My dear Theophilus, where did Jesus go? (A Reflection on the Ascension)

Acts 1New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 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. 4 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; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

The Ascension of Jesus

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 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.” 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 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.”

My son Noah just finished writing a long essay for a school project.  The project was called Agents of Change and each student was asked to choose one person who has been an Agent of Change in our world.  Noah, being an animal lover, chose the famous primatologist, Jane Goodall.  A big part of the essay was the ability to have a strong introduction…  a hook, the teacher called it.  

Lucky for us we had just returned from the San Diego zoo and there was a great big bronze plaque we had all read with the words “Did you know that 97% of a chimpanzee’s DNA is the same a human’s DNA?

It was pretty easy to find his hook, the line to draw the reader in.  The beginning of the story that was about to unfold.  

Some stories have an introduction that is unforgettable to the masses:

1. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…   (Charles Dickens a tale of two cities 

anyone?

2. Call me Ishmael — Herman Melville, Moby Dick

3. And this happened, more or less — Kurt Vonnegut, slaughterhouse five

4. ”Scarlet O'hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." 

5. all children except one, grow up.  —- peter pan

6. two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,  —  Romeo and Juliet

7. in a great green room, tucked away in bed, is a little bunny. "Goodnight room, goodnight moon.”

Goodnight moon

8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

Ok, who is paying attention today?

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did.    (The book of Acts).  

Let us pray.

Trina Garnett’s story begins as the youngest of twelve children, living in Chester, PA,  one of the poorest communities in the US.  In Chester, 56% of children live below the poverty line.   Her father was a failed boxer who took out his rage on his children and family, enough to strangle their dog to death.  At the age of two, Trina was hospitalized after ingesting a bottle of lighter fluid while no one was watching her.  After her mother’s death, at the age of nine, she spent five years in a state hospital, and at 14,  Trina was released alone back in her childhood home.  One night, she crawled into a neighbor’s window with her friend to hang out with their teenage sons, as many 14 year old’s might do.  The girls were hiding from the neighbor’s parents in a dark closet.  Trina lit a match to find her way around  and when she got scared she dropped it.  The two girls ran while the fire spread and eventually the house was burned to the ground, killing the two boys she and her friend had gone to see.   As she was being arrested, she stared listless and confused, unsure of what was happening all around her with no idea what would happen next.  

The story in the book of Acts that we hear today begins with the words, My dear Theophilus, which translates to … my beloved. The author of Acts says, My dear beloved,    I have already written about all that Jesus has done. It is the story of twelve men standing on the mount of olives, scared and confused as they watched Jesus, their friend, their teacher, their savior, ascend into the heavens right before their eyes.  

Yaz Waters story begins  with a knock at the door.  While she was putting away the dishes on an ordinary afternoon, she answered her front door to find  two officers from the Maryland child protective services.  They gave her the news that her family was being investigated for the endangerment of her children.  The agents had just come from her children’s school where they asked teachers and principal questions about the family to begin their formal report.  “This will only take a few minutes,” they said, as they came in the house to look further into the concerns they had been alerted to.  Yaz sent the children outside to play as she tried to steady her hands and her heart.

A story written to those whom God loved, the Ascension is the story of people who followed Jesus through his earthly ministry and now were left with a gaping hole where their flesh and blood compass had once stood. 

Trina Garnett was deemed mentally ill and incompetent to stand trial.  At age 14 she should have been tried as a child, or not tried because of her mental condition, but her lawyer failed to file the appropriate motions and Trina was tried for second degree murder as an adult.  Trina’s friend testified against her with the promise that her charges would be dropped and Trina was found guilty of arson and murder.  

My dear Theopholus, the story says, almost as a bandaid.  I know you loved him dearly, but now he is gone.  I know you believe in him but he is no longer here.  

Yaz Waters found out later that it was her mother who had called child protective services on her.  Months before, Yaz’s youngest son had spent a few days vomiting.  What appeared to be a stomach virus turned into appendicitis and her son was not treated as quickly as he should have been.   Her mother told the police that Yaz knowingly withheld medical care from her child.

Scared and confused, 2,000 years ago, Twelve men stood on the mount of olives, with the resurrected Jesus, before he ascended into heaven. 

Scared and confused at the at the age of 16, Trina Garnett was taken to an adult prison for women.  Only four months later, after many terrible nights of abuse from the guards,  she found out she was pregnant. The guard responsible was dismissed, but no charges were brought against him.  Nine months later, Trina gave birth to a baby boy, cuffed to her bed.  The child was quickly ushered into foster care and Trina’s mental health spiraled downward.  

The whole thing must have been so surreal.  For the disciples, I mean.  Days before they had been walking together with Jesus, minutes before they were talking to him and then a few cryptic lines and all of the years of shared ministry, of jobs they left, all of lives they had seen changed, the miracles, the baptisms and they were left staring up at the sky as the life they had known vanished before them.  The story changed in just one moment. Everything changed in just one moment.  

Yaz Waters continued to dig for information about what happened and why people in her community were asking her questions.  She found that her mother, who is a lawyer, illegally used her license to inquire about medical records from their family doctor.  She filed for custody of the children and claimed grandparents rights to protect grandchildren in abusive homes. Yaz was being taken to court by her mother. 

How did this happen? It doesn’t seem real.   

