In the name
of the Risen Lord ☩ Amen.
One of the refrains
throughout the Old Testament is that the culmination of Creation will be when
the glory of God fills the earth. The prophet Habakkuk says that “the earth
will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” And
throughout the Psalms and other writings, that theme is picked up. We heard it
in the passage from Ephesians tonight, that Christ fills “all in all.”
When it comes to
answering the question, “What is the point of Creation?,” which, admittedly, is
a big question, we might well say that point of it all is for God’s glory to
fill everything – every heart, every home, every moment. First and foremost,
the Christian faith is not a doctrine, not a set of beliefs, not even a set of
practices. At its core, Christianity is a story, the story of this fulfillment.
It is the story of the loving Creation of all that is and is heading towards
the culmination of that love which started it all. And so the story of our faith
is the of the fulfillment of God’s loving purposes.
It was forty days ago that
we gathered to celebrate a major chapter in this fulfillment – the Resurrection.
At the Easter Vigil, we gathered and through the Exultet, a litany of readings,
the renewal of Baptismal vows, and the Easter Eucharist, we saw how the
Resurrection of Jesus from the dead was the fulfillment of the promises of God
seen throughout the story of salvation in Scripture.
What is important about
seeing faith as a story is that it reminds us that history matters. The story
of the Resurrection only makes sense within the context of the story of Israel –
the people who had been chosen by God to be witnesses of God’s saving power.
The roots of the Resurrection are found in the promises made to Abraham and
David, in the saving events of the Exodus and of Daniel, in the visions of hope
found in Ezekiel and Isaiah. Because our faith is a story, we value and take
seriously the chapters that have gotten us to where we are in the story.
Though it is often
overlooked because it always falls on a Thursday, always being forty days after
Easter, the Ascension of Jesus Christ is a monumental part of the fulfillment
of this story. As the Ascension is presented in Luke, there are three movements
to this fulfillment. The first is instruction. Jesus instructs the disciples
about how the Scriptures testify to him, and specifically to his Death and
Resurrection. Jesus shows them the story of Scripture, and in doing so, he is
revealed as the fulfillment of it.
Now what exactly Jesus
said to the disciples, we don’t know. How amazing it must have been to sit at
Jesus’ feet and have him open the Scriptures in that way! But I can only guess
that Jesus talked about things like God’s faithfulness to the covenant made
with the people, and how the prophets pointed toward the hope of God’s
culminating presence with the people, and how the Law sought to form people in
holiness, and how the books of wisdom give us insight into God’s loving
purposes for us, and how Jesus’ own ministry was about inaugurating the reign
of God on earth as it is in heaven, and how his Death and Resurrection
reconciled all that human sin had broken. Through and through, Scripture is the
story of God who wants nothing more than to fulfill the refrain that is found
in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, the
Psalms, Matthew, John, Hebrews, and Revelation – “I will be their God, and they
will be my people.” That’s what the culmination of the story is – the glory of
God and God’s people being fully and perfectly united in peace.
Jesus showed the
disciples how the hopes and fears of all the years are met in him. It’s not
that Scripture is prophecy about Jesus; the claim is not that Jesus’ checked
off all the boxes that were required for the Messiah. In fact, when Jesus says “Thus
it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise again from the dead on
the third day,” there’s a problem with those words. The problem is that there
is no single reference anywhere in the Old Testament to a suffering Messiah who
will rise from the dead. So when Jesus says that his story fulfills the
Scriptures, it’s not he fits properly into the box labeled “Savior of the
world,” rather it is that he perfects and completes the story. The trajectory
of God wanting to be with and bless all of Creation is fulfilled by Jesus. It’s
sort of like an acorn and an oak tree – you wouldn’t look at an acorn and think
that it checks off all the boxes for being an oak tree, but the acorn is
perfected when it becomes an oak, it fulfills its purpose. This is what we mean
when we proclaim that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Scriptures – he
takes this sacred story into a more glorious place than we could have asked or
imagined.
What Jesus’ instruction reminds
us of is the importance of Scripture in our faith. Scripture is where we come
to learn this grand story and find our place within it. When Jesus wants to
teach the disciples about his mission and identity, he turns to Scripture
because Scripture points to him and testifies to his glory. As followers of
Jesus, as we seek to draw closer to him and enter more fully into his saving
grace, Scripture remains the place where we can meet him. So if you hardly ever
read the Bible, perhaps you can commit to reading the Sunday readings in preparation
for worship or take the bulletin home with you and read them again the
following day. If you read Scripture occasionally, commit to reading it on a
regular basis and develop a pattern of reading. You might read Scripture regularly
already, so give yourself the space and time to not only read Scripture, but to
meditate on it and study it. If you have questions about where to start, or how
to read Scripture, please let me know. Just as Jesus uses Scripture to reveal
how he fulfills the purposes of God, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the
same instruction can happen for us as we read Scripture.
