God's Goings and Comings
Acts 1:1-11
by Jim Westmoreland
Today is the seventh Sunday of Eastertide, the season following Easter. In fact, it is not only the seventh Sunday, it is the last Sunday of the Easter season. This past Thursday was a very important day in the life of the Church, but it quietly passed and was unrecognized by most for its significance. This past Thursday was Ascension Day, and we celebrate it today as Ascension Sunday.
Listen to the story of these dramatic and life-changing events. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts in the New Testament were both written by the same author, Luke. Luke tells us as he begins the book of Acts that he "wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen."
Just before Jesus left them, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But 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." When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
The Ascension is a challenge to us. It does not fit into our world view. If you don't believe me, try explaining it to a child or young person who has grown up in a world that has always had space exploration. There has always been someone living on a space station circling the earth. The fact that we sent someone to the moon 36 years ago in 1969 is ancient history. We have sent space probes to Mars and to Jupiter. We have a telescope circling the earth in space that is probing and seeing farther into the universe than we have ever seen before.
To say that Jesus was lifted up into the upper atmosphere on his way to heaven by a cloud creates a real conflict with our knowledge of the universe. So, here I must stop to affirm that, in all of God's goings and comings as he has revealed himself to us since creation, that he reveals himself within our world view. All of our attempts to describe our experience of God are within our world view. We can only use language and images that we know to try to describe our experiences. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, "Now, we see through a glass darkly. . ."
On the retreat last weekend with the West Area Youth I spoke about growing in Christ as the daily process of giving as much of ourselves as we know to as much of Christ as we know. We can do no more, but, each day reveals more about who we are and more about who Christ is so that we keep giving ourselves to him in new ways every day.
God, who had revealed himself in the flesh as Jesus, teaching love and forgiveness as well as the consequences of sin, who died a death of crucifixion because of our sins and who rose from death to reveal himself as a victor over our human limits of death, brings an end to his physical appearances on earth. We will no longer see him. There is no way of going back to a pre-resurrection way of seeing Jesus or being with him. Everything is different now.
Right after World War II, a U.S. Army officer and his wife were stationed in Japan. That country had been devastated by the war. The post-war economy was in shambles. Unemployment approached 60%. People came to the Army wife's door daily looking for work. One man said that he could do wonders for her garden if she would only give him a chance. So, for the first time in her life, this young Army wife hired a gardener. He spoke no English, but the wife, through sign language and pencil and paper gave him instructions about where to plant, prune, and pamper her garden. He listened politely and followed her instructions exactly. The garden emerged as the finest in the neighborhood.
When she finally realized that her new gardener knew far more about the matter than she, the wife stopped giving him directions and let him freely care for the garden. It was magnificent. Then one day the gardener came with an interpreter who expressed the appreciation but the regrets of the gardener. "He will no longer be able to care for your garden. He must leave."
The wife expressed her regrets and thanked him through the interpreter for making hers such a fine garden. Out of politeness, she asked the interpreter, "Where is he going?"
The interpreter replied that the gardener was returning to his old job as the Professor of Horticulture at the University of Tokyo. I can imagine, can't you, the look that must have been on that Army wife's face when she discovered, that her gardener was the university professor of horticulture. No wonder he knew so much about gardening.(1)
When Jesus was with us, we hardly knew who he was. It was really only after he was gone that we began to understand more fully who he was and is. David Wood, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gardiner, Maine, wrote, "The Ascension does not signify a withdrawal of Divine energy or presence. Rather, it was the expansion and unleashing of Divine power in and across time and space. The Ascension is not an ending but a beginning. It is the foreshadowing of a new engagement between Heaven and earth, between God and humankind."(2) The ascended Christ moves beyond our categories of time and space and returns to the realm of the infinite, the eternal, the indescribable--the realm where God is--heaven.
Since creation God has been revealing himself to us. We perceive our experiences of his revelations to us as his "goings and comings." I would argue that God does not turn on and off his desire to reveal himself to us, which then looks like he comes and goes. But rather, God has always been revealing himself to us and our willingness to listen and receive his revelation is what comes and goes!
Some native American tribes talk about the surface of the earth as the place where the sky kisses the earth. In this way of conceiving things, when we walk upon the surface of the earth, we are not walking on top of the earth. Rather, we are walking on the bottom of the sky.(3)
For the Disciples, the Ascension signaled the nearness of Heaven, not its distance or remoteness. Jesus was lost from their sight. But they were not lost from his presence. In Christ, heaven had become near and now the promise was that it would be near to them wherever they were. The presence of Jesus now transcended the limitations of time and space. And, one day, time as we know it will come to an end when Christ comes again.(4) The Second Coming of Jesus means that there is a purpose to life and that there is an end point for history. It was an argument against a cyclical view of history held by the Greeks, and it stands against the view that says the world is eternal.
The early Christians felt that Jesus could return at any time, and most felt that Christ would return in their lifetime. They had been given a job to do and that was to be witnesses for Christ to the ends of the earth. Through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit they would continue to know the goings and comings of the Spirit of God.
The great concert pianist, Paderewski, was performing and a mother decided to take her young son to hear him play. Perhaps, this would encourage him in his beginning efforts to learn the piano. Soon after they got to the concert hall, the mother was visiting with a friend and the young boy slipped away to explore. He eventually found his way to and through a door marked, "No admittance."
When the houselights dimmed, the mother realized that her son
was gone. As she frantically began to search for him, the hall
went dark, the stage curtains parted and the spotlights
highlighted the elegant Steinway piano at center stage. And
there, to both her relief and horror, sat her son on the piano's
bench, seemingly oblivious to everything, completely absorbed
in his effort to pick his way through "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little
Star."
Then, Paderewski, the great piano master made his grand
entrance onto the stage. Instead of a burst of applause, there
was a collective gasp and then silence . . . and the sound of a
child picking his way through "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
There was a brief moment while Paderewski took in the scene.
Then, without hesitation, he moved to the piano and took his
seat beside the boy, who was still playing. Paderewski
whispered to the boy, "Keep playing." The audience sat in
stunned silence as Paderewski reached his left arm around
behind the boy, reached out to his right and began playing
behind and alongside, creating a masterpiece out of child's play.
Picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is about as sophisticated and accomplished as our performance of witnessing to the presence of the Kingdom gets. But He whispers in our ear, and we play, and we remember that we are not alone. Through his Spirit, he is with us always, and he will not leave us!
Century Christian Church, May 8, 2005 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
1. Brett Blair, "Why Do You Stand Looking Into the Sky?", eSermons.com, May 8, 2005
2. David J. Wood, "The Thrust of the Ascension," Biblical Preaching Journal, Spring 2005, p. 20.
3. Ibid
4. Ibid