Luke 24:44-53
Great Joy
05-20-12
(Warning rough draft ahead)
Children’s moments are precarious situations. You go in with a game plan, a direction, a
goal in mind and you pray that you will eventually get there. More times than not, something happens and
the conversation gets derailed with a random statement or question. But I do have to say my best Children’s
moment came in 2005. I know it was in
that year because it was it happened with one of my sermons I had to do for
ordination and it was caught on tape.
The topic was about pride and bragging. For the Children’s moment I was going to talk
being filled with the right things. I
gave the illustration about being filled with hot air and as I talked about
being filled with the wrong things I blew up a balloon. It got bigger and bigger and the kids were a
little giddy trying to figure out what would happen next. I said something along the lines of, “if we
fill ourselves up with the wrong things we cannot stay filled long.” Then I let the balloon go. It was suppose to simply fly around the
sanctuary and come to rest somewhere.
What it did instead was fly strait up in a circular manner and when it
was empty it came to rest in my hand that just let it go a couple of seconds
ago. All the kids looked at me in awe
and I couldn’t do that again to save my life.
That balloon demonstrated the fact that whatever goes up
must come down. Gravity holds us here on
earth so no matter how hard we try, as long as we are still on earth, we will
always come down. Whether you are a
balloon filled with the hot air of a preacher, a kid trying to fly off their
roof, a sky diver or even a rocket, if it stays on earth it will come down.
Today is Ascension Sunday and like I explained to the kids
this morning this is the day that Jesus ascended into heaven. To ascend is to head skyward, to move or
climb or rise in an upward motion. After
Jesus was resurrected he continued to join the disciples every so often and
help them along the way. He visited them
on a beach after a bad night fishing. He
visited them in an upper room a couple of times. But in this last visit with them, he gathers
his disciples close and gives them his final directions before he leaves earth
for his heavenly realm. Then he takes
them as far as Bethany and blesses them. While he is blessing them he is taken up to
heaven.
This is an interesting concept for our modern minds. We actually know what is up there. If you keep going up and up and up you will
reach space. Once you hit space you can
travel in any direction for trillions of light years and still be hitting ‘stuff’. So where is heaven in all that? We always look up when we talk about heaven
but that is because we grew up thinking that heaven is up and hell is
down. That kind of language is still in
our vernacular too. I like how a person
put in it one of the commentaries I read they week. Thomas Troeger said, “but I also think of the
persistence of up-ness. The direction ‘up’
may have left our cosmology, but it has never left our souls. Stand up for justice. Look up in hope. Pull yourself up. I am feeling up today. Look up at the stars. The sun is Up. Reach Up. Up you go, up in the sky so
blue. There is some resilience in the
heart, some spring in the soul, some reaching beyond and above that will not
dies, that will not go away, that keeps calling to us, that beckons us beyond
ourselves and in doing so gives us strength to live faithfully here and now.” When we think about where Jesus is now, where
it goes against what science and our telescopes have taught us, we constantly
look up.
This is Christ’s final act on earth; he departs from it
while blessing the disciples. I like
that because he doesn’t stop blessing and then leave. There isn’t a final close up shot on Jesus
who says some powerful last phrase and then ascends to heaven. The blessing continues all the way until he
disappears from their site. Like following
a balloon that was let go into the sky, the disciples stood there basking in
the glow of Jesus’ glory and blessing as he ascended. Then it was over and Jesus was gone.
This was a moment of transitional leadership. For three years Jesus had walked with these
disciples, told them what to do, taught them, prayed for and with them and now
his time on earth was over. It was up to
them to do God’s work. This had to be a
stressful time for the disciples or soon to be apostles. Their leader is now gone and the
responsibility has been placed solely on their shoulders. Their task is to transform the world and
share the love of God with everyone they meet.
Their true work was just beginning.
Jesus didn’t tell them to stand there with looking up
waiting for him to return. There are
those in this world that think that is exactly what it means to be a Christian
today. They constantly look up to heaven
and await the second coming. I
constantly pass a church sign that had the phrase “Prepare for heaven in 2011.” I thought it was a nice rhyme and I waited to
see what they would do after the new year.
Now it reads, “Prepare for heaven in 2012.” Not as great of a tone. But there are people, churches, and even
denomination that concentrate on the getting to heaven part of our faith. There is a time and place for that but
reading today’s scripture I don’t see it as the focus our faith. How can we think that when some of Jesus’
last words are “This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from
the dead on the third day, and a change of heart and life for the forgiveness
of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
With those words he doesn’t tell them to stand watch until
his return and do nothing. He is telling
them that they must go out and preach the Good News to ALL nations. That is a ton of work that is ahead of
them. I wonder what they weight of that
new reality felt like on their souls as Jesus ascended. Were they worried? Perplexed? Dumbfounded?