After instruction, the
next movement of the Ascension text is commissioning. This knowledge that Jesus
gives to the disciples is not merely for their spiritual edification, it is for
the good of the world. They are to take this knowledge that Jesus Christ is the
fulfillment of God’s promises and share this Good News with the world. And you
and I are only gathered here tonight because they were faithful to this great commission.
Jesus says “You are witnesses” of these things.
Witnessing happens in two
ways. The first type of witnessing is about observing and noticing. We say
things like “I was there to witness that event.” So a part of being a witness
is paying attention. The glory of God is all around us, but do we witness it? Are
we on the lookout for the goodness of God? Are way paying attention to what the
Spirit is saying to us? Again, praying and reading Scripture help us to keep
our attention focused so that we might witness the story of God that is
unfolding in our very midst. So the first part of the commission that Jesus
gives his followers is to awaken our senses to the fact that in God we live,
and move, and have our being.
The second level of
witnessing is the legal sense of the word – a witness is someone who testifies
to what they have seen. It has been said that the Church is where one beggar
tells another beggar where to find bread – in other words, it’s about being a
witness, about testifying to the peace, love, joy, and hope that you have found
by being a part of God’s story. People are hungry for belonging, for purpose,
for fulfillment, for joy – and God has gifted these things to us by bringing us
into the story of salvation. At St. Luke’s, we speak of our identity as being a
place where all people can come and see the difference that Christ makes
through abundant grace, beloved community, and intentional worship. You have
seen these things, and you have been commissioned to be a witness who testifies
to them.
Jesus notes that the
particular commission that he gives us is about witnessing to repentance and
the forgiveness of sins. One scholar has recently published his own translation
of the New Testament and the way he renders “repentance” is “transformation of
heart.” As I’ve said often, repenting is not about remorse or apologizing, it’s
about conversion – it’s not a mental exercise, rather it’s about how you live.
When people are around you, hopefully, they’ll say “You seem different – more joyful
and generous.” And then you can say, “My heart has been transformed by Jesus.”
And the forgiveness of
sins is about letting go. The word for “forgive” in this passage means to “let
go.” Stop keeping score, stop worrying about social debts. Trust that whatever
mistakes that you’ve made, God doesn’t count that against you. And since you’ve
been forgiven, you can then witness to others by forgiving them in turn.
Having been instructed and
commissioned, Jesus then offers a promise that holds it all together. Jesus
promises “I am sending upon you what my Father promised” and tells them to stay
in the city until they have been clothed with power from on high. You’ll have
to come back on the Feast of Pentecost, ten days from now, to see this next
chapter of the story being written, but for now, we are given the promise of
the Holy Spirit. In Matthew, as Jesus delivers his final remarks to the disciples,
he comforts and reminds them that he is with them always, even to the end of
the ages.
It is Jesus’ continuing
presence with us in the promised Holy Spirit that makes our commissioning plausible.
We cannot transform our own hearts or let go of our sins or the sins against us
by our own willpower, or desires, or strength. It is only by the Holy Spirit
that we can find the grace and courage to do this holy work which we have been
given to walk in.
And to fulfill this promise,
Jesus ascends to the throne of heaven so that he might fill all things. Jesus
no is no longer located in any single place so that he might fill all places.
In the Ascension, the incarnate Jesus becomes the cosmic Christ. Jesus no
longer is contained in a particular body of flesh and blood, but rather is
found in the Body and Blood of his Church, in the splendor of Creation, in the beauty
of art, in the hearts and minds of the faithful, in acts of humble service, in
generous giving, in the power of love, in the weak and least of these.
And this being “all in
all” is what God has always intended as the culmination of creating. In the Ascension,
Jesus instructs us that he perfects the story of God. Jesus then commissions us
to take our place in that story through being transformed and forgiving sins.
And Jesus promises to be with us and empower us in this work of ministry.
Christ has ascended far
above the heavens that he might fill all things. I encourage you to pray
tonight and in the days leading up to Pentecost that Christ might fill our
Church with his story, our community with his mercy, and our world with his hope.
And pray that Christ fill your heart with his joy, your mind with his wisdom, your
will with his grace, your life with his love. I’ll close with the final two
verses of Psalm 72: Blessed be the Lord
God, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous deeds! And blessed be his
glorious Name for ever! and may all the earth be filled with his glory. Amen.
Amen.
