Fr. Kyle's Ascension Sunday Sermon

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that since we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell

+

The Feast of the Ascension, which we observed on Thursday, is the occasion for the Church to celebrate the conclusion of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ and to commemorate his heavenly session, his taking his rightful position at throne of God. The Ascension is an article of the faith held by the earliest church and it is a historical fact attested to by the scriptures. And we need to understand the Ascension in the right way in order to come to grips with its fullest meaning and its deepest implications.

There is one way of understanding the Ascension that tells only part of the story and therefore misses its significance and it goes something like this: The Ascension is the special way that Jesus goes about exiting the scene. Just as the Second Person of the Trinity entered history by means of the incarnation—he was born, grew up, began his public ministry, suffered, died, and rose again—so now, by his Ascension, he exits history and takes his place in heaven. And it is there in heaven that he waits for the remainder of history to unfold until the Second Coming.

This way of understanding the Ascension presents the pieces of the story in a way that might seem correct to us, but the overall interpretation is profoundly wrong. It’s like breaking up the tiles of an intricate and beautiful mosaic and using them to create a new picture—a picture where not all the pieces fit and not in the intended way.

And what I mean is this: If we understand the Ascension as Jesus merely exiting the scene, moving off to another dimension, leaving history behind after a 33-year journey in it, then we have profoundly misunderstood the meaning of the Ascension. We have traded the radical message of the Gospel and the teaching of the Church for a compromised version of the faith. What is so dangerous about this compromised version of the faith and the reason that it might actually be tempting to us and perhaps to our friends and neighbors is because it sits so easily with the spirit of the age—with what the world expects from the Christian faith. Which is to say, our world is quite comfortable with a faith that is heavenly and spiritual. That sort of faith might comforting. It might be therapeutic. It might be insightful. It might even help prepare people for the challenges and difficulties of life. But a faith that is merely heavenly and supernatural will end up being so out of this world that it will have nothing to say about the world that we actually live in. It will be wholly private—and this is a point we need to return to in a minute.

As we journey through Ascensiontide, we need to think about the meaning of this short season. And in order to do that, we have to spend some time thinking about authority. What is authority? What is authority good for?

In the moment that we are living in, we are experiencing a profound crisis of authority. We see it in the headlines in the news, in the political strife that dominates. We see it in our cultural conflicts where there is profound disagreement about what it means to be a human being and what human life is for. We can discern it in the misuse of technology, in the ways in which a technological society has come to dominate. And perhaps we sense it most deeply in the pervasive distrust that falls over so much of our society and culture. 

We might not immediately recognize that these circumstances are related to a crisis of authority. Our society has doubts about whether authority is a good thing. That is one of our challenges. Consider the fact, for example, that we use the word authoritarian—hardly a positive term—to describe someone who appears to exercises too much authority. And setting aside those most extreme examples, we Americans tend to not think positively about anyone or any institution that might have the gall to tell us what to do, how to think, or who we are. 

Is that what it means to be under authority—to be bossed around? Is authority about telling people what to do?

In the scriptural imagination, there is a frank realism about the fact that when proper authority is not exercised in a society, then destructive results will follow. Remember the repeated assessment of conditions in Israel in the years preceding the anointing of Saul as King. You remember it: “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Even after Saul becomes king, problems remain—don’t they? He is not faithful in exercising his authority. And this is another repeated theme in the scriptures: that misuse of authority by the kings who, with a few exceptions like David and Josiah, did evil in the sight of the Lord and their evil ways led God’s people into judgment and into exile.

Now, the scriptures do not simply commend to us a general principle that authority is necessary and that the good exercise of authority will lead to human flourishing. This is true, of course, but the scriptures go further. They reveal to us that God himself is the ultimate authority and that God has manifested his authority in creation and in human society through the person and work of Jesus Christ. As Fr. Sean put it in his sermon on the Feast Day, “The Ascension is a coronation. What is remarkable, of course, is that now a human sits on the throne of the universe, a man sits on the throne of God Almighty.” All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him (Mathew 28:18)

The authority that Jesus exercises is not only expressed by means of his command—of telling us to do this or not to do that. Commands and the enforcement of commands by means of discipline are one aspect or manifestation of authority. We usually call that power. 

