Sermon for May 17, the Ascension

Acts 1:1-11

In the first book, Theophilus, I 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. 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; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."So when they had come together, 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. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."'

The message

Our first reading this morning was the opening verses of the book of Acts (short for the Acts of the Apostles).  This biblical book tells the story of the church in its early days. It begins with the Ascension, which we celebrate today, when Jesus is taken up into heaven, 40 days after the Easter resurrection.  After this, the next big event in Acts is Pentecost, which we will celebrate next week, when the promised Holy Spirit comes to Jesus followers to prepare and equip them for ministry.  Throughout the rest of the book, Acts focuses on the work of Jesus followers.  We hear the reports of events that include:  Paul’s conversion and missionary journeys across the known world, the disciples preaching and baptizing large groups of new believers,  the debates and decisions made about how to be church and who to include, the signs of power and miracles performed by Jesus followers, and the sermons, speeches, conversations and service of new followers like Lydia.  Acts is filled with remarkable, faithful people who give up their lives, comforts and social status to do brave and risky things. All of these actions are done in order to tell the world, Christ is Risen from the dead for the forgiveness of our sins and let people know God wants us to live a better way.  

In some ways, it is easy to think of the book of Acts as a comic book or movie, a story of heroes, people with superpowers and supernatural abilities who overcome great obstacles and do incredible things like raise the dead, heal the sick, walk through walls to escape imprisonment, survive shipwrecks, and endure great persecutions. We are tempted to think of them as somehow different from us.  The true wonder of Acts is that, while these great saints of the church lived lives of faith and example for us, they weren’t anything special. They were not the holiest people in the world, they did not have magic abilities, and they did not spend their whole lives preparing for the work they would do.  Jesus followers were all different.  They were rich, poor, and in-between, they were highly educated, a little educated or unschooled, they were powerful, weak or completely irrelevant, they were young, middle aged or old, life time believers, marginally faithful or doubters, and they were strong, healthy, or sick.  God calls each of them to work, witness and love.  Jesus first followers really only had 3 things in common,

1-      they saw, heard and experienced that Christ is Risen from the dead

2-      They took on the responsibility to go and tell the others,

3-      They could do nothing without God   

Those reasons are why the book of Acts begins the way it does, those first words are necessary for us to understand that the entire book is not the story of superheroes, it is the story of what any person can do when they embrace God’s grace and God’s gifts.  Acts begins:

In the first book,  Theophilus,  I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up into heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he chosen

In this sentence, the first book refers to the Gospel of Luke (which had the same author as Acts, which most people believe was Luke, a physician and traveling companion of Paul. Theophilus,  is a person’s name and most people believe he is the patron of Luke, who supported him while he wrote these books.  After this introduction, Luke goes on to remind the reader of all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the ascension. This is not just a transitional sentence to connect these two books. Luke wants to make sure the readers do not think of Acts as a book about people who do great things.  He wants his audience to read acts knowing that it is connected to the Gospel, to the story of Jesus life, death and resurrection, Luke wants the readers to know everything that happens in the next 28 chapters of Acts, all of the wondrous deeds were God’s work and our hands (to use the phrase our ELCA has been circulating for the past few years).  Acts was not about them, it was about the Gospel.  It was not about superheroes, it was about the power of God to act in the world through people just like us. 

Like the women and men in the book of Acts, we have been touched by the same Spirit and power, heard the same promises, been saved by the same grace, and received the same gifts.  I  often ask myself, what am I or what are we doing with these awesome things and then I often get scared or depressed.  

This week, we had a short prayer service after a meeting of church leaders on Tuesday.  I didn’t really want to go to the service since I was hungry and still not feeling great but my sense of obligation got me upstairs to the chapel. Of course, I have learned that when I do not want to do something and drag myself to it anyway, it often turns out to be an important experience. The service was the corporate confession and forgiveness (it is in our red hymnal but I have never honestly seen it before). One of the lines in the service struck me, this group including the bishop, well known pastors, and leaders of the church gathered together and asked forgiveness for various things including “for idleness in witnessing to Jesus Christ and for squandering the gifts of love and grace”.    

I do not want to be too negative this morning, to get caught up in all those moments of idleness in witness and squander of grace, to be stopped by the past.  We cannot forget that those moments are forgiven (after all it was not just a service of confession, at the end we are reminded that “in the name of Jesus Christ, your sins, the idleness, squander and everything else, are all forgiven”)

With that said, perhaps the better question to ask is looking forward and challenging. We need to ask ourselves “What will we do with the gifts that God has given us”. It is the Ascension today and we are reminded that Jesus entrusts us, with all our anxieties, hopes, failures, triumphs, struggles and celebrations with being witnesses to God’s love in our words and deeds.  Next week, we celebrate Pentecost, we will be given a much needed reminder that the Holy Spirit will be with us in this work.