“Why Are You Looking Up?”
Acts 1:3-11
Scott Huie
Westminster Presbyterian Church
May 4, 2008 Ascension Sunday
I remember the day so clearly, that hot August afternoon in 1981. Upon arriving at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina as a freshman, I was filled with both excitement and trepidation. Part of me relished my new environment and the challenges and opportunities that stood before me, but part of me yearned so desperately for the old ways, to be home again, back in Georgia, in Decatur, still in high school. As we pulled up to my new residence, the freshman dorm, Mom and Dad helped move me in. After a few trips from car to dorm, we finally emptied the station wagon. We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and finally it came time to say good-bye. It sure didn’t help that my mom started to cry: “My last child, my ‘baby,’ leaving home.” I bit my lip, fought back the tears, cleared the mist out of my eyes, and made like it wasn’t a big deal.
But it was. As my parents pulled away down the street, there was a part of me that wanted so much to run after that ugly green station wagon. There was part of me that wanted to cling to that security of knowing that Mom and Dad were always there for me, physically present. There was part of me that didn’t want to launch out into the big, bad world of college life. There was part of me that didn’t want more independence. But the problem was, Dad had already written that big, fat tuition check and turned it in. There was now no turning back. The time was now for me to begin an exciting, albeit scary and unknown, new chapter in my life.
In our scripture reading this morning, it is now time for the disciples to begin a new, exciting, scary, unknown chapter in their life as well, as they have to say good-bye not to Mom and Dad, but to their Lord. And their Lord disappears, not in a green station wagon down Main Street, Davidson, North Carolina, but rather in a cloud into the sky. As we say in the Apostles’ Creed, Jesus “ascended into heaven to the right hand of God the Father Almighty.”
Today is Ascension Sunday, which follows Ascension Thursday, which is precisely 40 days after Easter. As our scripture this morning suggests, Jesus was with his disciples for 40 days after being resurrected, presenting himself alive by many convincing proofs before ascending to heaven. Ascension Day is probably the most forgotten feast day of the church year. When you woke up this morning, did you go, “Woohoo, today is Ascension Sunday!”? Stupid question, isn’t it? After all, this is the day when the present Lord became absent. Who wants to celebrate being left behind? Who wants to mark the day that Jesus left this world never to be seen again? We want to celebrate God’s presence, not God’s absence. Let’s dig into this story and see if we can find a renewed appreciation for what today represents.
The resurrected Jesus was winding down his ministry preparing the disciples for his departure, but there had been no sudden diving intervention to overthrow the evil Roman empire, to set the people free, and to restore the kingdom of Israel. The disciples want to know when the fireworks are going to start. They still seem to miss the point about God’s kingdom.
But Jesus doesn’t give them knowledge, what they want. Jesus gives them something better, power—or really the promise of power. He tells them, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Their role in this coming new age was to be a witness, one who was in a unique position to tell the truth through observation and experience in some deeply important matter. The last instruction that the disciples receive from their Lord according to Luke was to be a witness, a truth-teller of the most significant act in human history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
With that last instruction, something truly amazing happens. Jesus suddenly is taken up into heaven Elijah-style, but with no fiery chariot. Just Jesus on a cloud, going, going, gone. One minute he’s here, the next he is not. Probably in utter silence, the disciples stand there gazing up with a sudden shiver in their souls. They look up, they look around, they rub their eyes, they look up again. There is collective “Oh, oh” coming forth from their lips. They are dazed and confused. They wonder what is going to happen next now that they are without their leader. Is he coming back? Or are they going to suddenly get wings and join him?
Suddenly in the midst of the silence, two angels appear, described as “two men in white robes.” They speak, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven.”
Now that does seem like a silly question to me. Wouldn’t you stand looking up toward heaven if you had seen Jesus rising in the clouds? Perhaps you remember another recent time when two men appeared in dazzling clothes who stood beside the women who had come to the tomb on Easter morning. Those men also had asked a question. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” It must have seemed an absurd question to the sorrowful women, for they had not come to the tomb looking for the living; they had come to anoint a body. It must have seemed like an absurd question to the disciples, why are you looking up?
But on deeper inspection, I don’t think this question is as dumb as it appears. I think the angels, in asking this question, were reminding God’s people that if they wanted to see Jesus again, it was no use looking up. Rather, they should look around instead—at each other, at the world, at ordinary people doing ordinary things. That is where they were most likely to find Jesus. As Barbara Brown Taylor has said, “not the way they used to know him, but the new way, not in his own body but in their bodies, the risen, the ascended Lord who was no longer anywhere on earth so that he could be everywhere instead.” The Lord is no longer anywhere on earth so that he could be everywhere instead. I love that, for Jesus now belongs to the ages.
The message here for those 11 disciples—and really the message for all of us here today—is stop looking up toward heaven. Look at each other, recognize that God’s power is in you, and get on with the business of the church. Be my witnesses, Jesus says. The invitation is to get to work. Yeah, first there is the need to wait and pray for God’s Spirit, and we see the disciples do that as they gather together with others, including Jesus’ mother and brothers, waiting and praying for the promise of God’s Spirit.
But you can’t sit around and twiddle your thumbs forever. Indeed there is always a place for rest and renewal, but you can’t always just gaze up to heaven. There comes a point where God’s people can actually trust that God’s Spirit is in them. Then they can follow the instruction to go and be about the business of God’s people: to preach and teach and heal and forgive and show compassion and be loving. Do the things that Jesus, your Master, your Lord, once did for you. You have been commissioned to carry on the work that your rabbi has taught you.
So in the end, the message I get is that Jesus leaves the future of his movement in the hands of his disciples. Apparently, he doesn’t feel a need to stick around to make sure they don’t screw it up. He’s out of there. Yes, we believe that he’s going to come again. But until that happens, all of Jesus’ disciples, including us here today, are called very simply to be witnesses by what we say and what we do, to tell the truth about the work of Jesus in our lives and in the world. That is the business of the church, and Jesus trusts that his followers can actually do it.
We need to believe in Jesus. We’ve heard that a lot in church, haven’t we? That’s a good thing. But perhaps even a better thing is that Jesus believes in me. Jesus believes in you. God has faith in us! And that is more than enough reason to celebrate Ascension Sunday!