Acts 1:1-11 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[a] 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[b] the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
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.”
Ephesians 1:17-23
17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God[a] put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
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This morning we hear the end of the story of Jesus’ life on earth as he ascends into the clouds, and we hear from Ephesians the affirmation that Jesus now “sits at the right hand of God” where he governs the universe. This affirmation points us to the on-going and never-ending story of God’s romance with the world. Both the ending of Jesus’ earth story, and the on-going story of his reign of love are challenging, hard to believe, each in their own way. I want to talk about these challenges and about the meaning of the worldview we encounter here.
Many of the New Testament letters affirm that Jesus now reigns, rules, governs the universe. But it is only Luke who in his gospel and the book of Acts depicts the event of Jesus’ ascension from the earth to the right hand of God. None of the other gospel writers do this. All of the gospels give witness to the reality that Jesus was physically raised from the dead. This is the great surprise of Easter morning. But Luke wants to make sure we know that Jesus ascended, not just as a spirit, but as a human being with skin and bones and muscles, with the fresh wounds of crucifixion on his body. Even in heaven at the right hand of God, Jesus is still incarnate, still in flesh.
I said all of this to my minister brother-in-law early last week, and later he wrote: “Jesus’ ascension does not undo his incarnation, although in a way it is the opposite. For thirty-three years he walked the earth as the infinite God contained within a human being. And now, with his ascension, he is a human being with the infinity of God. A human being now unconstrained by time and space. Still about five foot six or so, still ten fingers and ten toes….” It would be much easier to think of Jesus as pure spirit. Spirits can go anywhere. Up. Down. Under. Into. Out of. There would be no conflict with science, or physics, or biology. So why say, why believe Jesus remains incarnate? Why does it matter? How does it matter? What might it mean for us?
These are the questions we talked about in our Tuesday night Bible study. I have always been incredibly jazzed by the whole idea that Jesus returns to, enters into the fullness of God, as a human being with a body. But this hit me with such force on Tuesday as we were all talking together, disembodied, using Zoom on our computers, sitting at home, physically distanced from one another. I want to be with you all in my body, with your bodies. I want to hug you, and eat with you, and sing with you, and physically share God’s peace with you. I want to feel your energy, and double high-five you, and dance around the room, and hold out the bread of the Lord’s Supper to you, and say “The Body of Christ, given for you.” I can hardly stand the physical separation anymore . And I know that many of you can hardly stand it too.
Even while we are experiencing the profound vulnerability of the human body, the terrible suffering of all kinds of illnesses, and the painful reality of death; being physically separated from people we love, and even from strangers, has made me so deeply aware of the goodness, the gift, and the grace of our bodies. Of smelling, tasting, touching, hearing, and seeing the wonders of God’s creation, and the things that we create. And while I am glad to be able to still see and talk with people by phone or on the computer, it has increased my awareness of the immense goodness, gift, and grace of being together in our bodies, and increased my longing to be incarnate with you and others.
This awareness and longing prompted me to ask the Bible study group to touch and feel their own bodies, their heads and their faces, their hands and their thighs, to give themselves a huge fleshy hug. You can do it now. Cradle your head. Clap your hands. Hug yourself. And imagine this: There is a body like yours in heaven. There is a person with a body like yours participating in God’s infinity. This is the challenge of Jesus’ physical ascension. I don’t know how this can be. I can’t explain it. God’s power and creativity are beyond my full comprehension. We have not yet seen all there is to see, nor have we known all there is to know.
But this is what Jesus’ physical ascension means to show and say to us: God is committed to, God is faithful to human beings as human beings, as creatures with bodies. It is part and parcel of God’s commitment to the whole creation, to material being, to physical matter. Bodies are not bad and spirit good. This dualism does not belong to the Judeo-Christian worldview. Bodies are destined to fully share in God’s infinity and God’s glory. God loves the physical creation. God weeps for the pain and suffering we experience and cause. God is redeeming the whole creation from its suffering and groaning, redeeming physical bodies, healing the brokenness, keeping God’s promise to make everything new, true, good, and beautiful. You can embrace this worldview and rest in its promise, and love and cherish yourself, your substance; your neighbor and their substance; the creation and its substance.
There is person with a body like yours, seated at the right hand of God, governing and caring for the cosmos, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,” says the writer of Ephesians. This is the second challenge that we encounter in this morning’s readings. This claim that Jesus is the king, the Lord, the ruler over all the rulers on earth. This is a confession of faith made by people who have put their trust in God, and in Jesus. Unfortunately, this confession of faith has been lived out, and is still lived out, with a kind of arrogance, superiority, aggression, and judgment against persons who confess a different faith and see things through a different worldview. But suppose this affirmation of faith were lived out in keeping with the whole story of Jesus.
Suppose that rather than picture Jesus sitting on a big throne wearing velvet robes and a gold crown with his chest puffed out, we see him sitting at table laughing with folks who never got invited to dinner, or outside telling gracious God stories to folks who weren’t welcome in the temple, or bending down to touch and heal a man begging at the gate. Suppose we see him in his father Joseph’s carpenter shop, making a crib, or pulling children onto his lap, or walking away, arm in arm with a woman who was nearly stoned by her community. Suppose we see him as a mother seeking asylum, separated from her children at the southern border, or as a nurse finishing his second shift in the COVID ward, or as the man dying without the comfort of family in the nursing home. Suppose we see him on the cross, beaten and bloodied, saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
I wonder, given what we know about Jesus, what kind of ruler is he? How does he govern? How does he use the life-giving power of God that raised him from the dead? Does Jesus share this power or is he jealous to keep it all for himself? And I wonder, as a ruler, does he favor one nation over another? Is Jesus building walls or breaking them down? What kind of economic system does he design? How does he deal with enemies? What kind of world is Jesus laboring to create?
And I wonder, do you want to live in this kind of world? Do you want to be part of the body politic that embodies Jesus’ ways of being and living? And I wonder, what happens if we trust that the life-giving power that raised Jesus from the dead is already present, everywhere re-shaping the world and redeeming creation from its brokenness and suffering? What happens if we trust that this power, this life, this love, this Spirit is already at work in us—in you, in me, in us together—redeeming our lives, our bodies, our desires? What becomes possible when we surrender ourselves to God’s never-ending romance, and know ourselves, in our flesh, to be wrapped forever in the arms of the One who holds and governs the cosmos with perfect love? These are the questions we are living into. These are the questions we are invited to answer together, with our own bodies, with our whole lives, for the sake of God’s infinite love, revealed in the body and life of Jesus the lamb who was slain and now lives and reigns with God the Creator and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.