Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I was watching the news the other night and it seems there has been another real medical breakthrough. Scientists have discovered that cells scraped form the internal organs of a pig – either the stomach or a placenta – when applied to a finger wound allowed a person to actually grow a new finger. A man cut off the end of his finger and they showed the before and after shot. Old finger cut off to the first knuckle; new finger re-grown with a new fingernail, skin and bone.
It shouldn’t surprise us too much. One of Florida’s great delicacies is Stone Crab claws. Watermen there simply catch the crabs in traps, cut off their largest claw and throw them back in the water. The point is being able to re-grow lost limbs or extremities is not unknown in nature. It is simply that we human beings have not been able to do that before.
The point I am making is that what was once a miracle – or the impossible becoming possible, the unknown becoming known – sometimes simply needs a discovery. The covered or veiled needs to be revealed.
Today’s lesson from Acts is the story of the Ascension. The disciples gather with Jesus much as you would take a dear friend who was moving to another continent to the airport. They say their goodbye to Jesus in a very real way. He leaves them. Scripture says “He was lifted up and cloud took him out of their sight”. The scriptures refer to “heaven”.
God’s dwelling place is called heaven in Holy Scripture. Early in Israel’s reflection; God dwelt on Mt Sinai – the highest of the mountains in their region. God had a physical space just like we humans have a physical space called the earth. God occasionally comes down out of the mountains his dwelling place and even walks around. Yet, we have to be a bit careful of how we think of these visits. Moses talks to God from a burning bush. Jacob wrestle’s with God at the Jabbok River the night before he is to meet his brother Esaw whom he betrayed. However, scripture also suggests that his wrestling was with an angel – a divine being who dwelt with God in Heaven.
While Israel always had their theological reflection about God’s being cloaked in mystery, God did and was able to interact with them as a person. Yet Israel knew that the whole world was too big to contain God’s magnificence and being as well.
We call this strange paradox about god, God’s immanence and God’s transcendence. God is everywhere for as St. Paul said so beautifully in the 17th chapter to Acts it is “God in whom we live and more and have our being. In other words: God is creator, wherever creation is somehow God is there”. God is active in the world not like a toymaker who creates things and ships them off over-seas. God is beside, behind, beneath and to use the three favorite Lutheran prepositions – in, with and under us.
What are the implications of this for us?
First of all, God is not distant. Heaven is not on top Mt Sinai, nor in the farthest reaches of the universe God in Heaven is right beside us. God never leaves heaven when God comes to us. The heavenly abode and the earthly one overlap. So when you talk to God in prayer, God is right there beside you. You can whisper, you can talk to God in your mind Psalm 139 says it so beautifully – where can I go from your presence? If I climb up to heaven you are there; if I make the grave my bed you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning and swell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.
The Psalmist is saying “You are everywhere and I am safe in your power and in your keeping”.
If God weren’t benevolent, merciful and loving, such a thought would scare us out of our wits because it says plainly, “God sees you where ever you are. Sees exactly what you are doing. God even reads your thoughts. This is good news; very good news God is always close.
But today is our celebration of the Ascension. Jesus goes to God. He returns to God to rule in power. Our creed states it unequivocally – Jesus sits at the right hand of God – He is God’s chief advisor – a kind of celestial, universal Chief of Staff. Scripture tells us he speaks to God on our behalf from this position of authority. Our lesson tells us he was lifted up and a cloud took him from sight.
Yet, do you remember our reading from John in the 20th chapter where Jesus suddenly appears in a room that was locked. He simply materialized there. How did that happen?
Hundreds of theologians have speculated about it for years. Do you remember the 1st Star Trek series? The Starship Enterprise had a transporter - Captain Kirk would tell Commander Scott to “beam me up.” Whoever was “beamed up on beamed down” was kind of separated into individual particles and reconstituted in a different location. Perhaps a humongous computer made a program of the person so that they could be materialized exactly the same way. It isn’t explained.
The miracle of Jesus ascension is that we can understand Jesus’ being with god in heaven in a new way. Luther developed a special doctrine which is one of the treasures of Lutheran theology. It’s called the doctrine of ubiquity. His reasoning went like this:
- God is everywhere because God is by definition creator and God somehow is both immanent and transcendent at the some time. God inhabits the whole universe. God is omni present.
- Heaven is wherever God is, so therefore heaven is everywhere too!
- Jesus is with God in Heaven ergo Jesus is everywhere God is, Jesus is in Heaven and we have total accessibility.
Of course, this means that when we eat the bread and wine which for us are the body and blood of Christ, we don’t have to go to heaven to get that Body and Blood. Heaven materializes or “beams down” to us.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Who We Are