THE END AND THE BEGINNING:
An Exquisite Attitude of Gratitude
Easter 7 Celebrating the Festival of the Ascension
Ephesians 1:15-23, Acts 1:1-11 and Luke 24:44-53
Paul Swartz - May 15 & 16, 2010
["Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" The angel's question comes from the opening scene of the Acts of the Apostles, the sequel to the Gospel of Luke. What would it have been like to stand there on the hillside with the little band that included Peter, Thomas, and the rest, straining into the sun, hoping to catch one last glimpse of Jesus?]
What was going through their minds? Would they have been asking our questions? Were they wondering just where Jesus was going? Wondering what would happen next? Christians have often found it difficult to stand in the disciples' place. And yet, the Ascension is included in the Creeds confessed Sunday after Sunday in churches around the world. Just what does this event mean and how does affect or shape us today?
Let's face it. It is an odd story. On the one hand, this event is the climax of Luke's Gospel, and it is so important to Luke that he narrates it twice as he also begins the Book of Acts with the Ascension. Luke wants to leave his readers in no doubt about one simple fact: Jesus left His disciples not through death on the cross, but through conquering death on the cross. The proof of His victory—the accomplishment of His mission—was not only His Resurrection but also His Ascension. It is not that the Resurrection is less important than the Ascension. It is that, in some way, they are one continuous Divine act… Resurrection is the beginning of Ascension, Ascension is Resurrection completed.
If Jesus had only been raised from death, then He would have been like Lazarus—a miracle had been performed—a man raised from the dead only to come back to the form of his previous human life. And it’s obvious that’s exactly what the disciples were thinking. Note their question, “Will this now be the time that You restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). They saw in Jesus’ Resurrection the beginning of an “insurrection” that Jesus would lead in overthrowing the Romans.
Luke’s witness reminds us of how easily the Church, like those disciples, can get distracted with wrong questions and misdirected actions. How easily the attention of God's people can be diverted from the basic goals of establishing and maintaining the Gospel in the world by focusing time, energy, and resources upon issues like the homosexuality question. Just like the disciples, we can easily become overly zealous in our desire to cleanse society of its wrongs in order to prematurely establish the Kingdom of God as an earthly reign of righteousness.
If indeed, what Jesus “had begun to do” is to be carried out by His Body, the Church, we dare not attempt to rise above our Master through acts of self-glorification, self-interest, or making judgments that put us on God’s throne. It is tempting to bypass or exempt ourselves from the suffering of being ignored, ridiculed, despised, or even persecuted by the world as the Lord Himself was, attempting to establish the Church as a power to be reckoned with by the kingdoms of this earth. It is important that we not overlook this question by the disciples at the time of Jesus’ Ascension, lest we, ourselves, become sidetracked from our task. Notice Jesus’ response: “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…”
The disciples return to Jerusalem to mull over what they had seen, and what Jesus had told them, trying to assimilate all that had taken place. The days between our Lord’s Ascension and the promised coming of the Spirit on Pentecost, became a time when they would begin to assimilate, absorb and “inwardly digest” what all of this meant. They were about to discover that Jesus was not through with them nor the world just because He no longer walked and talked in observable fashion on the face of the earth.
In his telling of the Ascension, Luke's point is not so much that Jesus has been raised from death, but that Jesus has been raised to a whole new kind of life where the old order of things, dominated by death, is behind Him and US!
So Luke's Gospel ends with Jesus returning to His Father—enthroned as King of Creation—and the Acts of the Apostles opens with a retelling of the Ascension to remind us that if the old order is defeated, then the disciples, including you and me, are the vanguard of the new order. Luke then calls us, through the rest of the Acts of the Apostles, to be "Ascension people." He invites us to take up the dramatic roles we've been given through the Ascension. This event marks the great transition from the mission of Jesus to the mission of the Church. It points up to Jesus and ahead to His disciples—even us. The rest of this second volume—the Acts of the Holy Spirit—is both about looking up in gratitude—for we have seen what God has done in coming “down from heaven” in Jesus Christ and accomplishing His mission of salvation—and about His followers, then, moving out into the world with the Good News of God’s redemptive love for all His children!
It is we, and only we, who can do this if we have been witnesses to that repentance and forgiveness in our own lives that Christ’s mission has effected. “The Body of Christ” then on His Ascension, is not some mystical act of levitation but becomes hidden within and among us who will go forth in His name with “power from on high.” That power takes wimps and makes the disciples into macho men of the Good news. It takes the frailest and weakest of all of us and gives us the ability to bear that Good News of Salvation as His “witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). It’s the beginning of the Church’s mission, and our lives are to be living monuments of admiration and tribute to this God who has so loved us that He has rescued us, and has now enlisted us to get the “Word”—the Word of His amazing love—spread to all people. That’s our purpose and only focus! It is that which is to drive the Church’s mission.
On a grey Friday in January 2007, during the peak of the early morning commuter rush, an unassuming young man entered the L’Enfant Plaza train station in Washington D.C. He found a place to stand out of the way of the foot traffic, opened his violin case, threw into the case some change and dollar bills to “prime the pump.” And then he proceeded to begin playing.
