Acts 1:1-11
Matthew 28:16-20
When we last encountered the disciples, they were trying to figure out the meaning of the resurrection.
Mary, the first to encounter the risen Christ, was puzzled, and at first mistook Jesus for a gardener. After Jesus spoke to her, she ran and told the others, “I have seen the Lord!”
Of course, the male disciples, upon hearing such news from a woman, dismissed it as an idle tale.
Two other followers of Jesus had their eyes opened and recognized the risen Jesus when he took some bread, blessed, broke, and gave it to them.
After Jesus appeared to many of his fearful followers, he also came to Thomas, showing his wounded hands.
The he came to Peter and others on the beach, cooking breakfast for them and charging Peter: “Feed my sheep.”
That is the story so far.
And it is a wonderful story.
It is so wonderful that when we tell it, we accompany it with brass and drums and large choirs singing “Alleluia!” It is so wonderful that we tell it not just on Easter Sunday but for weeks following. For fifty days—over the course of seven Sundays—we begin our worship reminding one another that Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed. It might not always look that way in our lives or in our world, but we have enough faith in this reality that we announce it again and again.
The story so far is a wonderful story.
And now, today, on this last Sunday in the season of Easter, we come to something different.
The followers of Jesus gather and he is “lifted up”—taken out of their sight.
We call this the “Ascension.”
And we don’t make a big deal about it. Actually, “Ascension Day” is marked 40 days after Easter, so it always falls on a Thursday—but would you come here on a Thursday to celebrate the Ascension? Anybody? I didn’t think so.
We don’t make a big deal about the Ascension. But perhaps we should. Perhaps on that Thursday or this Sunday we should once again sound the trumpets and beat the drums and raise our glad “Alleluias”—because on this day we begin the rest of the story.
And it begins this way: Jesus is not present.
We are the ones who must continue the story. We are the ones who must say what happens next. We are the ones to write the next chapter.
It kind of like those “Choose your own adventure” books. Do you know about these from your children or grandchildren? At the end of a chapter, the reader is told, “If you want the characters to do this, turn to page 57. If you want the characters to do that, turn to page 23.” The story is different depending on where you turn. The book changes each time it is read.
In a sense, the Bible is a kind of “choose your own adventure” book.
We read about God creating the world and calling it good. And we are told, “If you want to care for creation, go and plant a tree, or advocate for stronger standards for clean air and water, or support efforts to reduce carbon emissions, or make sure that the truth about climate change is not obscured for political or financial gain.”
We read about Jesus feeding the hungry and telling his followers, “You give them something to eat,” and we hear, “If you want to go and do likewise, bring items to contribute to the May and June drive for the Food Pantry; or go over and help out at the Free Lunch Program; or let your Representatives and Senators know in no uncertain terms that the Meals on Wheels program is not a bargaining chip.”
We read about Jesus telling his followers, “You always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish,’ and we wonder, “Do I want to work to make sure that Medicaid is not sacrificed on the altar of tax cuts for the wealthy, or do I want to keep pressure on lawmakers to maintain anti-poverty programs rather than slash them?”
Choose your own adventure.
The possibilities are endless.
The story can go wherever we want to take it.
Christ is risen. Christ has gone before us. These are powerful affirmations.
Like the first disciples—men and women—we’re trying to figure out what the resurrection means for our time, for us, for our world.
Where do you want to go?
Matthew’s gospel offers an initial destination.
In the final chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, crucified and now risen from the dead, meets Mary Magdalene and the other Mary as they run from the empty tomb with a mixture of great fear and great joy. Jesus has a task for them that includes specific directions as to where he might be found: “Tell my brothers to go to Galilee,” the risen Christ says. “There they will see me.”
Now, those are very strange words indeed. Not because of what they promise, but because of where this promise is to be fulfilled.
Throughout Matthew’s gospel Jerusalem is the place. Jesus begins his ministry in northern Palestine, in Galilee, but it becomes apparent that Jerusalem, to the south, is his destination and his destiny. With his disciples, he sets out from Galilee toward Jerusalem, the capital city. He comes into Jerusalem, the center of religious and political power, in a strange kind of triumphal entry riding on a donkey. In Jerusalem Jesus teaches. In Jerusalem Jesus confronts the powers of this world.
In Jerusalem Jesus is crucified, dies, and is buried.
In Jerusalem Jesus is raised from death and appears to those two women who were among his closest followers.
It makes sense, because Jerusalem is the center.
In Jerusalem the risen Jesus gives the command: Go to Galilee.
