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SERMONS

Sunday after Ascension
May 20, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

2 Kings 2:1-15
Acts 1:1-11
Luke 24:49-53

The story of Elijah’s ascension into heaven is quite vivid –    Elisha, who is to be Elijah’s successor as prophet to Israel, follows Elijah from Gilgal to Bethel, then to Jericho, and finally to the Jordan River. Just as Moses raised his staff to part the Red Sea so the people of Israel could cross to freedom, Elijah uses his mantle to part the Jordan River so that the two of them, Elijah and Elisha, can make their way to the other side. When they get to the other side, Elisha becomes a witness to the ascension of Elijah into heaven: 2nd Kings reports: “As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.”  (2 Kings 2:11) Elijah leaves his mantle – which we think is a kind of outer cloak with no sleeves – and Elisha picks it up.  (Dress 233) Then Elisha uses the mantle to part the river so he could get to the other side. And thus the succession of Elisha is accomplished.  You see, earlier, in First Kings, the Lord had told Elijah that Elisha was to succeed him as prophet to Israel, and Elijah went out and found Elisha, plowing his field, and and Elijah threw his mantle over Elisha’s shoulders, to let him know that he had been chosen by God as a prophet to Israel, and Elijah’s successor.  (1 Kings 19:16,19-21) This where we get our expression, “passing the mantle.”
           
This story of Elijah’s ascent into heaven with chariots of fire is also the source of the song, “Swing low, sweet chariot,” written by a man named Wallis Willis around 1862. Willis was a one-time slave of the Choctaw Indians in the old Indian territory.  He was “inspired by the Red River which reminded him of the Jordan River” and the story of “Elijah being taken to heaven by a chariot.” Later, “a minister at a Choctaw boarding school heard Willis singing the song[] and transcribed the words and melod[y]. He sent the music to the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville,” who sang the song on tour in America and Europe. And that’s where the song came from. (Wikipedia.org)

Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.

But back to Elijah. Elijah ascends into heaven and leaves his mantle behind for another to take up and continue the work that he had been doing. And today that story gets paired with the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. And in a way, it’s another story of a mantle passing from one person to a successor, or, in this case, a group of successors, for the Ascension of Jesus marks the passing of a mantle from Jesus to his apostles. (Let me be clear, though.  Jesus was the Savior – that mantle Jesus keeps.  It’s the task of spreading the good news of salvation that Jesus entrusts to his disciples.)

The verses of Luke we just heard in the gospel for today are the very last verses in Luke’s gospel. They tell us with great economy of language that Jesus ascended into heaven:
“While [Jesus] was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.”  (Lk. 24:51) That’s about all Luke has to say in the gospel, but he gives us a teensy bit more detail in Acts:

“When [Jesus] had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  While … they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?  This Jesus…has been taken up from you into heaven,…’” (Acts 1:10-11)

We read these accounts of the ascension of Jesus today, the day of our liturgical celebration of the Feast of the Ascension, one of the seven major feasts of the church.  (BCP 15) Ascension Day itself always falls on a Thursday, precisely 40 days after Easter, but most churches move their celebration of Ascension to the first Sunday after, and who can blame them. People are more likely to show up at church on Sunday than they are on a Thursday in perhaps the busiest month of the year!

Ascension is an important feast of the church, and it marks a significant moment in the life of Jesus -- the moment when he ceased to be present with the disciples in the way he had been with them since his resurrection, and in the way he had been with them before, while he was alive.  (O’Driscoll 89)

Remember the ascension of Jesus in the gospel of Luke comes right on the heels of the Emmaus road story “…two disciples have just come running back from Emmaus,” breathless with the news of their encounter with what they had thought was a stranger,” but whom they realized was their Lord the moment he took bread in his hands and broke it.  (O’Driscoll 89-90) “Suddenly, Jesus is among them.  Once again, he explains the meaning of all that has happened and is happening. He reassures them that the world is not falling apart. The [dreadful] cross was part of a great plan, and his coming from the tomb was the…triumph of that plan.”  (90) But a new chapter is about to begin – a chapter where the spreading of the Good News of Jesus must now be done by somebody other than Jesus. And the disciples are the “somebodies” charged with this task.  (90)
         

The moment when Jesus ascends is Act One in the play that is the beginning of the church.  Ascension is part of the answer to the question, Who will spread the good news of his resurrection, after Jesus is gone?

