Creekside Church Sermon of May 12, 2002 "Going Up" Acts 1:6-14	Rev. David Bibbee
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From the time I first saw them, I had to have them. All it took was a television commercial in the late 50's. By today's standards, it was a very unsophisticated, but it was enough to impress me. Kids who had what this commercial advertised could run faster and further and jump higher and longer than anyone else. With the exception of riding in a plane, wearing them was the next best thing to flying. Long before Rebok, Nike, and Adidas athletic shoes hit the market, there were Red Ball Jets, available in two styles-high tops and lows, and two colors, white and black. From the moment I slipped them on and laced them up, I was not as earth bound as I once was.

In 1904, Sir James Barrie wrote Peter Pan. The children of Great Britain were enthralled with it, especially with the part where Peter told the Darling children that if they only believed, they could fly. This created an uproar among parents who said Barrie's book was injuring their children…literally. After reading Peter Pan, children were jumping from second story windows because they believed they could fly. This prompted Sir Barrie to revise Peter Pan's flight instruction, adding it could only be done if sprinkled with stardust.

It didn't take me long to realize that Red Ball Jets were just shoes. When Mary Martin played the part of Peter Pan and gracefully flew over the stage, I saw the cable to which she was tethered. People cannot take to the air and ascend into the heavens. Yet today we have before us a scripture that says Jesus did just that.

The disciples took the news that Jesus' tomb was empty, pretty hard. It had been hard enough watching him die, then come messengers saying, "He's not here." But he appeared. He comforted them. He taught them. Forty days he was with them, and after a concluding talk about things to come, he disappeared.

Acts says he was lifted up, not by Red Ball Jets or an invisible cable, but by a cloud. It doesn't mention the kind of cloud it was. I'm sure it wasn't a light, feathery cirrus cloud. It had to be a towering, mushroom-topped cumulonimbus-the sort which bring intense storms. He rose on billowing plume, looking everything like the Lord he was, arms raised in triumph, his face luminous and radiant. It's reasonable to assume the disciples thought his return wouldn't take that long. They had patience to wait, or so they thought.

But he has been gone a couple thousand years now.

Ascension Sunday isn't exactly a major celebration in the church. What is there to celebrate about a Savior who leaves his followers behind and keeps them waiting and wondering such a long time?

God knows our record isn't good when it comes to following rules and laws. We didn't pay much attention to the prophets. In fact, we were downright awful to some of them. So God wrapped himself in the flesh and blood of Jesus. We don't relate to concepts and abstractions or rules, but we can identify with Jesus. He had a flesh and blood mother who bathed, bottled, and diapered him, just like us. He ate and drank. He slept and he dreamed, just like us. He worked and he played. He laughed and he cried, just like us. He became angry when provoked. He cried when he was deeply moved, just like us. As Hebrews says, "He was tempted in every way as we are." He bled when he was beaten; he died a very human death like we too will die. No, we have not risen from the dead, but we know something like it when hope rises from the ashes of failure and disappointment, and courage is set free from prisons of fear.

These things which happened to Jesus; these ordinary human experiences we know so well…all this is from a God who is accessible. But the Jesus in the Bible and the Nicene Creed who, "ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the father," this Jesus I have not experienced.

We live in a time when people know next to nil about the Bible. This includes many people within the church, I'm sorry to say. But there is also a great hunger to learn more about the Bible, not with an emphasis upon information, but application. People today have a very "practical perspective." We are interested in what we can use and what it can do for us. It serves no great purpose if confined to pulpits or Sunday school class discussions. People want an approach to the Bible that is down to earth, practical, and applicable to their specific needs and concerns. This is one reason we have set a goal of establishing more Bible study opportunities with an emphasis upon application over the next couple of years.

But the ascension of Jesus is not a down to earth story. Going up to heaven by a cloud transport system is not in our experience. Barbara Taylor observes that nearly every church with stained glass windows has one depicting the ascension-Jesus going up and the disciples looking up with something between awe and delight. But they could look that way because he was there with them-in the window. She says, "We need a new window for our situation: a window with just us in it-no angels, no Jesus, no heavenly light-just us, still waiting, still watching the sky, our faces turned up like empty cups that only one presence can fill."

Jesus is not with us…not the way he used to be. It is not what the disciples had in mind. They wanted to keep him as close as possible as long as possible. We come to church for his presence, not a story of departure. I don't know if you have ever considered it before, but it is Jesus' absence which keeps us coming back. We keep on hoping, we keep on believing, and all evidences to the contrary, we keep looking. We do it because we miss him.

You can't miss what you never had. How can you miss chocolate ice cream if you have never tasted it? How can you miss autumn leaves if you have never seen them change? How can you miss the friendship of a person you have never met? It is easy to take the presence of others for granted, especially those who are with us most often. We hardly notice they are there. But when they are not, we miss them. When they are gone we see them more clearly than when they are by our side. When they are gone it seems that we better understand them. We realize how much we love them. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say.

There is no hunger for Jesus if we know nothing of him. Each one here, each person who ever was and ever will be has a space within that misses Him. One reason people keep coming to church, despite all the reasons the church gives not to, is the awareness of what is missing…that which we are still looking for.

On any given Sunday, I know I am speaking to numbers of depressed people. Every Sunday I look into the faces of scared people, lonely people, broken people, hypocritical people, guilty people, angry people, stressed to the point of being sick people. You all are searching and what I offer you today is the presence of Jesus' absence.

The disciples stood on the summit of the Mount of Olives, their heads tilted back, their eyes shielded from the sun, as Jesus vanished into the stratosphere. They didn't stare for long. Two men in white appeared and asked, "Why are you standing here staring at the sky? If it's Jesus you're looking for and not birds, get yourself back to Jerusalem. He has been taken away."

The faithful came together. They prayed and waited, they waited and prayed. "I miss him already," Andrew said. "Me too," Phillip replied. Instead of looking up, they began looking around…at each other, at all who took their hands from the plow and committed to follow him. And then, some thing happened.

First, let me tell you about Mark. Mark was adopted, given over by his mother at birth. He was raised in a wonderful home with two adopted siblings. When Mark was 23, he wanted to know about his mother, and eventually decided to look for her.

One summer day I stopped to see Mark's parents. I rang the bell, and the door was answered by a woman I had not seen before. Immediately, I knew it was Mark's biological mother. He had her face. Their facial expressions were the same. They spoke with the same voice inflection. They laughed the same. They walked the same. They enjoyed the same music, and listened to the same artists.

It was amazing. Though separated by 23 years and 2,000 miles, with absolutely no contact, Mark had lived a genetic script. Though she had been absent from the moment of his birth, she had been very present.

When Jesus departed, his disciples felt very alone. What were they to do? How were they to do it? Then something happened. Though Jesus was far beyond them, when they looked to each other, when they looked to those who had committed to be the church with them, when they looked into the eyes of those in need, they saw Jesus. They remembered the things he did, and they did them. They remembered the things Jesus had said, and they said them. They preached, they taught, they healed. The cowardly lions became kings of the forest. Jesus had told them they would do the things he had done and added, they would do even greated things…because he had gone up…because he had left them…because he was present…in his absence.

He departed the world. They infiltrated it as he said they would.

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