But this was no ordinary street musician. The anonymous violinist in the train station was Joshua Bell, renowned virtuoso, star of the symphony circuit. Only three days earlier audiences had shelled out between $100 to $200 bucks for a ticket to watch him play at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Now, as he stood just a few feet from clueless commuters hurrying to work, Bell played his heart out on his multi-million dollar 1713 Stradivarius violin.
Can you guess what happened? Did busy commuters suddenly stop in their tracks, mesmerized by this master violinist, and drift towards the magical music? [watch this video]
For the first three minutes of Bell’s “concert” no one passing by acknowledged anything. Not the music. Not the musician. Nothing. Nada. Everyone hurried by, head down, fixated on their next destination.
At four minutes one woman hurriedly tossed a dollar into Bell’s open violin case. Finally, after six minutes, one commuter stopped, leaned against a wall, and listened to the gift that was being poured out into that train station air. Bell played for 43 minutes. He made a grand total of $32.00 off of 27 donations. (“Better than minimum wage,” Bell noted later). Two people stopped to listen. The other 1,070 people who passed in front of him simply skittered by, oblivious, obsessed by their own agendas. John Lake, author of Timeless Beauty succinctly summed up what this missed moment revealed about all those busy commuters, and about us:
If we can’t take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that, then what else are we missing!
Maybe I should read that again!
Obviously that “what else” is Life itself! Taking in the gifts of goodness, beauty, and truth when they are offered to us is the heartbeat of life.
The Psalmist, who was both a poet and a musician, asked, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to me?” (Psalm 116:12). But we have to recognize God’s gifts before we can offer thanks for them!...and certainly before we can witness to them, and share them with others!
St. Paul, in thanking God for the growth in faith the Ephesian congregation has exhibited, expresses his hope that these new disciples will come to know Christ better and have deeper insight into their being “the riches of His glorious inheritance” (Ephesians 1:18). Don’t get greedy! At first glance it may seem that Paul is talking about OUR inheritance, but Paul is really speaking of GOD’S inheritance which is found among the saints.
And what does God “inherit?” US!
Let me try that again: The text from Ephesians (1:15-23) is not talking about what WE inherit from God. We already possess salvation! Paul is telling us that the saints, those who are part of the community of faith, are God's inheritance…what God has inherited from Christ’s saving activity…. disciples whose eyes are focused and clear on what it is they are called to do… disciples who grasp the privilege and immensity of their calling.
If we’re honest we might think its a questionable deal for the Divine, but a God-send for us. Is there any notion more astounding than the idea that God through Christ “inherits” frail and fallible human beings to be His “chosen people”? …to be especially beloved by God? …to be“His own people.” We have been transformed from mere creatures on this earth into being a glorious inheritance of the God who rules the universe. If being such an “inheritance” cannot elicit thankfulness, then what can?
So, Paul prays that these new believers will come to “know” the magnitude of gifts God has in store for them, because with this knowledge there will come a perpetual posture of thankfulness, or as we preachers like to put it, an “attitude of gratitude.” They will realize how privileged they are to be God’s inheritance, serving and witnessing to that undeserved love and the manifold gifts won for them in Christ Jesus.
No wonder this is the “knowledge” Paul so badly wanted the Ephesians to gain. There are moments, when even the most banal, self-absorbed, unlikely candidates can find themselves so confronted by an unexpected grace that they crumble before God’s gifts. If thanksgiving is about recognizing the Divine in every moment, no matter how unexpected, then let’s take a look at the first audition of a completely unassuming contestant on “Britain’s Got Talent”, the British version of “American Idol.” Paul Potts was in cell-phone sales. He was also pudgy, had horrid teeth, chipped and uneven, and wore a dreadfully ill-fitting, cheap-looking suit. He looked like the guy who never could get a date and whose only hope was to achieve mediocrity. As he announces that he is going to sing opera, you can see the judges set their collective jaws, and you can see their eyes rolling. Then this unassuming Paul Potts begins to sing. His voice, his love of the music, his spirit, slowly fills the space between himself and the judges, himself and the studio audience. But enough of me describing it. Here is the real thing. [Show video]
Do you get it now?
Joshua Bell is Jesus. Jesus is playing exquisite music, the music of the spheres, all around us. And we are so busy we can not receive His gifts of burning bushes ablaze all around us.
Do you get it now?
Paul Potts is you and me. The ultimate music Jesus wants to play is in and through your life and mine, turning each one of us, frumpy and feeble as we are, fickle and feckless, with all our failings and foibles, all our chipped teeth and cracked pots, into exquisite sounds of love and life.
Each one of us is designed to be a Stradivarius, “vibrating strings of energy,” instruments on which Jesus plays symphonies of love and passionate operas of truth.
In short, with the Ascension, Christ’s earthly ministry has come to an end in terms of being at any one place at any given time. With the promise of “power from on high” coupled with the assurance that Christ is with us “always to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20b) we experience the beginning of NEW LIFE in Christ, [privileged to be a part of what God inherits! And as part of God’s glorious inheritance, we can live a life of impossible possibilities, and of possible impossibilities. AMEN]