“There is a very old legend…concerning the return of” Jesus “to heaven after his Ascension.  It is said that the angel Gabriel met him at the gates of the city. ‘Lord, this is a great salvation that thou hast wrought,’ said the angel.  But the Lord Jesus only said, ‘Yes.’ ‘What plans hast thou made for carrying on the work?  How are all to know what thou hast done?’ asked Gabriel. ‘I left Peter and James and John and Martha and Mary to tell their friends, their friends to tell their friends, till all the world should know.’ ‘But Lord Jesus,’ said Gabriel, ‘suppose Peter is too busy with the nets, or Martha with the housework, or the friends they tell are too occupied, and forget to tell their friends -- what then?’ The Lord Jesus did not answer at once; then he said in [a] quiet…voice: ‘I have not made any other plans.  I am counting on them.’”  (MacLeod 163) I have not made any other plans.  I am counting on them.

Gabriel’s question is a pretty good one, isn’t it? Does it ever occur to you that Jesus was taking a pretty big gamble leaving this bunch in charge of spreading the word of salvation? I mean, let’s think a minute about the bunch Jesus left in charge when he ascended into heaven. Let’s start with Peter. Was he really the “disciple most likely to succeed”? After all, let’s remember that Peter, in the hours before Jesus’ crucifixion, not only denied being his disciple, but denied even knowing him!  (Lk. 22:54-60) And remember?  There’s that moment when Peter hears the cock crow, and,  Luke says, “The Lord turned and looked at Peter,” –  and Peter looks back and understands that he has done exactly what Jesus said he’d do – let Jesus down in precisely the way Jesus said he would.  (22:60-2) And Peter “goes out and begins to weep bitterly.”  (22:62)
                       
Then, let’s see, there’re James and John, the sons of Zebedee, but weren’t they the ones who were always making trouble about who would get to sit at Jesus’ right hand when they came into his kingdom? (see, e.g., Mt. 20:20-28).  And those squabbles among the disciples about who was the greatest.  (Lk. 9:46) Not very promising, is it? I’m not trying to be mean, but didn’t the twelve pretty much make themselves scarce when things got bad there at the end, when Jesus was arrested and tried?  And even later, didn’t Luke tell us that, when the women return from the tomb with the news that the tomb is empty, the men simply didn’t believe them? Mary Magdalene, Joanna and the other Mary come back from the tomb with the news that Jesus is not there, and the men don’t believe them!  They think it’s foolish nonsense.  (Lk 24:9-11)  They make Peter go back to the tomb and see for himself that the stone has been rolled away, and the tomb is empty, except for the pile of burial clothes left on the floor. (24:9-12)
                                               
So, so far, the disciples are looking like a pretty bad bet. But that’s part of the point of Ascension and Pentecost – that the “fearful, waiting community” that Jesus left in charge is not powerful or particularly strong on its own.  (Cousar 322) It is “anxious and bewildered…” “And yet, oddly, power [will be given] that causes this fragile little community to have energy, courage, imagination, and resources completely disproportionate to its size.”  (Cousar 322)  What is the source of that power? The Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit.  In the first chapter of Acts, the Good News of Ascension and Pentecost is that Jesus’ leaving wasn’t the end of things, but the beginning of new things.  (O’Driscoll 90) The start of a new chapter in the life of the church.    And Jesus promises them the gift of the Holy Spirit, and you’ll have to come back next Sunday to hear how Jesus kept that promise. But for the time being, let us remember the call of Jesus to this fumbling group of fallible humans to take up the mantle of Christ by spreading the good news of his life, death and resurrection throughout the world. And with God’s help, they did a pretty amazing job. The church is still here!

“Jesus was asking for his disciples’ commitment, and he asks the same of us.” Herbert O’Driscoll says, “If we commit ourselves to him he promises us what he promised those men and women.  He promises his Spirit, the Spirit we call the holy Spirit, in our deepest being. It’s a real promise which millions of men and women have found to be true.  If we say yes to him, giving him our spirit, poor and limited though it may be, he gives us his.”  (90)  

The mantle is being passed to us, and Jesus “ha[s] not made any other plans.” He is counting on us. (MacLeod 163) Let us not be too busy with our nets and our housework, or too occupied with our friends, for he is counting on us.  (163)   Amen.

Works Cited

 Anderson, Bernhard W.  “Elijah, the Tishbite.”  Understanding the Old Testament. 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 1991.  271-  79.

Cousar, Charles B., et al.  Texts for Preaching Year C.  Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994,

“Dress and Ornamentation.”  Anchor Bible Dictionary.  II.  New York: Doubleday, 1991. 233.

MacLeod, George. “A legend.” In  Resources for Preaching and Worship Year C.  Eds. Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild.  Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003. 163. 

O’Driscoll, Herbert.  “Ascension of the Lord.” A Time for Good News: Reflections on the Gospel for people on the go, Year C. Toronto, CA:  Anglican Book Centre, 1991.  89-90.