Go to Galilee where Jesus grew up, where he was baptized by John; Galilee where Jesus called his followers and taught them and all who had ears to hear; Galilee where Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry.
“There”—not in Jerusalem, the center, but in the hinterlands, out in the sticks, on the edge—“There,” Jesus says, “they will see me.”
We, too, have often discovered that if we are to search for God—and certainly if we are to come in any way close to finding God—it will be in those unexpected places, at unexpected times.
We don’t travel to Galilee, but we work at the food pantry or we serve at the free lunch program or we help develop a mobile food pantry to serve school children and their parents.
We don’t travel to Galilee, but we seek justice for workers whose wages have been kept from them. We seek an end to the violence that plagues our nation, the warfare that devastates our world.
We don’t go to Galilee, but we sit in silence before a work of art, or dance as though no one is watching, or sing as though the tune is our own.
We don’t go to Galilee, but we go to our families and our homes and our neighborhoods. We go to work. We go into the wider community.
In the Galilees of our lives—out on the margins—we live out that strange mixture of wonder and doubt that is faith.
In the Galilees of our lives—on the edges—we have lived out the story so far.
And from the Galilees of our lives the risen Christ sends us yet again to new places, telling both the devout and the doubters: “Go.”
The risen Christ doesn’t say, “O.K. I’ve got this one. I’ll take it from here,” setting out to make everything better.
No, he gathers his disciples—that is, those who have been taught, those who have been following along for a while now, those who are still uncertain about the meaning of Easter—and he sends them out.
This is the both troubling and empowering reality of the Ascension.
Troubling because it means that it’s up to us to continue the story.
Empowering because it means—well, it means that it’s up to us.
Wouldn’t you think that if someone were to be sent into the world, wouldn’t you think it would be someone other than you or me? I can think of all sorts of better candidates for the job. We have our own problems.
And yet, this is what we hear: “Go.”
“Go,” Jesus says.
Those who are hopeless;
those who are weary;
those who are afraid;
really, people like you and me at some point;
God sends the most unlikely people.
In our deepest discontent, when we are least satisfied with life as it is, when the pain of the present is finally too much we hear the simple but straightforward call: “Go.”
When we look at this city, this nation, this world—when “compassion fatigue” looms at the edges of suffering—at just such times we, too, hear “Go.”
“Go,” Jesus says, and gives us a message of good news: “I am with you always.”
Many voices are ready to say that God has abandoned this world and so it doesn’t really matter what we do: we can structure our economy and our society so that the ranks of the poor swell in our city, state, nation, and world as long as our comfort is assured; we can continue to follow the path of ecological destruction for the sake of just such an economy; we can let guns and violence proliferate as we seek our own personal safety.
From Jesus we hear something different. We hear good news. Not only has God not abandoned this world, God is drawing nearer than we would have expected. So, what we do matters. How we act matters now and it matters for the realm of heaven that is being established on earth.
We are called to be signs of God’s love, God’s compassion.
When we stand with people seeking a just wage…
When we provide meals to hungry people…
When we celebrate the equality of all people and proclaim the love of God for all people …
We will not solve all the problems. By the grace of God we might solve some and others will be solved by other people. And some will remain. We will not solve all the problems, but by our actions we can be signs to the world of a new way, signs to the world of God’s compassion.
Do you remember the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew and those words that we often hear during Advent? An angel appears to Joseph and tells him that Mary, his betrothed, “will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” We usually don’t think about this story in May—but it speaks to us as much now as in December. All of this, Matthew tells us, took place to fulfill what God had spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “Look, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”
God is with us.
This is the promise and the good news that we hear all through Matthew’s gospel—from the first chapter to those last words of the risen Christ: “Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
The Greek makes it more wonderful even as it makes it more specific.
While it is good to “remember,” the Greek is more emphatic, more “biblical:”
“Lo!” Jesus says. Listen up! Take note!
“Behold!” Jesus says. Here’s something astonishing.
“I am with you all of the days.”
When the sky above is gray and the horizon ominous: Lo! I am with you.
When the way ahead is dark and your plans are uncertain at best—Lo! I am with you.
When death takes someone from you, when death comes for you—Behold! I am with you.
Count as many days as you are able. Imagine countless days beyond those. God in Christ is with us—each of us, all of us, with the entire creation—to the end of the age.
When we last encountered the disciples, they were trying to figure out the meaning of the resurrection.
We are still doing that.
We are the story so far. And it continues in new directions as we follow the Christ who is with us always.