Dear Friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Empress Helena, the mother of the 4^th century Roman emperor Constantine, is often referred to as the first pilgrim to the Holy Land, and if not the first, she was undoubtedly the most important. She requested that her son the emperor build churches over the important sites of Jesus’ life on earth.  In 326 AD she began in Bethlehem with the Church of the Nativity and in Jerusalem with Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and then she was guided to the Mount of Olives to the site of Jesus’ ascension where a church was erected. A half century, however, a second pilgrim, named Egeria, discovered a site where the footsteps of Christ appeared on the ground in stone. This became the new site for worship, and an octagonal Edicule or small chapel without a roof was built over those two stone footprints of Jesus. When the Moslems conquered the Jerusalem at the time of the crusades, they converted the chapel into a mosque, placing a roof over the structure.  And since Jesus is also honored in Islam, the left stone footprint of Jesus was extracted from the earth and placed in the nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque. Today all that remains of the historic Chapel of the Ascension is the right footprint of Jesus. There pilgrims gather from around the world to worship and to remember Christ’s ascension.

Now, a footprint of Jesus on the earth etched in stone and the absence of Christ in heaven may serve as fodder for skeptics, but they are interesting symbols of Jesus’ ascension. After all, a footprint can only be seen when the foot that made the mark is gone. Admittedly the same could be said of Jesus’ absence in the heavens.  It is an act of faith to look heavenward to an empty sky and trust that something out there is guiding you.

My friends, this morning I would like to meditate on Christ’s ascension, and his assurance that he is not simply seated at the right hand of Father, and waiting to return someday.  No, the ascended Jesus is actively engaged, gazing down, even now, and is sending you the strength and power that you need to do the work of his kingdom.

St. Luke tells the story of Jesus’s ascension in scripture twice, first in the gospel and then again in the Book of the Acts. On the fortieth day after his resurrection, Luke writes that Jesus was speaking to his disciples one last time, and he opened his disciples’ minds to understand the scriptures. Suddenly, for the disciples, Jesus’ life and death and resurrection, all made sense.  Suddenly, they could see Jesus’ footprints in their own lives.  And then we read, that when he had said these things, and as they were watching, he was lifted up, blessing them and he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.  And the disciples worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God.  The Book of Acts makes this message even clearer and sends the disciples on their way.  As the disciples were gazing heavenward, two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand look upward to heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the way as you saw him go.”  It was a gentle rebuke.  Don’t stand around gazing to heaven. Jesus will return to the same wait as he left, But there is work to be done. So, get on your way.

It is a reminder to all of us.  While he was on earth, Jesus taught his disciples that God’s kingdom is not simply in some distant future in a distant place. He taught them that the Kingdom of God is among us and in us now. And there is building to be done, relationships to be mended and children to be nurtured. Now. Surprisingly, many faithful Christians have little appreciation of Jesus’ ascension. Heaven is their ultimate home and God’s final reward, to be sure, but it will have to wait. Their loved ones will experience pain, sorrow, loss and hopelessness, but they have no good news to share now. Yes, they find comforting solace in the promise of heaven, which is indeed life giving and affirming, but Christ’s ascension should offer so much more. Jesus’ ascension teaches us that you and I can also keep our spirits, our hearts and our heads lifted up now. God’s kingdom is greater than anything we can see. That is why the disciples could celebrate Jesus’ departure from them and his ascension into heaven. Their new life wrapped in the power of the ascended Christ was stronger even than the bonds of death, and more powerful, by far than their grief.

That’s why St. Luke chose to tell the story again in the Acts of the Apostles.  The difference of wording is ever so slight, but reveals something so much more reassuring. St. Luke writes, “As the disciples were watching, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”  You see, even though the disciples could not see him, they knew and trusted that Jesus was still present with them- even in the absent sky.  He was there and they could see his footprints on the earth.

Henry van Dyke’s poem “Gone from My Sight” is a favorite of mine.  It was a time when people travelled on wooden ships with sails and masts. “Gone from My Sight,” was written by van Dykes as a description of death, but it is also a fitting description of our relationship to the ascended Christ.

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze,
and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength,
and I stand and watch her until she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone!”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight – that is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side,
and just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the place of her destination.
Her diminished size is in me, and not in her.
And just at the moment
when someone at my side says: “There! She’s gone!”
there are other eyes that are watching for her coming;
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
“Here she comes!”
And that is dying…

Knowing and trusting that Christ has ascended to a place out of our sight, doesn’t diminish his influence on our lives. That is what the disciples soon recognized.  St. Stephen, who was stoned by the religious authorities in Jerusalem, was the first of Jesus’ followers to experience martyrdom at the hands of this world. As he gazed into heaven, he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. The story of the early Christian church is a story of martyrs who believed passionately in Jesus Christ and his love. They didn’t hide behind the safety of silence gazing longingly at heaven.

This brave witness did not end with the early church.  Generation after generation, men and women have dared to speak and offer their lives for the life of others.  It was true of Jan Huss, the Czech reformer in the 1400’s, who was burned at the stake for his convictions in liberating the church.  It was true of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who returned to his native German in the years leading up to World War II, who died in a Nazi concentration camp.  It was true of the US Naval Chaplains Kirkpatrick and Schmitt who continued to serve aboard the USS Arizona during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and who ultimately lost their lives. God often chooses common and ordinary people to be his vessels through which he accomplishes extraordinary things.

My friends, that is your hope as well. When you proclaim your faith in the ascended Jesus, you too are confessing that even though you cannot see him, you know that he is with you here and now.  No matter how dark the bend or how terrible the destination may seem, Christ will be there.  And step by step, footprint by footprint, even against the background of  an empty sky, you can trust that he is gazing down upon you. And until that day that he draws you to that heaven above, he will make himself known to you in the very ordinary places of life with his extraordinary grace and love. Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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