My final installment in the MinistryMatters series asks the question: Is Christianity simply a form of religion or is it a force that can transform the world? And what on earth do we do with the Ascension? (https://ministrymatters.com/great-days-great-living).

Did You Miss the Ascension?

The Ascension is easy to miss. It always falls on Thursday; not a day on which many folks think about church (except for preachers working on their sermons). But this inexplicably inspiring story is still with us: 

“As they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:9) The epistle reading declared: “Your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at God’s right side. Now that he has gone into heaven, he rules over all angels, authorities, and powers.”  (1 Peter 3:21-22). 

Artists have tried to imagine it. Almost humorously in the 15th Century, Thomas de Coloswar, glimpsed Jesus’ toes dangling beneath the hem of robe in the upper corner of his painting. In the 20th Century, Salvador Dali focused attention on the soles of Jesus’ feet as he was lifted into the sunlight, leaving us in flat-footed amazement. 

The story reminds me of feeling the ground shake at Cape Kennedy as the Space Shuttle lifted off. I didn’t need an explanation of the rockets’ thrust to feel their power and to stand in awe-stricken amazement. 

Similarly, the Church has never tried to explain the astrophysics of the Ascension but has invited us to experience what it means to live in a world where Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord. Paul proclaimed, “The one who went down is the same one who climbed up above all the heavens so that he might fill everything.” (Ephesians 4:10) 

Christ Above All

I learned the meaning of the Ascension as a teenager when the motto of the Methodist Youth Fellowship was “Christ Above All.” The Ascension lifts our eyes to see the living Christ above all boundaries of nation, race, social status, or political party. The words Jesus spoke and the way he lived take priority over “any power that might be named not only now but, in the future.” (Ephesians 1:2) He rules over the way I live, love, work and vote.  Jesus is Christ above all.

Matthew, Mark and Luke positioned the Ascension as the grand finale of the gospel story. (Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:19, Luke 24:36-53). Luke repeated it as the opening scene in the new story of the Church with Jesus’ promise,“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:1-8) 

Karl Barth (1886-1968) said the Ascension was not “an opportunity given to the Apostles for idleness, but it is their being sent out into the world.  Here there is no rest possible; here is the start of the mission, the sending of the Church into the world and for the world. (Dogmatics in Outline. New York: Harper and Row, 1959, p. 127*)* For Barth, believing that Christ is above all meant standing in bold opposition to Hitler’s power.

Jesus’s followers needed the Ascension as both God’s final confirmation of Jesus’ identity and as the launch pad for their witness in the world.  And so do we! We need an Ascension-scale vision of Christ to lift our eyes above the dark realities of our time and to determine the way we live.

What Difference Does It Make?

During WWII, Harry Emerson Fosdick told his congregation,

“Amid the violent events of this warring world we need as wide horizons around our thinking as we can get. To see the eternal surrounding the temporal, the universal encompassing the local, helps to keep us steady and wise.” (A Great Time To Be Alive, p. 98) 

Based on Moffitt’s translation of Timothy’s words, “Though they keep up the form of religion, they will have nothing to do with it as a force” (2 Timothy 3:5), Fosdick warned of “conventional acceptance of religion as a form, but with no corresponding experience of it as a force.” (GTBA, p. 89-90)

May His Force Be With You

Eight decades later, Fosdick’s description of Christianity as a “force” may carry the echo of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s benediction, “May the Force be with you.” George Lucas, raised in a Methodist family, is said to have modeled those words after the church’s blessing, “May the Lord be with you.”  

In Star Wars, the Force is an anonymous, omnipresent energy field used by the Jedi for their knowledge and strength. The force Fosdick affirmed is also omnipresent. It is the power that brought creation out of chaos, that holds the universe together, and that is available to strengthen and guide us.

But unlike the Force in “Star Wars”, the power Jesus promised is not anonymous. It is identified as the Spirit of Jesus who is alive within, among and through us. (John 14:15-21) This is not power we can use to serve our personal or political purposes (although some Christians never stop trying!). The Spirit’s power uses us for God’s purpose; enabling us to participate in God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. 

A Different Force

I was finishing work on this series when, in contrast to the Christian Nationalist event on the Mall tomorrow, more than 2,000 people of faith gathered in Washington to worship, pray, sing and march in “Faithful Resistance: A Public Witness for Immigrant Justice”.  A friend who joined the march acknowledged, “The cynic in me wonders whether or not something like this really makes a difference.” 

But when he explained the purpose of the march to his Uber driver, an immigrant from South Korea, the driver responded, “You mean you’re doing this for us?” My friend realized it made a difference for the driver to know that Christians care about what is happening to immigrants. In Washington, my friend experienced Christianity as a force; the Spirit of Jesus alive and at work in our world to participate in the Kingdom of God, not in narrow jingoism,

Above all the ghastly stories of our time, the Ascension affirms the great story of God’s love made flesh in Jesus, God’s triumph over evil, sin and death in the resurrection, and Jesus’ promise of the power of the Holy Spirit coming on Pentecost.  

And so, we have confidence that “the God of all grace, who has called [us] to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish [us]” (1 Peter 5:11) for the living of these days. It is, indeed, a great time to be alive!

A Prayer for Pentecost

 Holy Spirit of God, who at Pentecost descended with power upon Christ’s disciples and sent them out to preach the Gospel and to found the Church, inspire us also to sustain what they began.

Eternal Spirit, we deeply need your help. We are not sufficient in ourselves. For light enough to walk by through dark days, for inner strength to carry heavy burdens, to undertake courageous deeds and render faithful service to our generation, make us more than ourselves, because we have you for our ally and reinforcement.

We pray for another outpouring of your Spirit on your Church. Raise up leaders, prophets in your pulpits, teacher in the schools, statespersons in seats of government, and enlighten and inspire the Church throughout the world.

Save us from our timidities and fears, from the reluctance and paralysis of our uncertainties and doubts. Since you have called us into an unfinished world to bear a hand with you in its completion, give us wisdom and strength that we may work while it is day, ere the night comes when none can work.

We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. (Fosdick, Prayers, p. 140-141)