Ascension

      “Hey! You have the stick!”

      When I was working at the Presbyterian Church in Penn Yan several interims back, there were a bunch of pilots (actually the Penn Yan airport has a lot of aviation instruction and has for decades; the other end of the lake, Hammondsport, was where Glenn Curtiss developed his seaplanes, after all), all of whom loved telling stories.  One guy remembers during his WWII training the flight instructor suddenly let go of the controls, putting his hands up where the trainee could see them, and barking, “You have the stick!  Now fly!”

      It’s one of the underappreciated observances of the church year: Ascension Day.  Although you may find a number of Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic and a few Lutheran churches with “Ascension” in there names, Mainline Protestants don’t really do much with it.  Sure, we say in the Apostles’ Creed, “and [Jesus] ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” but mostly we consider the “ascent” just a way to get Jesus into heaven, rarely giving it any holy significance.  Part of the problem is that it sits in that overlooked section of the church year between Easter and Pentecost.  Most of us are in that “spring crunch” with work or school (worse in a university town), and when we get more sporadic in our worship attendance after Easter.  Part of the problem is that it is calculated as 40 days after Easter, which you may notice is not divisible by 7, so it floats during the week instead of always being on a Sunday (like Epiphany).  So Ascension kinda drops off our screens.

      But Jesus has actually been pretty busy since Easter.  He has been appearing to his followers all through the month and a half; some of those appearances pretty spectacular, like with Thomas and Jesus’ wounds, like the road to Emmaus, like meals on the beach with his fishing disciples.  But there seem to be others ordinary enough that the Gospel writer just summarizes “After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”  I imagine it was a kinda weird time for the disciples, because he was hinting about somehow going away even then.  What happens next?  Pentecost happens next.  The Holy Spirit which Jesus promises the church will descend upon the disciples in the upper room, firing them up and inspiring them on Pentecost.  Next week.

      But that’s not where the disciples are this week, on Ascension Sunday.

      All of the sudden, Jesus lets go of the controls, tells the disciples, “You have it now.  Now fly!” and not just letting go but disappearing on them!  He arcs out into the clouds like on an ejection seat, leaving the disciples dumbfounded and disoriented.  Just what were they supposed to do now?

      Sure, most of the famous paintings and most of the stained glass windows I’ve seen depict Jesus floating up on clouds with his robes swirling artistically, and you imagine the disciples looking longingly and piously at him as he slowly and silently floats out of sight.

      But I think the disciples were as totally freaked out by Jesus up and leaving them as if their teacher hit the button and jettisons them, rocketing out of the plane, leaving them trying to fly without warning and without as much preparation as they were expecting.  What if the paintings are wrong about a pious slow-motion ascent?  What happens if it the Ascension was actually high-speed?  All of the sudden, Jesus is gone, and they are piloting the church.

      It’s time to fly.

      And it’s time for First Congregational to grab the controls and fly.


                                                                                             In Christ,
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    David

 
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Texts For Sunday Worship: 
      From the Acts of the Apostles      Acts 1:1-11
      From the Gospels                         Luke 24:44-53