“Blessing”

(Ascension)

              This is Ascension Sunday, and in worship the substance of the day comes from this scripture reading from Luke.  Forty days after Jesus’ resurrection he was with the disciples, and while he was blessing them, he was carried up into heaven.  My guess is that most of us have heard this part of the story before, but that Ascension Sunday hasn’t exactly been at the top of our list of favorite holidays.  Even I, who love the unfolding of the Christian year for the way it slowly reveals the fullness of God’s plan – even I normally don’t pay much attention to Ascension Sunday.  It comes up every year six weeks after Easter, one week before Pentecost, but I don’t think I’ve ever preached on Jesus’ Ascension.

          It is one of those passages that just seems to be more trouble than it is worth.  I say that mostly because you can’t really get to the heart of Ascension until you deal with the obvious question.  It’s the question that every fifth grader asks – fifth graders, any fifth graders here today?...What’s the obvious question?  There you go: “What happened to Jesus’ body?”  The question that every fifth grader asks and every fifth grade Sunday School teacher hates.  Most quickly look at their teachers handbook and see if the answer is given there, and when they find it’s not, they hem and haw and repeat what the story says, that Jesus went up into heaven – then they hope that that silences the kid long enough to get to the craft activity for the day.  But we all know that fifth graders are smarter, even if not bolder, than that.  They know that heaven is not a place up there.  We humans have sent machines “up there,” past the sky, the sun, and the planets, well on our way to the stars, and there ain’t no heaven “up there.”  So, what happened to Jesus’ body?

          Luke especially really brings this problem on himself.  When Luke wrote his gospel he must have been dealing with some people who claimed that Jesus’ resurrection really wasn’t a physical thing – that when he was alive following the “resurrection,” he was just some of sort of ghost, rather than a real human being.  Luke fights off that claim directly in the story that comes right before the Ascension. 

36While Jesus' disciples were talking about what had happened, Jesus appeared and greeted them. 37They were frightened and terrified because they thought they were seeing a ghost. 38But Jesus said, "Why are you so frightened? Why do you doubt? 39Look at my hands and my feet and see who I am! Touch me and find out for yourselves. Ghosts don't have flesh and bones as you see I have."

And moments later, that sack of flesh and bones is flying off into heaven.  So, what happened to Jesus body?

It’s really, of course, a question about the nature of the resurrection.  How can Jesus be raised from the dead, have flesh and bones, and yet be taken up to place that, physically speaking, we know doesn’t exist? What kind of resurrection was this?  Apparently, fifth graders have been asking the question for a long time.  In First Corinthians, which was actually written even before the Gospel of Luke, Paul writes:

35 But [a fifth grader will ask – okay Paul just says “someone” will ask – but I’m sure it was a fifth grader], ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ 36Fool! [ I don’t really recommend that approach, by the way…fifth graders are far better at insults than adults, so you might as well not throw the first punch in fight you’re bound to lose.  But Paul seems to have lacked some social graces.  Anyway…he continues…]  How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ 36Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. 41There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

So there.  If your fifth grader isn’t happy with that, then that’s just too bad.  No, actually, what Paul is saying is important, both from the resurrection and for the ascension.  He is saying that we have to transform our frame of reference.  We have to alter the categories in which we think about these things.  We have to change the lenses through which we view such things.

Paul basically says, at least as I understand it, “Listen people, you gotta go deeper.  This isn’t just about physical stuff, it is about spiritual, divine stuff.”  And when you think about, Paul is exactly right.  Even death isn’t really, or even primarily about physical stuff.  Death is about loss and endings, mostly the loss and ending of relationship.  When people die, yes, we miss them in very physical ways, but even more we mourn the loss of our relationship with them, we miss the personality, the life that flowed from them, all the mutual sharing that makes up our relationships with those we love.  The truth is that the depth of our loss depends on the depth of our relationship – so clearly it is about a lot more than physical stuff.

          And Paul’s point, first about Jesus, and then about us, is that resurrection restores relationship.  Remember, the church has never taught that Jesus’ resurrection was the resuscitation of a corpse, as if he was hit with some miracle medical technology three days after he died.  He didn’t just come back to life, he was raised to new life – spiritual life as Paul calls it.  He was raised to what I think we can rightly call “real life” – life more real, if you will, than what we have now, because real life is lived in complete communion with God – communion with God that we long for now, but which is still somehow beyond us.

          Paul says that the resurrection means we can stop worrying about death, because even death is not a barrier to God bringing us into communion with God, real, full communion with God, real life with God.  Indeed, the 1 Corinthians passage continues…

54When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
55‘Where, O death, is your victory?
   Where, O death, is your sting?’

          So where is Jesus’ body?  Well, that a good question, my thoughtful fifth grade friend.  I guess I would say that after the resurrection, after Easter, Jesus’ body was different than our bodies are now.  Jesus’ body was a sign that not even death could keep Jesus away from God, and that it can’t keep us away from God either.  Jesus body is in heaven with God, but heaven is not a physical place, so Jesus’ body after the resurrection can’t be physical either.  The Bible calls it a spiritual body, and I guess that’s good enough.  Because a spiritual body means a body that is in full, real, complete communion with God.  Jesus has real life with God, and that is what awaits us as well – because we are loved by God.

          But now I have a question for you dear fifth grader: When Jesus was taken up into heaven, do you remember what he was doing?  Eh…blessing his disciples?  Yep, that’s right, blessing his disciples.  So, will you now join me in bringing Jesus blessing to others?  Eh…sure.  Alright!  Let’s get to work!