Luke 24:44-53
[Jesus said to the eleven and those with them,] “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
Acts 1:1-11
[Luke writes:] 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.”
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There are two sides to every story.
Have you ever said that before? Perhaps to bickering children who are trying to pin the blame on each other? Or have you ever thought it when you have heard a particularly lopsided news story? Or have you ever muttered it under your breath when you hear a piece of gossip that doesn’t seem to line up with what you know about someone?
There are two sides to every story.
It’s a phrase that reminds us that the whole truth often comes to us in pieces, and that among us, we can experience and interpret the same events in different ways.
There are two sides to every story. And today, we get two sides even to the story of Christ’s ascension into heaven. In our readings today, we have two different accounts of Jesus ascending into heaven to take his place at God’s right hand. Each of them gives us different pieces of the truth. And each of them gives us an opportunity to fit ourselves into the story in a different way.
As we begin our conversation, it is important to remember that Luke and Acts share a common author. These two books are often considered “volume one” and “volume two” of a two-part series. In both, the author sets out to write an orderly account of events, fitting of a historian, addressed at the outset to a figure named “Theophilus,” who maybe was a real person, but more likely is a stand-in for all believers. The name “Theophilus” means “God-lover,” and so in some fashion, we can understand Luke and Acts as being written for every person who has a heart for God.
The story of the ascension happens at the end of Luke’s gospel, at the end of the story of Jesus. And then the story of the ascension is told again at the beginning of the book of Acts, at the beginning of the story of the disciples.
This is an important distinction, and it helps explain a little bit about why we can have two accounts of Jesus’s ascension in two books written by the same author, and these stories can be markedly different in the details.
In the Gospel of Luke, the author is telling the good news of Jesus. It is Jesus’s story. It tells about his birth, his ministry, his teaching; the series of events leading to his arrest and crucifixion; the story of his resurrection and his appearances to the women and to the disciples. And now, the ascension is the end of his story on earth. If you are telling Jesus’s story, the important details to include about the ascension are that he taught the disciples, blessed them, withdrew from them, and was taken up into heaven. If you are telling Jesus’s story, you aren’t worried about what the disciples are thinking or wondering or feeling, and so you end the story with them immediately heading back to Jerusalem, with great joy, lingering there in the temple, blessing and praising God. It’s all very cheery.
In Acts however, the story gets to be told a little differently. The book of Acts is actually titled, “the Acts of the Apostles,” which tells us right away that this book is the story of the disciples. It is telling the story of a group of fellow human beings as they are being led and empowered by the Spirit to be Christ’s witnesses in the world. In Acts, we get to overhear more of the thought and questions of the disciples. Is this the time that the kingdom will be fulfilled? What does it mean to be witnesses? What will it be like to receive the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit?
In Acts, when Jesus is carried up into heaven, we actually get to see the looks on the disciples faces, as they stand, wide-eyed, staring up to the sky, looking for the cloud that has whisked Jesus away. We get to stand with them there on the mountain, unsure of what is going to happen next - unsure of what is supposed to happen next. Notice how there’s not mention of “great joy” in this passage? Telling the very human story of the very human disciples means admitting that they felt the very human feelings of fear and shock and awe and confusion that you would expect them to feel. It takes two outsiders in white robes to poke them in the arm and say to them, “Pssst! It’s time to head down the mountain now!” so that they can actually do what Jesus told them to do, which in the short run is to head to Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Spirit.
There are two sides to every story.
In Luke’s gospel, the story of the ascension is a story of great joy.
In the book of Acts, the story of the ascension is a story of great (and holy) fear.
If we are being hones with ourselves, great joy and great fear are the two ways that we, too, tend to respond when we are faced with great mystery, or when we consider the enormity of our calling to be witnesses to God’s love and Christ’s resurrection.
Great joy.
Or great fear.
One of those emotions catapults you down the mountain, eager to do the work set ahead of you; eager to meet the Spirit in all of her exuberance and energy.
