H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
28 May 2006 – ascension
A PRESENCE, A POWER, AND A PLACE
Acts 1:1-11
On the fortieth day after Easter, the church celebrates the ascension of Jesus, his physical departure from
the disciples and his return to heaven. You probably missed it last Thursday, didn’t decorate your Ascension
Tree or send out Happy Ascension cards. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians are more likely
to celebrate the ascension than Presbyterians. However, John Calvin felt the ascension was crucial to
Christian faith and doctrine. Jesus’ return to heaven is a kind of promise—or rather three intertwined
promises—to you and me: the promise of presence, the promise of power, and the promise of paradise.
During his earthly life, Jesus could only be in one place at a time. The ascension changed that. Some of
you mentors and confirmands worshipped last Sunday in quite a different congregation, with quite a different
culture and a different style of worship. What do you think? Was Jesus there in that community in that
worship? And he was here, too. The ascended Christ is no longer bound by earthly limits. He is with his
people everywhere and always.
It’s a little like E.T. the cute, cuddly alien who accidentally gets left on earth when the mother ship takes off.
E.T. is befriended by a boy named Elliot. No, it’s more than friendship. E.T. and Elliot touch one another’s
lives, they have adventures together, they love each other. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything if I tell you that
after E.T.’s death and resurrection, the mother ship returns and it’s time for E.T. to ascend into the heavens
and leave young Elliot behind.
The scene is truly touching and captures something of the sadness the disciples must have experienced
when Jesus bade them farewell and rose into the clouds until he was lost from sight.
E.T. says to Elliot, “Come,” beckoning him toward the ship.
And Elliot says, “Stay,” begging his friend to remain with him on earth.
E.T. points to his own heart and says, “Ouch.” Then he points his finger at Elliot’s heart and says, “I'll...
be... right... here.”
Jesus didn’t use those words. Instead he said, “My Father and I will come and make our home in you.”
(John 14:23) The living Christ alive in you and alive in me, abiding in each and every Christian as we abide in
him. That’s what the ascension means to us.
Or maybe it’s more like Obi-wan Kenobi. Remember Darth Vader says to Obi-wan, “Your powers are
weak, old man.” And Obi-wan replies, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could
possibly imagine.” Obi-wan is indeed struck down, but although he takes his leave of young Luke Skywalker,
from that moment on he is always with Luke in spirit. It is the living presence of Obi-wan that helps Luke
destroy the Death Star and leads him to seek out Yoda and to reveals to Luke his own origins and destiny.
Again the words are different, but the promise is much the same. In preparing to leave the disciples, the
risen Christ declared, “Behold, I am always with you to the very end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) There is no
place in your life or mine where Christ is absent. He goes before us, he walks with us, he covers our back.
The ascension is the promise of Christ’s presence: inside us and beside us, not sometimes, but always.
The ascension is also a promise of power: power poured out, power unleashed, power freely given. We’
ve got enough golfers around here that I’ll bet some of you have seen “The Legend of Bagger Vance.” The
movie is about a young man named Rannulph Junuh, the best golfer Savannah had ever seen, until he
returned from World War I having "lost his swing" and having also, in some sense, lost himself on the
battlefield.
Junuh gets forced into a golf match for which he is utterly unprepared. He is facing a humiliating defeat
until a stranger appears, a fellow named Bagger Vance who comes from nowhere to be his caddy. Bagger
Vance is part golfer, part mystic, and part teacher who says stuff like, “Play the game, your game, the one that
only you was meant to play, the one that was given to you when you come into this world. Now's the time.”
As Junuh approaches the last hole in the tournament, the make-or-break hole, Bagger Vance says, “It’s
time for me to go.” Junuh says, “I need you. I can’t do this,” but Bagger Vance just smiles, hands over the
clubs, and walks away. He’s already given to Junuh all the wisdom and power that he needs. Bagger Vance
is no longer physically present, nor does he need to be because his gifts remain, and it’s up to Junuh to use
the gifts he’s been given.
It’s safe to say that the disciples weren’t too keen of Jesus leaving them on their own in a dangerous,
unpredictable world. But Jesus insisted that he must leave for the good of the disciples. He says to them, You
remember the works I have done while we were together: healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, offering
hope to the lost, bringing light into the darkness. You will do greater works than I have done. Why? Because “I
am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)
Almost his last words to the disciples were, “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.” (Luke 24:49) The ascension of Jesus
made way for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that the power the disciples had seen at work in Jesus
would now be available to them, available to us so that we might do the work prepared for us from before the
foundation of the world, the work uniquely suited for me and for you. The gifts and power of the ascended
Christ equip you to do God’s work as no one else in the world can do it.
The ascension is a promise of presence, a promise of power, and a promise of paradise. Through his
ascension, Christ has prepared a place for us in heaven; he has opened the way to God. As Calvin says it,
“The Lord, by his ascension to heaven, has opened up the access to the heavenly kingdom, which Adam had
shut. For having entered it in our flesh, as it were in our name, it follows, as the Apostle says, that we are in a
manner now seated in heavenly places, not entertaining a mere hope of heaven, but possessing it in
(Christ).” (Institutes, Vol.2: Part 17)
I threw that in so you’d know I really have been to seminary, but I do have one more movie—a classic
western—“Shane.” Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you’ve seen the story. A mysterious cowboy rides
down from the hills one day and befriends a family of sod-busters who are trying to build a life where their son
can grow up healthy and strong and safe. But the ruthless cattlemen are trying to run the farmers out of the
territory. They bully the farmers, tear down their fences, ride through their gardens, and burn their cabins. The
beautiful, fertile valley becomes a hell of fear and violence, and the chief devil in this hell is the evil gunfighter
Wilson, dressed all in black and played by Jack Palance. There’s a showdown, of course, and in the end
Shane rides away, ascending into the mountains, disappearing into the heights. But his coming and his
going have given to the beleaguered farmers what they could never have gotten on their own.
In the same manner, in his death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus has given to us what we could
never have claimed on our own. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were kicked out of the garden and God
placed a guard at the entrance, an angel with a fiery sword. The gate was locked and guarded—no way back
in—until Jesus. When Christ ascended into heaven, he ascended bodily, that is he carried our flesh—our
humanity—with him, making a place for us again in the paradise of God’s kingdom. We could never win that
place on our own, we couldn’t sneak in, we couldn’t pay our way, we couldn’t earn it, so Christ has done it for
us, and his ascension is the visible proof of that promised place.
So that’s what the ascension of Jesus means to you and me—the presence of Christ with us, the power
of Christ available to us, and a place with Christ prepared for us. Given the shape of this sermon, I feel we
ought to run the closing credits and flash THE END in big letters. Except the ascension wasn’t an ending, it
was a new beginning.
Soli Deo Gloria!