Luke 24: 44-53

A specially chartered plane was carrying the Pope, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the smartest lawyer in the world, and an Eagle Scout on an international goodwill tour when it ran into a storm. When three of the engines and the hydraulic system started to fail, the pilot got on the plane’s intercom. “Gentleman,” he announced to the nervous passengers, “this aircraft is not going to reach its destination. Not only that, we have only four parachutes for the five of us on board. I hate to be selfish about this, but the early bird gets the worm.” The passengers watched as the pilot ran down the center aisle, opened the back hatch, jumped out and opened the first parachute. The Secretary General of the United Nations immediately pointed out that his survival was crucial to world peace and stability. “I must think of the peoples of the world and save myself,” he said. With that, he seized the second parachute and jumped. The lawyer immediately jumped up and pointed out that after all he was the smartest lawyer in the world. He said, “At this moment, I have five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court on which hang the civil liberties of generations to come.” He continued, “My career has been a beacon for thousands, and I cannot allow it to come to such an untimely end.” Reaching into the pile, he too bailed out. The Pope, a kindly man, turned to the Eagle Scout and said, “I’ve lived a long, full life, and I’m quite prepared to meet my Lord and Savior. Son, you take the last parachute for yourself.” “Don’t worry, your Holiness,” said the Eagle Scout with a grin. “The world’s smartest lawyer just jumped out of the plane wearing my knapsack.”

This is Ascension Sunday. Jesus is remembered today for ascending, not descending like in the previous story.  In ascension, Jesus physically departs. He doesn’t die a second time. Wilmer Judson’s shrewish wife of fifty-three years had died. As the mourners began to gather around the gravesite, the pallbearers retrieved the casket from the hearse. One of the pallbearers tripped over a rock. This shook the casket and revived the woman. She lived another seven years and died again. They were on their way to the gravesite again. And as they approached the same spot, Wilmer shouted out to the pallbearer, “Watch out for that rock!”

Jesus’s physical body blends into the eternal. He doesn’t vaporize or merely disappear like an apparition or ghost. His physical ascension is mysterious without a doubt, but his physical departure is the assimilation of the physical and spiritual. As the historic confession affirms, he was truly God and truly human while walking this earth. This is an eternal and temporal event. In the early centuries of the church, it was necessary to consistently emphasize the historical, physical nature of Jesus’s story because there were some who believed the physical element of all nature, including the human body, was totally corrupt because of the Fall in the garden of Eden. The Gnostic Christians believed only the spiritual could ever be redeemed or live out their salvation. This account of Jesus ascending physically is an important part of the story of Jesus. He doesn’t abandon the physical in his departure. He includes it.

A family member may have been you for a long time, maybe as long as you can remember. Now, he or she is gone, and the world looks and feels different. So often, this is the season of our mourning. The world may never be the same as it was. But, again, this is not an account of Jesus’s second death. This is an ending, and a beginning. Before the task of witnessing and proclaiming in Jerusalem and beyond begins, they wait, but they can’t help going to the temple and worshipping God.

The story of Jesus’s ascension is, first of all, an ending. William Barclay wrote in his commentary on Luke 24: “The days when their faith was faith in a flesh and blood person and depended on his flesh and blood presence were over.” Jesus’s presence on the earth was now over. The task of declaring and teaching the truth of the Kingdom of God was left to the apostles and the others who followed. (Luke wrote in Acts 1 that approximately 120 people were in the upper room when the Holy Spirit came upon them with tongues of fire). As Barclay said their dependence on the flesh and blood presence of Jesus was over. They weren’t to follow the physical leading of Jesus anymore. The learning was now over. The witnessing and proclaiming were left to them.

It was now a beginning. William Barclay also wrote, “The disciples did not leave the scene heart-broken; they left it with great joy.” Jesus lastly said to them in the gospel of Luke, “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.”

The physical and spiritual are both affirmed as important in the story of Jesus to the very end. The physical and the spiritual will also be important in the beginning of a new story in witnessing and proclaiming in power from on high. The repentance and forgiveness of sins were to be proclaimed in his name to all nations. Beginning with Jerusalem, they were to be witnesses of these things. Proclaim repentance, forgiveness and testimony of what happened, but first anticipate receiving what the Father has promised. Stay in the city until you have been clothed with power.

A little girl and her mother were looking on the internet together when the girl saw a picture, an artist’s rendering of Jesus. Her mother, seeing an opportunity for a lesson, said, “Do you know who that is?” The little girl answered, “Yes, mommy, He goes to our church.” When we endeavor to invite friends or acquaintances to our church we often imply that if the friend or acquaintance comes, they’d meet our Savior. It’s not an encounter in the physical, but we bear witness in this place of a historical figure who has impacted us in our spirits. The physical and spiritual are essential in our telling of the story of Jesus.

The physical proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is in word and deed. In the book of James, chapter one, the apostle wrote, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” A group of children were bored until one of them suggested that they play church. They played for a while but were bored again soon. Then, one of the little boys said, “Hey! I got it! Let’s play Jesus!” The other kids asked, “How do you do that?” The boy said, “Well, first you be mean to me, and tie me up. Then, you would pretend to hit me, and spit on me, and call me names.” The children decided to try it for a while, but they quickly felt repulsed by their own actions. They stopped, uncomfortable with this game. The boy playing Jesus called the game to a halt, saying, “Let’s not play Jesus any more; let’s go back to playing church.” There is a physical nature to proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, and sometimes a physical nature to suffering for our devotion.

There is the physical nature and the spiritual nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ blended together. Paul wrote in Romans 15: 17-19 he believed he fully proclaimed the good news of Christ:

“In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.” For Paul, the full proclamation of the good news of Christ was in word and deed, signs and wonders and the power of the Spirit. Those who received the good news benefitted from the truth of the gospel expressed and the power of the Holy Spirit in signs, wonders and, evidently, the miraculous. He displayed the full proclamation of the gospel.

Jesus ascended physically so that the physical and spiritual elements of his life on earth to the very end were woven together. The disciples were witnesses of this. They then went with great joy to the temple to praise God and then to the upper room to prepare themselves spiritually for the power from on high that was coming to them. The physical and the spiritual were part of the story of Jesus. When the power from on high came to the disciples, the physical and spiritual elements of their faithfulness were also part of their story. When we talk and share about the story of the power coming on Pentecost next week, the physical and spiritual will be blended together again for us.

Preached at Lincoln UMC in Lincoln, AL, May 16, 2021