What will you do?\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine that you were there for the Lord’s Ascension.\u00c2\u00a0 You are there as one of the Apostles.\u00c2\u00a0 Before your very eyes, this man whom you had come to love and depend on, who suffered and died a horrible death; and then, in the middle of a desperate feeling of depression three days later, when you felt abandoned, and confused, and without hope; you saw him resurrected in body, eating and talking with you.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow.\u00c2\u00a0 And this goes on for 40 days, this Easter experience.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
But now, after the 40 days, he tells you that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem”.\u00c2\u00a0 Then he tells you that you are witnesses to all of that.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t mean that you were there for it, although as an Apostle, you surely would have been that kind of witness.\u00c2\u00a0 No, what he means is that you are to witness to all of that, meaning you are to give testimony to what happened.\u00c2\u00a0 You are the one being asked to proclaim what happened.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, you are to be the person who proclaims the message of repentance beginning in Jerusalem.\u00c2\u00a0 You, as a party to all of what happened, are called to be that kind of witness- just think about that.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then, even before all of that could sink in your mind,\u00c2\u00a0 He takes you out to a neighborhood hill overlooking a garden valley, and while he is blessing you, He parts from you.\u00c2\u00a0 Parts from you- what does that mean?\u00c2\u00a0 The reading from Acts, also authored by St. Luke but later, says that he was lifted up and disappeared from them in a cloud.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not what Luke’s Gospel says.\u00c2\u00a0 It says that He “parted” from them.\u00c2\u00a0 It is as if He vanished from them- poof- right in the middle of the blessing, just as he did to the two Emmaus brothers in Luke’s earlier story.\u00c2\u00a0 How would you feel if you experienced all that?\u00c2\u00a0 What will you do?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some 2000 years later, all of us hearing this story of the Ascension in the pews this morning, can hear the story of the Ascension one of several ways.\u00c2\u00a0 First, you can hear the story of the Ascension as a detached critical observer.\u00c2\u00a0 That means you hear it like any other old story from history- something that is quite a yarn, and something that you hope is true, but deep down- you need more proof.\u00c2\u00a0 You will just have to wait and see, maintaining all your options.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
A second way you can hear the story is in your head, in which case, the Ascension story is something you decide to believe in, something that becomes part of your “faith”.\u00c2\u00a0 That means that you believe that God, in the person of Jesus, took on our nature and became human, that Jesus underwent suffering and death, then was Resurrected, and finally ascended into heaven.\u00c2\u00a0 Theologically, that means that God came very close to us for a while, close enough for some people that lived at the time to see and touch God.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, He \u00c2\u00a0went back to God in heaven.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow! Isn’t that awesome, the one God dwelt amongst us as one of our own.\u00c2\u00a0 God who is the creator of everything, was that close to us.\u00c2\u00a0 That, in itself is a mind numbing piece of knowledge for those who believe.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fact that God so loved us that he came close to us is unique to our Christian Faith.\u00c2\u00a0 It is not something that Jews or Moslems or Hindus or Oriental Faiths believe that God would or could do.\u00c2\u00a0 It is unique to Christianity; we call this the Immanence of God.\u00c2\u00a0 Other faiths believe that God is so immeasurably greater than us that there is, and always will be, a separation between us, called a “Transcendence”- and so God Transcends us.\u00c2\u00a0 The Ascension shows us both the Immanence and the Transcendence of God- it is the transition from Immanence to Transcendence that we witness in the Ascension story today.\u00c2\u00a0 And that is all very good for us to understand with our heads.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there is a third way to hear the story of the Ascension- with our hearts.\u00c2\u00a0 As we come to realize the full revelation of the mystery of God, the simultaneous Immanence and Transcendence of God, we can feel that in our hearts.\u00c2\u00a0 It is a feeling of tremendous Joy, the joy of knowing that we are that close to the one true God who is also so far above us.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the Apostles realized in the Gospel.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only did they experience the story of the Ascension with their minds, but they also experienced it with their hearts. And that’s why they did him homage, returned to Jerusalem, and continually praised Him in the temple.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the Apostles realized that if God was that close to them, and also infinite in power, then nothing, absolutely nothing, could harm them.\u00c2\u00a0 They trusted in the God that they experienced, no matter what.\u00c2\u00a0 They trusted Him so much that they went into the Temple where Jesus had been hauled before a tribunal for Trial and conviction and execution.\u00c2\u00a0 They were no longer afraid of anything like that, but rather, were ready to be the witnesses He had called them to be.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you heard the story of the Ascension with your heart today, then you, too, can experience the joy of complete trust in God, and be His witness here and now, 2000 years later. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Next week, the Church celebrates Pentecost, when the energy, the life force, the inspiration, and the strength to follow through on your joy will be given to you.\u00c2\u00a0 As the Apostles received the Holy Spirit, then when we are armed with the Holy Spirit, we, who trust in God’s will for us, can all do great things. We do this as we witness for Him in this cold, secular, and increasingly Godless world-\u00c2\u00a0 wherever we work; we shop; we go to school; we play; we vote; we talk; and we walk.\u00c2\u00a0 We can be His witnesses, witnesses to the truth of Christianity, preaching the repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His name, by what we do and say.<\/p>\n
What will you do?\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ascension Sunday Acts 1: 1-11; Heb 9: 24-28; 10: 19-23; Luke 24: 46-53 Dc. Larry Brockman What will you do?\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine that you were there for the Lord’s Ascension.\u00c2\u00a0 You are there as one of the Apostles.\u00c2\u00a0 Before your very eyes, this man whom you had come to love and depend on, who suffered and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}