“I’ll Be With You”

Acts 1:1-11

May 28, 2006

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

Most of us don’t think about the ascension of Jesus very often. In fact, I’ve been a preacher now for some twelve years now. The ascension happens every year in our Christian year and I’m given the chance to talk about it. So far I never have. Today is the first time ever!

I don’t have any sermons on this story tucked away neatly about what happened the day that Jesus rose toward the heavens. My guess is that this story is not on any of your favorite Bible stories of all time list. The story does not rank right up there with the twenty-third Psalm or John’s favorite quote of Jesus, “For God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son.”

My guess is that we don’t think about this story unless a preacher chooses to preach about it. And then, as the lesson is being read, perhaps we imagine and envision what it must have been like for Jesus to be standing with his disciples one minute and then in the very next, floating up toward the heavens. The disciples must have been watching Jesus do that like a child would watch a helium balloon rise if they accidently or on purpose let it fly toward the heavens. I can just see it. Peter or perhaps Matthew watching as the sandals of Jesus finally were out of sight.

I want you to know that I toyed with the sermon title this week. I try to give Helen the sermon title on Monday so that it can be printed in the newsletter. When she asked me for it, I said, “What do you think about this one? Up, Up, and Away?” (with a question mark at the end of it). She gave me a look that I said, “I’ll print it if you want me to, but are you sure? Maybe I should have done that. What would it have been like for those who came here Tuesday to vote and saw the sermon title on the message board out front. I was sure that it would draw a crowd.

Since she didn’t like my first suggestion, I offered this one, “Left Behind.” Helen gently said, “I like the first one better.” If you’ve received your newsletter, then you know that we didn’t come up with a title, but there’s one in the worship bulletin today.

To be honest with you, the lessons on Ascension Sunday, both of which come from the hand of Luke, leave us scratching our heads and wondering what the story is all about. At the same time, if you do not mind the pun, this lesson does not have the down to earth power that many passages have for us. I guess you could say that it is easy for us to ask how, as in, how did this happen. What helped Jesus lift off of the ground? But instead of trying to answer that question this morning, I would rather try to answer the one that asks, “What this story can really mean to us and our lives of faith?” So let us do that this morning.

A preacher friend of mine once preached this text by wondering what it would be like if Jesus had not ascended. What would have happened if instead of Jesus heading up toward the heavens, if he had stayed here on the earth. Instead of having the story as we have it, Jesus would have gathered the disciples together on the Mount of Olives. The now eleven would have still wondered and asked, “Jesus, is this the time when the kingdom will be restored to Israel?” Our lesson tells us that Jesus answered, “It is not for you to worry about the time and the place.”

What if Jesus had said instead, “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m not going anywhere! I am going to be with you forever. I will never leave you. I will be your teacher and your example and your moral compass. I will stay here, and you will see me as you see me now. I’m going to be with every generation just the way that I have been with you.” What if Jesus had continued, “In fact, you will see God before I do. When you all die and head toward heaven, be sure and tell my Father that I send my greetings.”

If it happened that way, Jesus might live in Galilee or perhaps Nazareth. I am pretty sure that he would try and steer clear of Jerusalem. After all one death and resurrection is enough. Jesus would keep doing the things that he had been doing during his three years on the earth.

There would be more healings. There would be more lessons. There would be more miracles. There would be more sermons. If it happened that way, the New Testament, or at least the gospel section of it, would get larger and larger with the passing of each generation. We would still have the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We might also have one according to Don or Carol. Buying a copy of the New Testament would be a challenge. Christian bookstores like Mardel’s and Cokesbury would carry them, but they would be in several volumes. Libraries might be created just to house the lessons. Powerful computers might also house them. There is a chance that you would have to purchase the lessons based on a particular time period.

Jesus would never age. He would look the same. He would be timeless. With Christianity doing so well these days, the crowds of people who want to see him and be around him would be a lot bigger. Finding a quiet place to be by himself to pray would be next to impossible. I can imagine that Jesus would spend hours each day trying to answer the hard questions of his day and responding to the thousands of emails that are sent to him.

And if it were me, I would ask Jesus to come here, to Little Rock, to St. Paul so that on Julie Ann’s baptismal day, Jesus could baptize my daughter. I know that my brother is scheduled to do that. Surely he wouldn’t mind taking a back seat to the Savior of the world!

If Jesus stayed, my guess is that people would focus on how they could get to Jesus so that they could be healed. They would try to talk to him one on one so that he could help them find answers for their lives. And blessed would be those who actually got close enough to have a personal audience with Jesus.

