Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today we are celebrating the Ascension. It is always technically on a Thursday because it is exactly 40 days after Easter. It is a state holiday in Germany and the whole holiday is called Himmelfart – Himmel is the German world for Heaven and fart means to leave or to pass to.
Jesus gathers his disciples to him and then he takes off, the scriptures say “He was lifted up”. Notice the phrasing “was lifted up”. This is what grammarians call this use of the passive voice. Jesus didn’t fly away, nor was he propelled upward by rocket fuel. He was lifted up. Who did the lifting? Well, God obviously! God is the active agent. God raised him from death, now God draws Jesus to his side. Jesus goes to “heaven” as in where God resides – our father who are in heaven.
Everyone, I believe is a bit confused about heaven. The ancient Hebrew people, just like the ancient Greeks or the ancient Incas, Mayas or Aztecs believed in a three tired universe. Moses went up to the top of Mt. Sinai where God dwelt to receive the 10 commandments. The ancient Greeks believed the gods were on Mt. Olympus – the highest peak known to them. We associate divine power with the high places, with their panoramic views. The Greeks had an underworld – Hades it was called, the Jews had an underground too – Sheol, it was in the caverns, or the bowels of the earth. It was cut off from light.
When people die, we think of them as going off to heaven to live with God and to meet Jesus. We have an image of heaven that even filters down to our jokes. How many people in here know a “St. Peter standing guard at Heaven’s pearly gates” joke? The image of the gates of pearl comes from the 21st chapter of Revelation. Let me read you the description. Revelation 21:15-21: “The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass”.
So you see the images of the streets of gold in heaven and of the pearly gates are indeed scriptural. Yet, this heaven is not off far away in the stratosphere – as the Star Wars saga says “…in a galaxy far far away”. This heaven is described as being on earth. This heavenly city, this New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven to the earth. Like a gigantic spaceship, or starship, this heavenly New Jerusalem descends to abide on the surface of the earth. Heaven and earth come together in St. John’s version, in St. John’s revelation.
In actuality, the New Testament has more to say about heaven coming down to earth than it says about heaven occupying some distant realm. Heaven is a metaphor for being in God’s space, in God’s relationship. It matters how we think about heaven because if we put God far off, we won’t think of God as close. But if we think of God as close, it creates intimacy with God.
Martin Luther’s greatest contribution to the Christian faith was his emphasis or justification by faith, but I think his second greatest was the doctrine of ubiquity. Ubiquity come from the Latin word meaning located everywhere – ubiquitous. Air is ubiquitous. Luther was a great O.T. Scholar, particularly of the Psalms. Psalm 139 has an implicit doctrine of ubiquity.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,"
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Remember the old rock song “You can’t run and you can’t hide?” Here it is God is everywhere. And in one sense we never have doubted that. That’s what makes God, God, his omnipresence – God’s being everywhere at the same time.
Well, back to Luther. Luther took this basic fact about God and ran with it. He reasoned like this.
Where is God? Everywhere.
Where does God abide? God abides in heaven.
Ergo: Heaven must be everywhere.
Here come the uniquely “Luther” part. Where is Jesus? Jesus is with God, seated at God’s right hand in heaven.
Ergo: If Jesus is with God, God is in heaven, God is everywhere, heaven must be everywhere, and then Jesus is everywhere too.
That, ladies and gentlemen of the theological jury, is very good news. It means that when you pray to Jesus on the soccer field, at work, in your bed, in your car on the beltway, on vacation in Cancun, or flying there, Jesus is right beside you. It means that when we have communion and summon Jesus to dress himself in bread and wine, he is there. He doesn’t have to travel far to jump right in. Jesus is intimate with us because heaven and earth are somehow one in him. So we can feel him very close indeed.
What are the ramifications of this intimate heavenly doctrine? Well, to quote Jesus, “They are legion”. A guy named Dobmeir assembled all the research, the scientific research he could find in medical and theological journals about the effects of prayer. When you pray for someone as an intercessor, that is what the scientific community calls an intervention. The book is full of examples of how prayer changes our physical reality.
For example, people in New York prayed for patients in a hospital in Taiwan. Researches there matched patients to be prayed for with one with similar conditions, a control group, who weren’t. The ones being prayed for did better by every measurable objective – length of stay in the hospital, full recovery, relief from pain, all those thing. The people in NY who were their prayer partners only knew their names and their physical conditions – nothing more.
Time and space are no barriers to God. God hold them both in his peace.
God holds you there too, in heaven’s tight grip.
You are safe. Never worry.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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