Year B - Feast of the Ascension, May 9, 2024
The Ascension
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, eternally begotten of the Father… Through him all things were made… he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary… For our sake he was crucified… he suffered death and was buried… On the third day he rose again… he ascended into heaven… and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
Our feast this evening is a treasured event in our Christian understanding of the life of our Savior: Jesus was elevated to the Kingdom of God at Ascension as coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial in the Godhead. Inspired by the descriptions in scripture, artists have for centuries depicted this mystical grandeur with a crowd of robed men staring at a figure dangling in midair. Some images are stunning rivaling the Resurrection frescoes. In other works of art the disciples stare up at a pair of dangling feet with nail wounds – not as stunning. Then we have the more modern representations of the Ascension in film or animation that are more like Peter Pan zipping off to Never-neverland than mystical grandeur. After decades of human space travel a figure dangling midair isn’t inherently impressive.
We live in a cosmic age. The sun does not rise and set, rather our planet turns so depending on where you are on earth you face the sun or not. We know the moon does not glow, but reflects the light of our star. How do you preach about the Ascension in a reality that has no up or down? You cannot go up to heaven. You can move away from the surface of the earth past our atmosphere in between planets, comets and stars, but not into heaven. Nature does not end at the edge of earth’s atmosphere, nor does our Savior.
Science has given us knowledge of God’s good creation that demands we release the limiting concept of bidirectional orientation. To find my place in the universe I must use more than up, down, right, or left. Even the cardinal direction points of north, east, west and south don’t catch our location in relationship to the universe. We may be the Midwest according to New York, but Los Angeles or Honolulu may disagree. Human beings are not the center of Creation, the entire universe is the center of Creation. We exist in three-dimensional relationship to all matter and energy.
All things are anchored in their place in the universe by the gravitational push and pull of other things. We are adrift without the cosmos around us because there is no fixed, immovable location. The only reliable constant if which we are aware is the speed of light.
Our worldview scientific, theological, geographical, and spiritual must become cosmic. The Ascension event understood in the context of all that is, seen and unseen, helps us place our existence in better relationship to the Gracious Trinity. Jesus Christ winked out of this tangible, limited reality...and INTO the infinite existence of his divinity.
We remain finite and immersed in a Creation fraught with atrophy and instability, societies of sin and violence. It is miraculous this universe doesn’t just fly apart into a googolplex of pieces destroying each other in chaos; and miraculous humanity hasn’t destroy itself. Creation is in constant need of cohesion and renewal. Human beings are in constant need of repentance and hope.
Science is revelation from the Holy Trinity. It expands our capacity to embrace the character of God. Fourteen billion years ago the Godhead spoke the Eternal Word through whom all things came to be. Order was established by racing speed of light photons and cohesion accomplished in dynamic gravitational power. It is wonderful to behold.
Two thousand years ago Christ ascended from our mortal grasp, yes. For our salvation he came. He was crucified. He suffered death and was buried. He rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory and his kingdom will have no end.
Christ transcended the fear and violence of human frailty by departing the Created order. He liberates us from our finite experience. Be wary of rigidity in faith and the temptation of isolated perspective. Like quantum particles and astronomical bodies, flowing light is our stability and interdependence is our strength.
We shed Christ’s light into a world of despair and God’s love to heal our brokenness: come Holy Spirit and bring us peace.
Amen.
Dean Vanessa Clark+