That is one possibility, I guess. How about another one? What if Jesus left altogether without the promise that our scripture lesson gives us? You will remember Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” What if Jesus did not say that? What if he said instead, “I am leaving. I will not be back. Do the best you can. Remember the lessons I taught. Be brave. Be good. See you later!” If Jesus had said that, what would the disciples have done? Would they have gone back to their jobs and their families? Probably.

James and John might go home hoping that their father, Zebedee still could use them in the family fishing business. Matthew might go back to collecting taxes, but do it a little differently now.

If they went back to their jobs, then I could imagine that every once and a while, perhaps once a year, one of them would organize a reunion. In the United Methodist Church we would call such a thing Annual Conference. So it might happen on the first or second weekend in June.

Peter might book the Temple in Jerusalem for their worship services and then there would be hotel rooms at the convention center. My guess is that there would be tears and laughter as the eleven recounted the stories of Jesus, what he did, what he said. But after a while, the reunions and the meetings would stop. After all, these disciples cannot live forever. After they were gone, with no Holy Spirit to empower them, all that would be left would be the stories of Jesus.

I am grateful. I hope that you are, too, that that is not the way that the story of Jesus and the disciples ends up. Instead, Jesus promises his Holy Spirit. He says that the disciples will receive power when the Spirit comes. The angels who remained near them reminded the disciples of something important. “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him to into heaven.”

If I had been one of those disciples, up there on the mountain, as Jesus said these things and then headed upward, I would have said one of two things. I would have said, “Please, Jesus, don’t leave me.” Or I would have said, “Lord, there is not enough power in the world that can replace you! Don’t you understand that?”

The disciples did not say such a thing. At least it is not recorded in our lesson for this morning. Jesus leaving helped these eleven. When the Spirit descended on them on what we have come to call Pentecost Sunday, Peter is the first one to stand up and say something. His first sermon is powerful. He tried to explain the giving of the Holy Spirit. You see, the disciples discovered something inside of them that they did not seem to have before.

I might compare it to the dozens of parents I have talked with through the years. When they speak of what happened when their kids went off for college or moved out on their own, they notice that their kids are independent and doing wonderful things. They are making it on their own. They have been given a firm foundation. Dear old mom and dad might say, “It is amazing. I didn’t think that she had it in her. She was never that way at home!”

Susie and I both love our parents, but we believe that when we married one of the best things that we did was to move first to Dallas and then to Arkansas. Arkansas was some five or six hours away from the four of them. Being here allowed us to stand on our own.

I am thirty-eight years old. It is not as bad as it used to be. When my parents still lived in the house that I grew up in and I went home, when I walked in the door, it was as if I was in the sixth or seventh grade all over again. Susie noticed it. I noticed it in her. We were both older, but when we went home, we wanted our mothers to take care of us and to do the things that they had always done, things we could do by ourselves.

Jesus may have ascended toward the heavens. He may have left, but there was a good reason for it. The reason simply is this, so that we could get on with what he started. The gift of the Holy Spirit will come to each of us, every one of us, the real question is what will we do with it. The ascension of Jesus is an important time. It just seems to me that it calls us to answer an important question. The question is this one, “Who will we become?” Not just who are we right now, but who will we be. Who will we be in five years? Who will we be in ten years? With the Spirit inside of us, who will we become? What will God do with these lives of ours?

And yet our spirits seems to be so afraid. Why is that? Like you, I have had something happen in my life that seemed very difficult. Maybe it was some stand I had to take. Perhaps it was something I had to say. Possibly it was something that I had to live with or get through. When others have known about it, they have innocently said, “I’ll be praying for you.” Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the prayers. Prayers offer peace that is powerful. But still I wondered, “What is your prayer going to do for me? Is it going to give my heart courage? Is it going to give me words to say? Is your prayer going to give me legs of faith? I am the one who is going to have to do something here! Thanks for your prayers, though.” No outside thing like advice or counsel or instruction can change the fact that there is something inside of us that helps us with our fears and the difficult things in our lives. The something inside of us is the promised Spirit.

Let me close with a quote that I ran across the other morning. Someone writing about the ascension of Jesus said, “The Lord who was not anywhere anymore had become everywhere instead.” Let us pray.

(Special thanks to Jeanie Burton, for the idea about what would have happened if Jesus had stayed or if he had left without the promise of the Spirit. Thanks also to her for another idea or two in this sermon. Thanks also goes out to those who have stood by me and prayed for me, especially during the death of my sister, Emily Ann. Your prayers helped me face her death).