And one of those emotions sticks your feet to the ground, reluctant even to breathe or shift your gaze, because of the enormity of the thing you have just seen, or the enormity of the task ahead of you.
And both of these are faithful responses.
Perhaps your commitment to the love of God for and through all people drove you to march in your first Pride parade yesterday. And perhaps, as you lined up with your fellow congregation members and friends in the community, you felt your heart swell with joy at the spectrum of colors brightening an otherwise-gray day. And perhaps you also felt scared about who might see you along the road, or nervous about what conversations this might open up among friends or family who will see pictures on Facebook.
Perhaps your commitment to gratitude for God’s gifts is leading you to consider your stewardship in a different way, and you are feeling called to be more generous with your time and with your money. And perhaps, as you start writing bigger checks to important causes, or as you begin to fill up your schedule with opportunities to care for others, you feel that twinge of fear, that maybe you are giving up too much, or that you don’t actually have enough, or that you don’t know if you’re actually making a different. And yet, at the same time, your heart bursts with joy as you feel the freedom of living with less so that others can live with more.
Perhaps you are a mother or a grandmother or a baptismal sponsor, and your young children or grandchildren or godchildren are starting to ask you new questions about God. Maybe you feel excited about their curiosity, and joyful about exploring faith with them. And at the same time, you feel anxious about the questions that you don’t have answers to, and you don’t quite know how to talk about God in words that a child would understand.
There are two sides to every story.
And in our life as disciples, joy and fear are the two sides to our calling.
Like the disciples, sometimes we run down the mountain freely, singing as we go. Other times we are prodded down the mountain by those who know the landscape better than we do, who are patient with our stumbling, but who are still always nudging us forward.
But did you notice in our ascension stories today, despite their differences, that they both end up in the same place?
In both stories, the disciples end up down the mountain.
In both stories, the disciples stick together. In both stories, they head to Jerusalem to receive the Holy Spirit.
Whether we are feeling great fear or great joy, we, too, are called and sent down the mountain into the world, to do the work of disciples, to tell the story as witnesses. God doesn’t revoke our calling because we are anxious or confused. And God doesn’t give us special high-fives if we are feeling positively giddy.
As disciples, God gives us two gifts that enable us to carry out the mission set before us. God gives us the gift of community. And God gives us the gift of the Spirit.
In the community of faith, we lean on each other. We share our joy. We commiserate in our confusion. Together we inhabit this in-between space, where Jesus’s body has left the earth and not yet returned, this in-between time where the only body that Christ has is our own anointed hands and feet in the world.
Next week, at Pentecost, we will celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, and celebrate that this Spirit gives each of us language to share the good news of Christ to all people. This Spirit opens our hearts to understand our faith in a new way. She opens our hearts to God and to one another. She blesses us and empowers us and inspires us to do God’s holy work in the world.
Siblings in faith, you have a mountaintop story to tell to the world. Your mountaintop story in Christ is a story of grace beyond measure, of forgiveness beyond all shame, of love beyond all boundary, of hope beyond the farthest reaches of your imagination, of life abundant, even beyond death.
Today, you might feel troubled by this strange, supernatural story of Christ’s ascension. You might wonder when it is that Christ will return. You might feel inspired anew to share God’s love as you go from here. You might, with the disciples, wonder aloud about when God’s kingdom will finally find fulfillment.
You don’t have to have the whole story sorted out to be a called and empowered witness to God’s love in the world. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to be doubt-free. You can be joyful, you can be fearful, you can be something in-between.
The important thing is that you have a story of faith to tell. You have a community to support you. You have a Spirit to lead you. There are two sides to every story…and actually, when it comes to faith, there are as many stories to tell as there are witnesses to Christ’s love. Head to the flat ground, my friends. Tell your story with your words and with your life. Trust that you are a witness - called, claimed, blessed, and empowered for this holy work.
For it is by these stories that God will, indeed, transform the world.
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