May 20. 2012, Sunday After the
Ascension (2012), All Souls' Church
Jesus said, these things I speak
in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in
themselves.
Thursday of this past week marked
the fortieth day of Easter, and we celebrated the Feast
of the Ascension; we rejoiced and gave thanks that forty
days from Easter morning the resurrected Lord Jesus
Christ ascended to Heaven. Why do we rejoice over
Christ’s Ascension? Why do we celebrate his going away?
Understanding why we celebrate the Ascension requires
that we come to grips with the fact that in the Gospels
our Lord Jesus makes statements about all this which on
the surface seem contradictory. On the one hand he spoke
frankly and openly about his leaving. He tells the
disciples in no uncertain terms that he is going away,
and hearing him say this upsets them for obvious
reasons. Jesus also tells his disciples that he will
neither leave them nor forsake them, and that he will be
with them always (and alway), all the time and all the
way to the end of days. So which is it? Is he leaving
his disciples or is he with them forever? The answer is
‘both.’
The resurrection is not simply a
return to life lived at this finite level, subject to
the cycles of birth and death; it is a transcending of
this form to the realm of spirit, the very cause and
substance of all creation. The disciples focus on their
earthly vision; they see him in the flesh, and yet they
must be weaned from their trust in the flesh and seek
those things which are above where Christ is enthroned
on the right hand of God. In the removal of his bodily
presence by ascending we receive his promise of the
divine presence of God the Holy Spirit. In God the Holy
Spirit we find ourselves blessed by his transcendence in
which he is with us all the time and forever, and by his
immanence in which, as St. Augustine puts it, he is
closer to us than we to ourselves. The “going away” and
“leaving” to which Christ refers has to do with the
removal of his fleshly presence which disciples can
appreciate only at one time or another in one place
or another. We rejoice in his ascension and
celebrate it because his leaving means the coming of the
comforter, God the Holy Spirit; God himself “makes his
abode” with us; we in him and he in us forever. And so
we rejoice.
We rejoice in the Ascension of
our Lord because his ‘going away’ and ‘leaving’ is
spoken of as a lifting up to Heaven of a man named Jesus
of Nazareth, the son of Mary, who ascends as the Christ,
the Son of God. The ascending of our humanity in Christ
tells us that nothing of lasting and eternal worth is
ever lost to us. God’s grace does not destroy our nature
but perfects it in Christ so that in Heaven we are once
and for all truly ourselves. ‘Ascending in heart and
mind’ means that we no longer confuse our real, eternal
nature with the storylines we keep making up; we follow
Christ in newness of life to perfect union and communion
with God.
What does it mean for us here and
now to do what our prayers in the Prayer Book tell us to
do, and rise with Christ in new and eternal
life and ascend to Heaven with Christ in heart
and mind? How do we do that? The short answer is
that we can’t, but the Good News is that God brings this
about in us inasmuch as we have died and been reborn as
new creatures in Christ. And let us be crystal clear
about something important; ‘ascending in heart and mind’
has nothing to do with running away; nothing to do with
being distant, aloof, and unconnected. That’s just
another fearful strategy of avoidance. ‘Ascending in
heart and mind’ means to live in union and communion
with God; it means to rest in the joy and peace and love
that is the true and eternal nature of a soul created in
God’s “own image and likeness.” What we must remember is
that ‘love’, ‘joy’, and ‘peace’ are not emotions,
momentary and fleeting; they are not temporary states of
being. ‘Love’ and ‘joy’ and ‘peace’ are the words we use
to describe the condition in which emotions arise and
fall and states of being come and go.
Remember how Saints Paul and Silas,
locked in a cold, dark, prison dungeon, sang grateful
hymns of praise at midnight, and greeted a brand new day
with a joy which no-body and no-thing could ever take
from them? What if we responded to every situation like
they did? Wouldn’t this turn the world upside down? What
would it be like to no longer feel as if you were at the
mercy of strong emotions and persistent fear; to have
all the usual feelings appropriate to various situations
in life but instead of dwelling on them, to quickly
return to a loving, joyful peace which you now recognize
as your ‘new normal’? Just imagine if you responded to
every crisis no matter how rough and stormy with the
love that casts out fear? Holy Scripture calls ‘joy’,
‘love’, and ‘peace’ fruit of the Spirit, the
fruit of God inspiring us. Imagine beginning every
relationship already filled with the Holy Spirit of God
in love and joy and peace, not requiring that anyone or
anything provide these for you. Imagine bringing that
to your marriage. Imagine being a blessing to your
family and friends and all your loved ones not by being
on some spiritual trip or any kind of emotional high but
by living day by day with a deep and abiding calm,
secure in the love of God. This is the gift of God the
Holy Spirit. He brings us to fullness of life in Christ.
Ascending in heart and mind with Christ in this manner
allows us to be more in touch with the way life actually
is, no longer frightened to get up close and personal.
Instead of running away from our feelings and our
deepest fears, ‘ascending in heart and mind’ allows us
to examine them as they gradually lose their force and
apparent solidity.
Finally, we rejoice in the
Ascension of Christ because in his ascension we
recognize his rule over us. He is our King. Today, as
his loyal subjects, we renounce any and all plans to be
the leader of our own life, the director of our own
play. We already have a leader and he is Christ our
King. He directs us. Today we renounce all allegiance to
anything foreign to the Reign of Christ, to arrogance,
greed, selfishness, and all false idols. Today we
renounce all bucket lists. You see, it’s not about ‘us’
anymore and the stuff we invent in the hopes of ‘feeling
fulfilled.’ Instead, it turns out that our schedule is
full; every hour of every day from this day forth is
about glorifying God in Christ our King. This is how we
live as God’s children by adoption and grace. This is
how we realize his joy fulfilled in us.
