Ascension Day Sermon

Sermon by Rev Paul Fisher:

And Holy Ascension Church Patronal Festival

Luke 24: 44-end, Acts 1:1-11

Way back in early 1962 I went on a Worcester Diocesan Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem we visited the Mount of Olives, and I still vividly remember the local guide showing us a footprint in a slab of rock.     He said that this was the very footprint Jesus left when he ‘took off’ at the Ascension! Luke in our reading from Acts says that Jesus was ‘lifted up’. But my goodness, Jesus would have had to be a super-charged ‘rocket man’ to take off and leave any trace in the rock, let alone a footprint!

So, the Ascension. I am ‘zooming’ these words from the vestry of Holy Ascension Church – a new experience for me, so I hope not to press a wrong button by mistake!  We celebrate this church’s patronal festival today. Such a dedication! What does it mean for us in this church – and St Alkelda’s, Holy Trinity, the North Ribblesdale churches – and all of us as part of the wider church community? To what does it commit us in these disturbing times when faith, often, does not come easy? Well, we are human beings who try our best to be humane. That, for starters.

The Ascension is both the end and the beginning of a story.     It signals the end of Jesus Christ’s work on earth – as fully human and fully God - but it assures us too that he remains in solidarity with us, with our human life and living earth, God with us.  

This is the beginning, though, of a continuing story, which is our story - the moment when God hands over to us an amazing privilege! Now we are responsible for continuing with him his activity in the world. And what a transforming thing that can be!

It is the total opposite of what we usually mean when we talk about “playing God”.    Because here we, empowered by God, are called together ‘to do justice, love mercy’, and be peace-makers for the healing of all creation. This is the divine drama into which we are drawn as pioneer actors – trail-blazers. This story will end only when God’s Kingdom of sovereign love is fully established – ‘on earth as it is in heaven’!

In 10 days’ time – Pentecost/ Whitsunday - we celebrate the beginnings of the Church, that great outpouring of God’s Spirit on that small group of disciples in Jerusalem – a group still very unsure of themselves.

But the Ascension confirms that we, the church – indeed, all human beings - are at the very heart of God’s work on earth, that continuing struggle to redeem the whole creation from all that is evil,  from everything that causes us to move away from God.  God works through us – with the full resources of His grace - to restore that complete community between earth and heaven which has always been his purpose! Time and again we damage, fragment, and all but destroy this connection. But because of the Resurrection and Ascension, it can never be finally broken. Now that is a rainbow of hope!

So here is a great YES to all our strong, yet fragile and mixed up humanity.  For this humanity of ours is embodied in the human reality of Jesus.  And at the Ascension all this is ‘lifted up’, taken back by God into the very heart of his being.

Here too is a huge YES by God our Creator to the ‘glory of humankind’. A Yes to all in us that is good and loving – a yes to everything truly creative and life-affirming – a yes to all that gives us grounds for hope in the boundless possibilities of being truly human – and a yes for our growing more and more into communion with God. My goodness, we need this positive, hope-full vision today don’t we!

Here are some words which a friend of mine found on a card fixed to a lamp-post. They seem a good way to finish:

And the people stayed at home.

And read books and listened,

And rested and exercised,

And made art and played games,

And learned new ways of being, and were still.

And listened more deeply.

Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.

Some met their shadows.

And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.

And, in the absence of people

Living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless and heartless ways,

The earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed,

And the people joined together again,

They grieved their losses,

And made new choices,

And dreamed new images,

And created new ways

To live and heal the earth fully,

As they had been healed.

“Then Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them”

(Luke 24:50-51)