Sermon: Ascension Day Eucharist

Preacher:

Date:

Thursday 9th May 2013

Service:

Ascension Day Eucharist

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seemed filled with intent
to be lost that their lost is no disaster.

In her poem 'One Art', Elizabeth Bishop confronts the reality of loss in human life.  Her words speak of the inevitability of loss – of door keys and wasted time, of a mother's watch and realms of dreams, even of the joking voice, a gesture I love.  And yet, there is poignancy and a tentative hopefulness about her words.

It's evident
the art of losing isn't hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Endings and loss are woven into the tapestry of our lives.  Bereavement is painful; times of transition can be hard to handle.  A radical change of circumstances and thwarted dreams or expectations may often feel like disaster.  Times of transition can feel us with dread, or with excitement, depending on our temperament and concerns; the morning after an event we’ve planned for and looked forward to we sometimes feel a little flat or disappointed.  Within the scope of such responses and fears, we find ways to rejoice what has been, and see in what lies ahead the seeds of something new.

Our Eastertide celebrations culminate in the feast of the Ascension - a festival which is in a one way about endings and loss as the risen Lord is taken from the disciples' sight. Ascension is also about expectation and new beginnings:  the disciples return to Jerusalem to join with other men and women in prayer and worship as they await the coming of the Holy Spirit. The tension between the human emotions of confusion and expectation is summed up in the question:    Why do you stand looking up towards heaven?  

It is a normal human reaction. As Jesus is taken from their sight, the disciples gaze upwards – in denial, wonder and confusion.  For all its strangeness, this episode, retold in Luke and Acts, has continuing significance for our own journey of discipleship as it speaks into our own situations of loss and transition.

During the forty days of Eastertide, the risen Christ met his disciples in the midst of their doubt and sorrow, and revealed to them the way in which his suffering and resurrection Jesus fulfills the law, prophets and psalms. He opens their minds to the meaning of Scripture and encounters them in the breaking of bread.  Jesus' ascension to the Father, we mark an important transformation:  the dying king, the risen prince of peace, becomes lord of all the world. 

The moment of Jesus' departure is a moment of completion.  As he withdraws and returns to his Father, Jesus extends a blessing to his followers, and also entrusts them with his promise for the future.   When I was a theological college, our Ascension Day service took place in the college garden and culminated in sending up several fireworks.  This wasn't just a frivolous token, but something that speaks to us of the awe and excitement of Ascension. Our eyes were drawn upwards in the delight of oohs and ahhs; but we were also called back to a time of waiting; a time of uncertainty and expectation.  The disciples were entrusted with a promise and a challenge, and so are we.

Jesus speaks to the disciples about God’s Kingdom which they too are called to proclaim:  A kingdom of peace and justice; a kingdom grounded in repentance and forgiveness; a kingdom of promise.  That promise depends upon the conjunction of divine and human will.  It is God’s will that his loving and forgiveness should reach the ends of the earth.  The disciples are called to proclaim his message amidst all nations.  But first they are told to wait for the fulfillment of a promise: for the coming of the power from on high.

Jesus must withdraw for the promise to be fulfilled. The disciples, gazing upwards, witness something that is dazzling and extraordinary.  In the midst of expectation and change we might feel a mixture of bewilderment and wonder. We are caught up in our own compelling reality – reminiscing about the past; holding on to what is familiar to us now; or imagining a different future.  But in the face of transition and expectation, we are called to wait with patience and impatience along with the disciples to receive his Spirit. 

We also wait for his gift to us that we may grow in obedient and joyful service.  We are called to worship him and we are called to bear witness to him.  That means we are to re-direct our gaze to the opportunity and challenges that lie ahead of us.

It is right that we should be attentive to the dazzling brightness of divine light, wherever we glimpse it in worship, in moments of stillness or delight, for it is compelling and transforming.   We are also to be attentive to that light, refracted as my late supervisor once wrote as a band of colour in the world, where we see God’s love at work in the violets and oranges of our own context.  Canon Andrew this morning drew our attention to the blinding light that floods the Lady Chapel at particular times of day; and to the adjustment our eyes have to make when we look down and take in the space and one another. That double attention is forms the pattern of our Christian discipleship.

Through his absence the risen and ascended Lord promises to be present to us in new and transforming ways.  Christ’s presence is not restricted to one place, to one point in time.  He promises himself to us.  He promises to meet us in the Eucharist, when ordinary bread and wine become for us the body and blood of Christ, by the power of the Spirit. Here earth and heaven are drawn together; here we are nourished with the bread of heaven.  We are repeatedly called to receive this inexhaustible gift. Here a promise is fulfilled.   We become Christ’s body that we may proclaim his name, his justice, peace, repentance, forgiveness and joy.  It is a task to which we are called in faith, hope and love.  It is an awesome task.

But tonight, let us acknowledge our fears, our hopes; the excitements and uncertainty of what lies ahead.  And let us commit ourselves afresh to pray for wisdom and insight to respond to all that lies ahead in faith and hope and love.  In these days between Ascension and Pentecost we have an opportunity to pray together day by day using the order of service available at the west end or online; praying that we might fulfill the objectives of our mission and vision, and for Dianna as she prepares to join us as Dean in September. 

We need the gifts of the Spirit to build up the Kingdom; to do his will on earth we must set our hearts and minds on our Lord in heaven. Becoming what we are called to be – the church, his body, the fullness of him who is all in all.  Just as God, in Jesus took on the fullness of our humanity; so in the risen and ascended Lord, our humanity is brought into the nearer presence of God.

The art of losing is a recurrent dimension of human experience.  Loss and change feels like a disaster because it is bound up with all our human hopes and our human loves.  And yet the Ascension reveals to us that we do not bear loss on our own.  As St. Augustine writes:

Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body have to bear... Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him! While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him.  He is with us by his divinity, his power and his love.