Sermon: Ascension, Luke 24:44-53

May 29, 2025 
Faith-La Fe + St. Mary’s Churches,
Pastor Jonathan Linman

One can visit the Chapel of the Ascension at the Mt. of Olives outside of Jerusalem and there see the Ascension Rock which is the alleged site of Jesus’ return to the Father in heaven. 

The rock reveals what appears to be the imprint of Jesus’ right foot. The left foot imprint was removed and taken to Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount sometime in the Middles Ages. 

If indeed Jesus’ footprints appeared in rock at the time of the Ascension, Jesus’ lift off “in a cloud that took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9b) must have had astonishingly powerful thrust to carve an image in solid rock. 

Many rocket launches have been in the news of late – alas, it’s often uber-wealthy people paying the millions to briefly experience the higher reaches at the edge of outer space. Why do people clamor to do this? One answer is simply this: because they can, and because they can afford it. But more profoundly, people long for a grander perspective than our earthbound frame of reference. People seek a sense of the transcendent, literally speaking in terms of space travel to the heights. 

Indeed, the Ascension as Jesus was lifted up beyond the earthly realms to return to his Father in heaven offered much more than a bird’s eye view of things. In our imaginative eyes of faith, what did Jesus see from the heights? 

In my mind’s eye, here’s the view available to us on Ascension Day. It’s what Jesus’ clearly saw: the whole of God’s missionary work of salvation history, the Father sending the Son for earthly ministry and for dying and rising again. And what’s visible, too, is a glimpse of the horizon of the new future focused on the sending of the Holy Spirit to inaugurate the era of the church and its apostolic ministry to continue Jesus’ ministry, which is the mission of the Father, and all of this in the power of the Spirit.

It's if God’s history of salvation can be likened to the big bang at the creation. Part of the bang, theologically speaking, was the power of God emanating from that point of origin. And that power was an outpouring of God’s love expressed from the Father through and Son and then also in the Spirit and then, too, in the church for the sake of the ongoing healing of the nations and cosmos. In short, divine love is the rocket fuel of God’s mission.

And indeed, with the Ascension the incarnate Christ, limited in space and time, transitions to becoming a cosmic Christ with universal reign beyond the confines of his 33 years in ancient Palestine. The author of Ephesians in tonight’s second reading reveals this cosmic nature of Christ’s reign when he writes that he wants us to know “the immeasurable greatness of [divine] power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 15:19b-23)

This cosmic Christ commissioned Jesus’ followers to extend his universal reign. Here are Jesus’ last words recorded in the Act account after Jesus blessed the disciples: “But 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 ends of the earth.’” And then from the Ascension account in Luke, Jesus adds: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised [namely, the Holy Spirit]; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:48-49)

That commissioning of the cosmic Christ also extends across time and space through the centuries across the globe to us, Jesus’ latter-day followers. We ourselves receive that commissioning in the sacrament of baptism when God in Christ adopts us as his very own children and gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit through anointing and laying on of hands. And we are fed with the spiritual food of Christ’s body and blood to strengthen us for our missionary work and journeys. 

In all of this, God’s power in the Spirit surges through us as we are launched from the font and table, from the Mass, to do God’s work in extending Christ’s work and God’s love. This all connects intimately with how the Mass concludes: “go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.” Or in the Latin, Ite, missa est. “Go, the Mass is ended.” All of this relates etymologically to the Latin words missio, from which is derived the word ‘mission,’ and mittere, meaning ‘to send.’ But mittere can also be translated ‘to fly, throw, hurl, launch.’

Which brings us back to the Ascension Rock and the kind of divine thrust that carved out Jesus’ footprints as he launched back to the Father. Well, at the conclusion of this Mass, we, too, are launched, hurled, thrown from this place to do our own flying in the loving power of the Spirit as our rocket fuel. And we deliver that love of God to the world as a free gift of grace, brightening the corners where we happen to land. 

For indeed, in the Mass, we are freed by the grace of gospel from the weight and burden of our sin and brokenness, and are re-energized in faith via the power of the Spirit working in the means of grace. We thus launch lighter with less weight and excess baggage. And in that freedom, we give thanks to God by giving to others the same gift God’s love incarnate in our loving words and deeds.

Oh, what a great gift of healing for our loveless, hateful time in nation and world.

To that broken world in need of new life, we proclaim in word and deed: Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia. Amen.