There is no such thing as authority without power. And those who oppose the authority of Our Lord will one day encounter the reality of his power.

But Our Lord desires not only to enforce his authority, he also wishes to communicate his authority and to share it with us—and this is central to our understanding of both the incarnation and the ascension. Authority is the means by which God makes the reality and purpose of all things known to us. And he does this in three ways.

First, Jesus makes God known to us. St. Paul tells us that “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:1-3). Jesus is the official witness, the authoritative disclosure of who God is.

Jesus not only represents God to us in his incarnation, he also mediates the presence of God to his people, inviting each of us into the life of the Holy Trinity. It is through the priestly and sacramental ministry of the Church that Our Lord continues this work of mediation. And, in a similar way, it is through the temporal rulers appointed by God to positions of leadership in this world that God exercises his authority over temporal matters. Leaders may not always do this well—they may not represent God’s kingship well—but that is their purpose and their calling.

Second, Jesus also makes known humanity to us. St. Gregory of Nazianzus famously said that “That which is not assumed is not redeemed.” In the incarnation, Our Lord became fully man—in all the ways that one can become a human being—and fully redeemed the nature of humanity. And in so doing, he made it known to us what humanity living up to its fullest potential looks like and he showed us the final end and purpose of human life. In other words, Jesus represents authoritatively our authentic and ultimate destiny. But he not only represents true humanity for us, he also mediates it for us by joining us to his own self—his redeemed human nature—and by empowering us to participate in redeemed human nature, he allows each of us in our own individuality and in our own selves to fulfill our destiny through him and with him.

And, third and finally, Jesus is the Logos—the word, the order, the logic, the grammar of all things. As St. Paul puts it, there is “one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him” (1 Corinthians 8:6). In him, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). And as St. John puts it, “In the beginning was the Word..all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1-3). He represents God’s creative power—his ordering of all creation. But he not only represents the metaphysical Logos of all created things, he mediates all of creation on our behalf to God. God’s plan, St. Paul teaches us, is in “the fullness of time” to “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him” (Ephesians 1:10).

Theologian John Betz comments on this passage and says something worth considering: the words “gather together” (logein, related to the word Logos) in these verses tell us “something of great import for understanding who the Logos is…that the nature of the Logos is one with his eternal purpose to gather up all creation and offer it with him, in a definitive Eucharist, back to the Father, so that God might be ‘all in all.’”

In other words, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, does not create all things and leave them—he gathers all things up in his own self and offers them to the Father, for the good of all things and all people. It is because of him that all things have their ultimate destiny and fulfillment in God. Both creation and redemption, brought about by Jesus, point to this same reality.

This is the significance of the Ascension. Jesus’s return to the Father is not an exit from history, from humanity, or from creation. It is an enthronement that accomplishes and manifests his ongoing authority over all things.

This brings us back to the point that we started with. He does not leave us with a private faith hidden from this world and he does not promise us an escape from this world. Instead, he wishes to share his authority with us. As the Collect for Ascension puts it, “Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that since we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell.” Turning our hearts and minds to the Son who has ascended, we ascend and dwell with him, and we participate in his authority by bringing all the things of this world and our very lives under his kingship.

This is the good news that our world longs for even though it does not recognize it. That is because the kingship of Christ, seemingly absent in many areas of society and culture, goes unrecognized and every man does that which was right in his own eyes. The destructive results are clear for us to see.

But the message of the gospel is this: if we want to know how true political authority and power ought to be exercised, we should look to Christ our King; if we want to know and experience the purpose and final destiny of human life, we should look to Christ’s life and join ourselves to him; if we want to learn how to use technology well, we should turn to Christ; if we want to know how to be good parents, children, husbands or wives, teachers, students, business owners, or follow a thousand other callings and stations in this life, we should look to Christ; if we want to be good parishioners and friends to one another, we should follow Christ who loved us before we first loved him

This is what the authority of Christ accomplishes: As we lift up our hearts and minds to Christ who has ascended, we will be elevated into the life that God has prepared for us and desires for us in this world that God created and redeemed, the one that he is gathering up and sustaining, this world that he loves so completely.

+