New People, Places and Experiences (The Ascension of Our Lord)

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Last Sunday, we concluded Confirmation classes for the spring semester.  And so for our second year class, there will be no more Sunday evening classes, but in the early fall they’ll be working on writing “faith statements” prior to their confirmation on Reformation Sunday.

And as part of that exercise, I always ask them to think about people, places and events that have helped them connect to Jesus and grow in their faith.  After all, while faith is inspired by the Holy Spirit, usually we experience the presence and power of God’s Spirit in our lives through:

• Other people – for kids, this is often first and foremost their parents…; but over the years, confirmands have also written about Sunday School teachers, grandparents and friends who have helped them understand and connect more deeply to God…

• Special places – and while sometimes, that may be a “religious” place like the church building, it’s often also been through experiencing God in the beauty of creation or around a dinner table as a prayer is said…

• Specific events or experiences – sometimes, this can be through the experience of worship, or through singing or playing music to God; but sometimes, it’s also through serving others, where people really felt God was working through them to be the hands of God in the lives of others who needed help…

Usually, when I ask the confirmands to write about people, places an experiences in their past, they come up with some pretty good answers.  The hard part, is when I ask them how they’re going to continue to be open to experiencing God in new times and in new situations. And as they’re moving into a new phase of their lives, that’s often a tough question.

And I think this is the tough question of the story of the Ascension.  The first disciples of Jesus had had a powerful and life-changing experience of God through their relationship with Jesus as they followed him about physically on earth.  But it wasn’t just Jesus himself.  Jesus had also helped them experience God’s presence through the people they had met and with whom they had become a community.  Jesus had helped them to experience God’s power and presence in places that they had come to rely on to find God – whether on the hillsides as Jesus taught or in the synagogues. And indeed, as today’s Gospel reading concludes, they go to one of those reliable places – the Temple – to praise God.  And, Jesus had helped them to experience the power and presence of God through events and experiences that were sometimes miraculous – the raising of the dead and the healing of people with otherwise incurable diseases.  But in these events, the disciples were always spectators or helpers – and they probably had become pretty comfortable in that role.

But now, as Jesus ascends to heaven, they stand looking up wondering what’s next.  And of course, Jesus had told them what was next: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  But that means that the disciples will need to figure out how Jesus will continue to work in their lives, but through:

• People they haven’t met – and even, in many cases, people they don’t have a clue about at this point.  I mean, who lives at “the ends of the earth”? You don’t really know until you go there and meet them…

• Places they haven’t been – so far, Jesus has just asked them to follow them around to places where they might have traveled anyway.  But now Jesus is asking them to be open to God’s power and presence in their lives in a different place than they’ve been before – places that are unfamiliar, and sometimes even hostile…

• Events and experiences that they can’t even begin to imagine – and while there are some early stories in the book of Acts that show the disciples doing some of the same things Jesus did, now it’s really different because the disciples aren’t just watching and learning anymore – now they have to be doers of the work, as well as the people who explain what it all means; Jesus is still working in and through them, but in new and different ways …

The good news, though, was that Jesus – even when they didn’t physically see him – was still going to be present in their lives through the power of the Spirit.  And Jesus was still going to be working in and through people, and place and experiences to make his presence known in and through the first disciples.  They came to realize that as the Book of Acts continues.

But the people, the places and the experiences through which Jesus was working in their lives were going to be different than they were before.  The Ascension was simply a transitional moment – perhaps like moving into high school for our confirmands – in which they were particularly aware that things would be different now.

But in fact, this is the way Jesus is working in all of our lives, whether we feel like we’re moving through a transition in our lives or not.  Jesus is always working in and through us in the context of new people, new places and new experiences.

Sometimes, it can be hard, because like those first disciples we felt connection to people and places and experiences that have passed from our lives.  And at times like that, it can be easy to understand why the disciples at first just stood looking up and wondering how to move forward.

But one of the messages of the Ascension is that Jesus is no longer bound by any one set of people, or any one place or any particular experience.  And more than that, the Ascension is the promise for us, too, that Jesus will continue to reveal the promise and power of God in and through:

• Relationships with people we may not have met yet – and this is a promise for both us and for others; Jesus’ call to us as disciples is to both be open to the things God is teaching us through others we haven’t met as well as to be people through whom God can work to make a difference in the lives of others we may not have even known were out there…!

• Places that are new or even uncomfortable – and the places we inhabit are sometimes different physical places, different emotional places and different spiritual places.  Yet Jesus is present in all of them, and when we find ourselves in a new place, it doesn’t mean we can’t experience Jesus there, too…

• Experiences and situations that are really different from what came before for us; this weekend, we’re dedicating our solar panels as part of our commitment to living in a more sustainable way.  And it’s important to remember this wouldn’t even have been possible or imagined 30 years ago.  But it’s just one of the new ways that we live in order to be faithful stewards of God’s creation…

Sometimes, we’re tempted to understand the story of the Ascension as the story of Jesus going away.  But that’s not really the meaning.  The Ascension is really about the promise that Jesus is no longer bound by any time or place, so that he can fulfill the promise to be with us always.  And that means that we should be looking forward to Jesus coming among us not only at the end of time “in the same way” that the first disciples saw him go, but also that we should be looking to experience the power and presence of Jesus right now, as we experience new people, new places and as we live into new experiences.

Amen.