Luke 24:44-53

The Ascension of Christ

At many of the funerals I do, we use poetry to express the emotions of loss as well
as the emotion of hope. One of the most popular with families is called ‘Gone from
my sight’ by Henry Van Dyke. You might know it:

What is dying?

I am standing upon the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white sails
to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean

She is an object of beauty and strength

I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other

Then someone at my side says;

"There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone

at my side says, "There, she is gone!"
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout,
"Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

The poem brings a lot of comfort, of course because it suggests that there are
two perspectives on the death of the person we love. The first, most immediate
perspective, is that of those who are left behind – the people who are crying, ‘She is
gone!’ But the second perspective is those on the other side; those on the distant
shore of heaven, those who are watching the arrival of the person who has died –
and their shout is a joyful, ‘Here she comes!’ And so we learn that death is a matter
of perspective, a matter of sight, depending upon which shore we stand on.
The Ascension, which we celebrate today, in a sense, is no different. There are
two perspectives on this event recorded in Scripture and we heard both of them in
the readings just now.
In Luke’s Gospel, we read of the disciples standing on one shore: ‘After saying
this, he was taken up to heaven as they watched him, and a cloud hid him from their
sight.’
But Luke was not the first Biblical writer to narrate the Ascension. We need to go
back to Daniel 7 for that. In that passage we heard read, we hear of the same event
but this time it is narrated from the other shore. ‘During this vision in the night, I saw
what looked like a human being. He was approaching me, surrounded by clouds, and

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he went to the one who had been living for ever and was presented to him. He was
given authority, honour and royal power, so that the people of all nations, races, and
languages would serve him. His authority would last for ever, and his kingdom would
never end.’
The Ascension is an event-in-time that can be viewed from two perspectives –
the ‘going’ and the ‘coming’. The account in Luke has the disciples saying, ‘He is
gone!’ The account in Daniel has the host of heaven saying, ‘Here he comes!’
So the Ascension, then, is both an event-in-time and an event that stands outside
of time. And the genius of Luke is that he manages to capture both essences. Luke is
the only Biblical writer to give us two accounts of the Ascension. Perhaps the most
famous is in Acts 1 and in that account, the Ascension happens 40 days after the
resurrection. But in the Gospel account we just heard read, the Ascension actually
happens on the same day as the Resurrection! Now Luke was not a confused man!
By locating the Ascension on two separate occasions, he is making the point that
there is both a historical event for us to grapple with (Acts 1) as well as a theological
reality that transcends time (Luke 24). It is so much more than just a ‘Happy Ending’
to the Gospels, which it is so often treated as. It is a profoundly important event that
is central to our Christian faith and experience.
Of course, Jesus gave the disciples fair warning about the Ascension in John
14:6: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my
Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I
go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.’ But not
surprisingly, the disciples didn’t really get it and Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t
know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ And Jesus replies, ‘I am the
way…’
Always speaking in riddles! Never making himself clear! But in hindsight, it was
clear that his journey is our journey; through joining him on his journey, we can come
to the Father. Jesus had to go via the cross, the resurrection and the ascension to
return to the Father. And so do we.
So much of what we believe to be true about the Christian faith hinges on the
Ascension of Jesus – not least the fact that it is through the Ascension that humanity
is finally brought into the presence of God. The Ascension marks the end of the
Jesus-event in history and the beginning of the story of the Church as the Spirit-filled
people of God.
And I just want to think about two reasons why the Ascension is so important.
But before I do that, I want to make very clear one simple Christian truth. Jesus is
not here. Jesus has gone. He is not here. That is the whole point of the Ascension.
He is gone.
Now that may sound like an obvious thing to say – but it needs re-iterating.
Because so much of the time, we still behave as if Jesus were here, we speak about
him as if he were present here with us. And he’s not – he’s gone.
The problem is this: we get a real sense of comfort out of believing that Jesus is
still with us and even some of our hymns encourage us to believe that. But if we hold
on to that idea, we are doing two things:
First, we are not taking seriously the Ascension. If the Ascension really
happened, he can’t still be here!
But second, and worse, if we believe that Jesus is still here, we lose the truth
about Jesus of Nazareth, which the Bible teaches. Because the Biblical witness is
that Jesus was fully man as well as fully God. He lived and dwelt among us. He was
a carpenter living at a particular time in a particular place at a particular point of
history. Jesus of Nazareth – the Son of God – was a historical figure. But if we say
he is present with us everywhere, we are no longer treating him as Jesus of
Nazareth, fully human. Instead, we have reduced him to some sort of de-
personalised Pure Spirit – which he isn’t: the resurrection attests to that fact (which is