The Ascension story is one of the hardest for modern day Christians to believe.  It is tip toed around as “Jesus magic.”  For one, the story in Acts is told differently than the story in Luke.  It doesn’t have a wide audience or a lot of sources to prove it’s accuracy.  Scientific brains will quickly draw the conclusion people don’t ascend any higher than they can jump or any higher than the wires they are attached to, that an individual would die without oxygen just a few miles into the atmosphere, and most of all, that we understand in our modern thinking that heaven isn’t “up.”

In the first century, it was a commonly held belief that the world was equally divided into three sections.  The earth was a bowl shaped firmament with two columns that held up the sky.  Heaven was above the columns.  Hell was below the firmament.  In this world view, the idea of Jesus rising above earth into heaven made complete sense.  It’s easy for us to give a quick nod to the lack of scientific knowledge in biblical days, but more often than not we are quick to point up to heaven, joke about someone going “down there” or give a nod to God by looking up.  Perhaps our modern minds aren’t any more able to understand this cosmic universe we live in and the God who has ordered it all. 

The Ascension for the disciples was proof that Jesus was bigger than the world they understood.  To stand watching him ascend, their stories were literally challenged beyond anything they could comprehend. The simple explanation for the Ascension is that Jesus was and is bigger than the world we see and understand.  

But the Ascension is not a trite and short sighted moment in the life of Jesus.  It isn’t a magic trick and it isn’t a simple allegory.  

It is a full and powerful breath of promise…  

Jesus gives them a promise that the Holy Spirit will be with them.

Jesus gives them a promise that their story will be a witness to the end of the earth.

Jesus gives them a promise that he continue to be a part of their story and that he will return.

Scared and confused, 2,000 years ago, the disciples stood and stared at that sky.  They watched the central person in their story, the person they had placed their hopes and dreams on, vanish.  

So, today I invite you to think about your story.  Not the story that says… I was born on May 3rd, 1968 and I went to Rainbow elementary…I had a dog named Spot…

The story that your heart is caught up in right now.  

6 months ago I lost my job.

I’ve been sober for one week.

There’s a girl I can’t stop daydreaming about. 

I can’t pay my bills.

I’m struggling with disappointment.

Scared and confused, today, we look up to the sky and ask our big, big God, what are we supposed to do next, Lord? what are you up to?  What are you doing in our city? With so much economic change and so many struggling to find housing.  With corporations and soup kitchens, with culture and atheism, with comfort in the face of despair.  What are you doing in our country? What are you doing with this election?  What are you doing in our world? with Syria and Nepal, with refugees and disasters? 

Lord, what are you doing in my life? Sometimes you are so close to my heart and sometimes so far away.  Remind me that not only you are a part of my story, that you are my story.  That though I stand here staring at the sky, wondering where you are, that you have risen above this moment in my life. 

Our stories are moments of joy and pain intimately woven together.  

Trina Garnett spent 40 years in prison for a crime committed as a mentally unstable minor and this February, Trina learned that her sentence was set to be overturned.  At 54 years old, Trina Garnett is just beginning to see the next chapter of her story.  I know of Trina’s story because it was a featured case in Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy. Trina is now part of a  group of women who are sentenced to life in prison  that have completed a Ted talk on incarceration and despite the incredible moments of deep pain and anger, years of anguish and confusion, Trina stands and sings with pride the song “This is not my home” in a women’s group known as The Lady Lifers.  

Yaz Waters has spent the last 9 years of her life trying to keep her children safe from continued verbal and written attacks on her family from her mother.  She has had to cease contact with her mother in order to keep everyone safe, and struggles each week in worship to speak words of confession as she faces her inability to offer forgiveness to her mother.  I know of Yaz’s story because she is my best friend and my children’s godmother.   At this very moment, despite all of the years of pain and confusion,  she is teaching children in church about the power of God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness.  

The message and the truth of the ascension is that our God is a God of promise.  A promise that you are not alone in your story.  A promise that the Holy Spirit is with you.  A promise that your story is part of God’s message of grace that spreads to the ends of the earth. That you are a vessel of that grace.  Even if your feet are cement blocks sunken in mud and all you can do is stare, confused at Jesus, that even in your doubt, God’s grace is extended to you and wraps itself around you.  The ascension is a promise that Jesus does not and will not abandon you.  

Because where you are now, where Trina is now, where Yaz is now, where I am now, this is the moment between what we knew and what we do not yet know. This is the in between moment.  

A time when the things we depended on have vanished, but the new life, the next step has not yet been made clear. 

The disciples stood in this moment, trying to grasp who the earthly Jesus was to them, struggling to comprehend what the new path would look like.  They tried desperately to get all of the details from Jesus…  are you restoring Israel, where are you going, when are you coming back…  but the story is not about nailing down the details and finding out the next steps and being certain you’re making the right choice and fully understanding what his happening.  it is not about being in control.  

the story is the firm belief that God’s promises are true for your life and that your heart and your mind and your soul can rest from the struggle by clinging to these promises.  

I’m coming to believe that maybe there is something more important that a powerful beginning and maybe even more important that a home run of a closer.  Just as the world is a vertical up and down continuum, so our faith story is not a a perfect once upon a time beginning of a smooth ending Golden Book.  

The power of the Ascension for our story is to change our goals from seeking closure to seeking peace, from finding out what is next to living in the promises.  

To claiming that you, dear Theopholis, are not alone.  When you are scared and confused and you aren’t sure what is next, beloved,  Jesus is in it with you.