June 1, 2025

Revelation22.12-13, 16-17, 20-21

+ + This past Wednesday evening, at our regular Wednesday eveningEucharist, we celebrated the Eve of the feast of the Ascension.

Now, for most of us, this just isn’t that big of afeast day for us.

In fact, I don’t know a whole lot of Christians who, quitehonestly, even give the Ascension a second thought.

No one was packing it in on Wednesday for the Ascension Eve Mass!

Some of us might look at the Ascension as a kind of anticlimacticevent.  

The Resurrection has already occurred on Easter morning.  

That of course is the big event.  

The Ascension comes as it does after Jesus has appeared to hisdisciples and has proved to them that he wasn’t simply a ghost,  but was actually resurrected in his body.

In comparison to Easter, the Ascension is a quiet event.  

The resurrected Jesus simply leads his followers out to Bethanyand, then, quietly, he is taken up by God into heaven.  

And that’s it.

There are no angels, no trumpet blasts.

There is no thunder or lightning.

He just goes.

And that’s that.

So, why is the Ascension so important to us?

Well, it’s important on two levels.

One, on a practical level, we recognize the fact that, at theAscension, this is where our work begins.  

This is when our work as followers of Jesus begins.

We, at this point, become the Presence of Christ now in the world.

This is where we are now compelled to go out now and actually dothe work Jesus has left for us to do.

Those apostles who are left gazing up at  Jesus don’t just simple linger there,wringing their hands, wondering what has just happened.

Well, actually, yes, that’s exactly what they do.

For a while anyway.

But eventually, with a BIG prompting from the Holy Spirit, theyget going.

They go out and start doing what they are meant to do.

But we’re going to talk about that NEXT Sunday on the feast of Pentecost.

For now, we’re here, with them, watching Jesus being taken up, outof their midst.

For now, we know Jesus is taken out of our midst and is seated atthe right hand of God.

Again, this is the point in which we become the presence of Christin this world.

Now, I love the Feast of the Ascension!

What I love about the feast is that it is more than just going outto do Christ’s work.

Which brings us to our second point.

Again and again, as we see in the life of Jesus, it isn’t justabout Jesus.

Our job is not simply to observe Jesus and bask quietly in hisholiness.

A lot of Christians think that is all it is.

But, it’s about us too.

When we hear the stories of Jesus birth’ at Christmas, we can lookat them as simply fantastic.

They are wonderful stories that happened then and there, to him.

Or…we could see them for what they are for us.

We could see it our birth story in the births tory of Jesus aswell.

God worked in the life of Mary and Joseph and what happened?

God’s own Son was born.

But it should remind us that God worked in our birth as well.

Well. Maybe not with angels and shepherds.

But God worked in our lives even from the beginning, as God did inthe life of Jesus.

See, Jesus’ birth became ourbirth.

At  Easter too, we couldsimply bask in the glorious mystery of Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb.

But the story doesn’t really meananything to us until we see ourselves being resurrected with him.

His resurrection is ourresurrection as well.

God, who raised Jesus, will raise us as well.

Well, the same thing happened last Thursday.

Jesus’s ascension is ourascension as well.

What God does for Jesus, God does for us too.

That’s incredibly important to understand!

We are not simply followers of Jesus.

We are sharers with Jesus in all that happens to him.

And that is incredibly wonderful!

The event of the Incarnation is a reminder that in much the sameway God’s Word, God’s very essence, is incarnate in Jesus so God’s Word, God’sessence,  is incarnate in us as well.

So, regarding the Ascension, it is important for us to look atwhat happened and see it not only with Jesus’ eyes, not only in his followers’eyes, but in our eyes as well.

Yes, we are rooted to this earth, to creation.

We are children of this world.

But we are also children of the next world as well.

We are children of heaven too.

Jesus tells us in our reading from Revelation today:

“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay accordingto everyone’s work.”

Our reward, as children of Heaven, is with the One who says,

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, thebeginning and the end.”

What the ascension reminds us is that we are inheritors of heaventoo.

We, like Jesus, will one day ascend like him, beyond this world.

We will be taken up and be with God, just as Jesus is with God.

In fact, our whole life here is a slow, steady ascension towardGod.

We are moving, incrementally, upward toward God.

This is our journey.

And as we do, as we recognize that we are moving upward, slowlyascending, like Jesus, to that place in which we ultimately belong, we shouldbe feeling what Jesus no doubt felt as he ascended.

Joy.

Happiness.

Exultation.

When we are happy—when we are joyful—we often use the word soar.

Our hearts soar with happiness.

When we are full of joy and happiness we imagine ourselvesfloating upward.

In a sense, when we are happy or in love or any of those otherwonderful things, we, in a sense, ascend.

Conversely, when we are depressed?

We plunge!

We fall.

We go down.  

So this whole idea of ascension—of going “up”—is important.

Jesus, in his joy, went up toward God.

And we, in our joy, are, at this very moment, following that path.

We have followed Jesus through his entire journey so far.

We have followed him from his birth, through his ministry, to hiscross.

We have followed him to his descent into hell and through hisresurrection from the tomb.

And now, we are following him on his ascension.

And it is joyful and glorious.

Right now.

Right here.

In this world.

Doing the work God gives us to do.

And what is that?

It is doing what we must do to make God’s Kingdom present here andnow.

It means loving—loving God, loving others, loving ourselves.

It means doing what needs to be done to love and make God’sKingdom present right now, even weary as we may be, while we are in this world.

Even in this sometimes very ugly, very violent world.

So, let’s not just wring your hands like the disciples of Jesusafter the Ascension, wondering what to do next.

We know what to do.

So let’s do it!

Here we are.

In this place.

In this world.

Doing the best we can.

And just when we think God has provided just what we need for thisjourney, we find one more truly amazing gift to us.

Next week, an event will happen that will show us that Jesusremains with us in an even more extraordinary way.

On that day—Pentecost Sunday—God’s Spirit will descend upon us andremain with us.

Always.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

For now, we must simply face the fact that it all does somehowfall into place.  

All that following of Jesus is now really starting to pay off.

We know now—fully and completely—that God will never leave usalone.

In what seems like defeat, there is amazing resurrection.

And ascension.

In what seemed like being stuck to an earth that often feels sickand desolate, we now soar.

So, today, and this week, as we remember and rejoice in theAscension, as we prepare for the Holy Spirit’s descent, let our hearts ascendwith Jesus.

Let them soar upward in joy at the fact that God is still with us.

Let us be filled with joy that God’s Spirit dwells within us andcan never be taken from us.  

Let us rise up, in joy.

Let us rise up in us and proclaim loudly.

We are children of heaven!

We are ascending to our God and your God.

And we are gaining our rightful inheritance!

And it is good!

Very good!  

Amen.