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why it was so important that it was a physical resurrection).
As someone wrote once, ‘Christ everywhere means Jesus of Nazareth nowhere’.
So the personal, historical Jesus of Nazareth is no longer with us. He is gone.
In one sense, we worship an absent God.
And it is really important that we feel comfortable with an absent Jesus, otherwise
there are two major components of the Christian faith that would not make any sense
at all if we still cling to an idea that Jesus is somehow with us:
The first is this: That Jesus of Nazareth had to ascend to heaven and leave us if
the Holy Spirit were to come. If Jesus were still here, what need would we have of
the Holy Spirit? Jesus’ departure is crucial for the sending of the Spirit.
In John 15:7, Jesus says to his disciples: “But I am telling you the truth: it is better
for you that I go away, because if I do not go, the Helper will not come to you. But if I
do go away, I will send him to you.”
Now, next week is Pentecost and I don’t want to pre-empt the teaching for that
day! But only to say at this point that Jesus had to leave us so he could send us the
Spirit and, as Christians, we receive the Holy Spirit and are empowered for our every
day living.
Jesus of Nazareth left us and ascended to heaven and that gave way to a
ministry of the Spirit. And, in the power of the Spirit, we are enabled to become the
people of God we are destined to be. But more of that next week on Pentecost
Sunday…
So, the Ascension is necessary, then, because we want to take this Biblical story
seriously, we want to safeguard our understanding of Jesus as fully human, we want
to engage with a ministry of the Holy Spirit.
And finally, the Ascension is necessary because, without it, we would have no
Second Coming of Jesus. Quite simply, how can Christ come again if he has never
properly left? If he has not gone, how can he return?
In Acts 1:11, the men in white say to the disciples: ‘Men of Galilee, why do you
stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into
heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’
Later on in the year, we will be celebrating Advent as we look forward to the
Second Coming of Christ. Just as Pentecost makes no sense without the Ascension,
so Advent would make no sense without the Ascension.
So, far from being a festival that we can take or leave, the Ascension is actually
one of the most important moments in the Christian calendar. It is the moment when
the earthly of Jesus of Nazareth concludes. It is the moment that paves the way for
the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the moment that gives us hope for the future in the
Second Coming of Jesus. It is the moment when Christ becomes absent from us but,
far from being bad news, the absence of Christ is actually good news for us all
because it is the moment that makes sense of so much Christian experience.
In a few minutes we will come to the Eucharistic meal and, as we do that, I will
proclaim with real confidence: ‘The Lord is here’ to which you reply: ‘His Spirit is with
us’. The Ascension makes that possible.
Elsewhere, we proclaim the mystery of faith: ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen,
Christ will come again’. The Ascension makes that possible.
The Ascension makes sense of our worship today.
We are a church existing in a period of the absence of Christ. We can’t deny his
absence. We don’t ignore his absence. We celebrate it.
Jesus is not with us! Alleluia!
The Lord is here! His Spirit is with us! Alleluia!
After the Ascension of Jesus happened, our reading finishes with these words:
“The disciples worshipped him and went back into Jerusalem, filled with great joy,
and spent all their time in the Temple giving thanks to God.’ Like the disciples, we
recognise that the absence of Jesus is good news and we celebrate it as we go out
into mission in the power of the Spirit and we await the Second Coming of Jesus.

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 We are called to be a people of mission. We are called to be a people of the Holy
Spirit. Today, we celebrate the Ascension, which makes that truth possible.
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
Alleluia. Amen.