|
Seventh Sunday of Easter “Ascension Sunday”. “Jesus Ascends to the Father.”
[Jesus said to the eleven and those with them,] “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
Jesus’ ascension is described at the very ending of Luke and at the very beginning of Acts. In this way, the writer of Luke-Acts links the story of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension with the church, the ekklesia, (a Greek word meaning “called-out ones,”) who remain on earth as he rises up. In other words, the story of the church’s life begins where the gospel account leaves off. It is like passing a baton. We are to see the church in light of this close proximity. The “body of Christ” is both ascended into heaven to be seated at the Father’s right hand and simultaneously situated in the valleys and hills of our planet, struggling to make sense of the gifts God has given us.
The apostles heard Jesus tell them they would “be baptized with the Holy Spirit,” “receive power,” and witness to all the world. In his final words to them in Luke, Jesus “opened their minds” so that they would proclaim repentance and forgiveness. We might say it this way: The gift of the Holy Spirit empowers the church to resurrect the dead through forgiveness. We are dead when we are separated from God, but those who have seen what is impossible (the risen Lord) know that God makes possible what is impossible. Ephesians says it plainly: “The church . . . is his body” (vv. 22-23).
This is a hard idea to promote. We may readily acknowledge that the church is the body of Christ, but we still differentiate. What if our slogan was “God’s work, our work”? What difference would it make if we took the words body of Christ literally? Let us think in terms of that literal and liberating name for ourselves, so that even in what our hands accomplish, we are acting as people who, like Christ, have been resurrected. In Acts, when the apostles ask Jesus when Israel will be restored, Jesus says the time is not for them to know. Perhaps we do know the answer, for the time is always now.
May God continue to bless us so that we many continue to do God’s work as we await the day when Christ will come again as we continue to lovingly share our time, money, and other resources with our neighbors. Amen!
| 