Gobsmacked? Where they
overwhelmed with this responsibility?
We did a passion play one year when I was in youth. I played a Roman soldier and Alycia was one
of the Mary’s following Jesus to the cross.
At the end of the production the person playing Jesus got into a cherry
picker and ascended to the ceiling. At
the very end as the music hit the crescendo, a button was pushed and up Jesus
went with white cloths covering the cherry picker’s support. It was pretty breathtaking but it was also
funny a little bit later. The stage
where this performance happened was did not have a curtain because it was the
place we worshiped every week. So after
about five minutes you heard the cherry picker make some noise and down came
Jesus from the ceiling. You remember,
whatever goes up, must come down.
In Jesus’ final monologue with the disciples he tells them
that he will not leave them stranded. He
says, “I’m sending to you what my Father promised, but you are to stay in the city
until you have been furnished with heavenly power.” He is sending something back down. Something with heavenly power to help them
with their job of transforming the world.
That something will come next week at the day of Pentecost. The day the Holy Spirit comes down to dwell
in this place. The same Holy Spirit that
is here right now in our midst. When
Jesus goes up the Holy Spirit comes down.
Jesus goes up [point up] and the Holy Spirit is sent down
[point down]…but for what? The work that
has to be done on this earth is what Jesus had been preparing them for. The work of telling to world about God’s love
and the joy that can happen when we follow God.
But to whom does that news go to?
Remember Jesus tells at the end of Matthew’s gospel when he talks about
the least of these in our world; the hungry, the lost, the broken, the blind
and…and…well…us. The disciples were to
go out to ALL Nations, every single one of them. That is why we are here today because the
news traveled half way around the world.
It went form the heart of the Middle East to the belt buckle of the
Bible Belt in the New World. It came to
a place called Thomasville and to the people who made up a church called
Trinity. That news, that wonderful news
of what God has done in this world and what can happen in your own life if you
decided to follow him came here because of what comes down.
Jesus goes up [point up] and the Holy Spirit is sent down
[point down] in order that we go out that way [point left] and that way [point
right]. Jesus goes up [point up] and the
Holy Spirit is sent down [point down] in order that we go out that way [point
left] and that way [point right]. [Do
the motion again but a little quicker to demonstrate the sign of the
cross] This is our purpose as a church and
as followers of Jesus Christ. It is the
blessing that has been laid upon our shoulders and one we need to carry.
Luke doesn’t end the story right there though. He goes on a little further and adds verses
52 and 53. He could have ended with
Jesus ascending up but he ends volume 1 of his story by saying these words, “They
worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem overwhelmed with joy. And they were continuously in the temple
praising God.” They heard their
task. They felt God’s blessing on their
lives and they were filled with the need to worship and were overwhelmed with
joy.
When is the last time you were overwhelmed with joy by the
grace of God? When is the last time you
felt the Holy Spirit knock you over that all you could do was smile. Last Sunday as we welcomed in six confirmands
and I had the privilege of baptizing two of them and then they helped
distribute the communion elements…I don’t know about you but that was pretty
powerful. Maybe for you it was during a
time of prayer, a time of reflection or a time of personal devotion. Maybe you were moved by a random act of
kindness or when you helped someone in need.
Another moment when I was struck by God’s grace was at this
year’s cross walk. This is an annual
event on Good Friday here in Thomasville when people walk from Memorial UMC
through downtown and to Brown New Calvary Baptist off of Doak Street. During this walk people have the chance to
carry the cross just as Jesus did. I was
moved this year because of a lady in a wheel chair. I thought is was great for her to go on this
walk with us but then when I saw this I was deeply moved. [picture]
Here you can see her carrying the cross.
In the midst of her brokenness she connected with Jesus who was deeply
broken when he carried the cross. This
is a moment I will remember always because look how powerful of an image. It didn’t feel me with dread or worry. It filled me with overwhelming joy, great joy.
It is moments like that which enable us to go out and serve
God like we should. It is the blessings
that we receive when we are doing God’s work that enable us keep going. It is when we are actively doing God’s work,
teaching children in Sunday School, leading Youth on a retreat or mission trip,
leading an adult Sunday School class or small group, or going out and helping
the least of these in this world that we are knocked over by God’s spirit and
filled with overwhelming joy. It is this
joy that drives us back to this place of worship to celebrate those moments and
continue to be fed by the God we worship and serve.
Today we recognize and remember the blessing in which Jesus
gave the disciples as he ascended to heaven.
It is the blessing of the one to come who will give us what we need to
transform the world. Jesus goes up
[point up] and the Holy Spirit is sent down [point down] in order that we go
out that way [point left] and that way [point right].
And all God’s people said.
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