lips

I finish with the rest of Christina Rossetti’s words

Nevertheless a cloud cut off their gaze:They tarry to build up Jerusalem,Watching for Him, while thro' the appointed daysHe watches them.They do His Will, and doing it rejoice,Patiently glad to spend and to be spent:Still He speaks to them, still they hear His VoiceAnd are content.For as a cloud received Him from their sight,So with a cloud will He return ere long:Therefore they stand on guard by day, by night,Strenuous and strong.They do, they dare, they beyond seven times sevenForgive, they cry God's mighty word aloud:Yet sometimes haply lift tired eyes to Heaven—“Is that His cloud?”