Sevent Sunday of Easter

A few months ago in confirmation, the kids and I wrestled with what it means that Jesus is truly present in the Bread and the Wine of Holy Communion. At first, they all agreed that yes, he was present, but the more we talked, the more questions they had. What does “present” really mean?  How can someone be everywhere at once? How can  Jesus’ body be here at Grace and at other churches in other places? What does it mean that Jesus is both God and man? And finally someone asked, “Well, didn’t Jesus ascend into heaven? How can he still be here?” To that, someone else said, “Yeah—where did he go?”

What I told them is what you all know about the Ascension: that Jesus disappeared visibly to end his earthly fellowship with the disciples and to take up his heavenly dominion over all creation. This was done so that he could send the Holy Spirit, through whom Christ is present anywhere and everywhere he chooses, including in the bread and wine on Christian altars all over the world.

But that’s hard for us to grasp. Jesus does, on the surface, appear to be GONE. Left for some other place. But is this how the disciples act? Like Jesus had abandoned them? No, they do not go away sorrowful, or sad. In fact, Luke reports that they are worshiping as they return to the city, with great joy, praising God in the temple day after day. They do not experience Jesus as absent.

Instead, they experience Jesus as so present with them that they take up his ministry and do extraordinary things. The book of Acts tells about how the disciples heal the sick and raise the dead. They preach powerfully and convert many. They care for widows and orphans and feed the hungry. They even die forgiving those who kill them (as Stephen did) and they endure much of the same treatment as Jesus.  All along they do not take credit for any of this! They proclaim the living presence of Jesus. Jesus is still very much active and alive in the world—through his disciples and their ministry in his name and in his power.

So, Jesus’ ascension is not experienced by the early disciples as his leaving or disappearing at all, according to Luke. While he is taken from their sight, wrapped up in the clouds, he is not absent. In fact, as the newly-baptized disciples gathered around the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, and prayer, they experienced the presence of Jesus! Jesus does not go to be someplace else and wander back through here to show up now and again. Jesus is experienced as real and present in the washing, and in scripture read and explained, and in the table fellowship. It’s the same for us: Christ is present among us in Baptism, in preaching, in the Holy Communion. He is really and truly here, physically here at this Altar, in this Font.

But we still have trouble understanding. We say in the creed that “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” The problem is that we think of heaven as another place, as there are places in this world. If Jesus ascends to heaven, then he must go to that other place. That seems logical to us.

But the Bible makes very clear that the Kingdom of God is not so much as a reality in a different place (located up in the sky somewhere, like most people think of heaven) but rather is God’s future that in Christ’s death and resurrection has broken into the present.  Let me say that again—heaven is not so much this other place as it is God’s future come to you, right now, and your assurance that you will live with God forever in the resurrection of your bodies to life everlasting.

If the risen Jesus is all about the future, then we can understand that he has also ascended to that same future. The language of our liturgy and song, the language of the apocalyptic writings like the book of Revelation, the language of our creeds, and our experience all now begin to converge. We experience in Holy Communion a “foretaste of the feast to come” because we understand how God’s future banquet has broken in upon our present world of famine. Though we suffer fiery ordeals, like the people Peter was writing to, we understand that in God’s future the victory is certain. Though we cannot see with our eyes, or discern with our senses, we know that what Christ says is true: this is my Body and Blood.

When we proclaim our faith in the Ascended One, we are proclaiming that despite events that seem to contradict it, we can see and participate in the future Reign of God with Jesus in the here and now. We experience, not the absence of our Lord, but his real and life transforming presence.

And if Jesus goes to the future ahead of us, then there is no place in our journey that we’re now on, where Jesus is not there with us. No matter how dark the twists and turns of our road and how terrible the destination may seem, no matter how much the devilish lion prowls around looking to devour us, we are not without hope.  When we confess that Jesus ascended to heaven, then we are confessing that Jesus awaits us in very ordinary places and ordinary ways with extraordinary grace and love. That he makes all of us Christians one: one family, one Body.

Because the future is now safely in Jesus’ hands, I have more courage to face the challenges of today with hope. We all do. The battle is over and has been won. Jesus has taken our humanity into heaven, and we look for that time when he will take all of us there, too. We live in the in between time: between the final victory and the full reality that is already present in Jesus Christ.

So what I want you to take home with you today is this: Because of the ascension of Jesus, you live in a new reality, where death and the threat of death no longer have dominion. You are free to live for others in a world that has yet to hear this good and wondrous news. The risen and ascended Jesus breaks into our present world, giving himself to us anew in Baptism, preaching, Holy Communion. Jesus himself prays for us, as recorded in John 17, that we would be protected and united in knowing the only true God and showing him to the world.

Look, none of us knows what the future will bring; we are not assured of any future days at all. All we know is that the future is safe in Jesus’ hands and he has marked his cross on our foreheads.

And that is enough. Like the disciples at the Ascension long ago, we also return to a needy and hurting world after our encounter with the Risen One. Like them, our hearts and heads are held high, rejoicing and worshiping and blessing God, constantly devoting ourselves to prayer, and to serving others in Jesus' Name. Why? Because we know that the future has come to the present, heaven has come to earth, and Christ now fills all in all.  Amen.