Twice Risen - 5-29-22
Twice Risen
Ps 93; Luke 24:44-53
Ps 93
The Lord is king, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring. More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the Lord! Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.
Luke 24:44-53
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
Prayer – Still speaking Lord, you have given us the words to believe and follow; you have given us the witness of your ministry; you have been raised from the dead by your Father in heaven – and still, we all too often choose to simply worship you rather than follow the path you have shown us. Yet, you continue to bless us as you have risen a second time, this time to sit beside Abba, your Father, and mediate on our behalf, just as you did here on earth. Help us to move beyond worship and celebration to the actual work of being a disciple of yours knowing then we, and the world itself, will be blessed – amen.
We live in a world in which up is better than down. Singers want to be at the top of the charts; athletes want to be at the top of their game; and students want to be at the top of the class. Everyone would rather have an up day than a down day. When the stock market rises we celebrate but despair when it crashes down. No one wants to be at the bottom of someone’s list or the last one chosen to play a game. We work to climb, not to descend the corporate ladder. We hear and read about mountain climbers but not much is said or written about valley descenders. Recently, while out in NC visiting my grandkids they wanted me to push them higher and higher on the swing, not stop it still at the bottom.
The reality is that we want to live ascended lives. We want to break free from the things that hold us down and rise above it all. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is right. Something within us knows that we are more than earthbound creatures. The problem is that we have distorted ascension and an ascended life mean. We forget, perhaps deny, that Christ’s ascension seats humanity next to God, to settle for attempted self-ascension.
That distortion has invaded our theology and understanding of God. In this distorted view of God, heaven, and holiness are “up there somewhere” while we are stuck down here. So we spend our time jumping up and down like little children thinking if we jump hard enough, high enough, fast enough we can touch the moon. This gets lived out in so many ways. It almost always involves comparison, competition, and judgment of some kind. We compare ourselves and our lives with other people and their lives. We compete with each other believing that for us to ascend the other has to descend or at least not jump as high as us. We are forever judging ourselves and one another. We fill our lives with busyness hoping to climb to new heights. A life of self-ascension keeps us always searching for the next high.
Our attempts at self-ascension fragment our world and our lives. They separate us from the creator. They destroy relationships and intimacy. Ultimately, they become the gravity that deny us the ascended life we are seeking, a life that, in reality, is already ours.
Jesus’ ascension, his second raising, reshapes our disfigured understanding of the ascended life. His ascension is the corrective and antidote to the fragmentation and separation of self-ascension. His is the only authentic and life-giving ascension. Through him we too can live ascended lives.
Jesus’ ascension is not about his absence but about his presence. It is not about his leaving but about ‘the fullness of him who fills all in all.’ It is not about a location but about a relationship. Presence, fullness, and relationship must surely be what lie behind the question of the men and women who say, ‘Why do you stand looking up to heaven?’ It is as if they are saying to us, ‘Don’t misunderstand and disfigure this moment. Don’t deny yourselves the gift that is being given to you.’
Jesus’ second raising completes the resurrection. The resurrection is victory over death. Jesus’ second rising, however, lifts humanity up to heaven. Jesus’ ascension seats human flesh, your flesh and my flesh, at the right hand of God the Father. We now partake of God’s glory and divinity. The ascension is more about letting go than it is reaching and grasping. The question for us is not, ‘How do we ascend?’ Rather, that has already been accomplished. Perhaps, the more important question is ‘What pulls us down?’
What do we need to let go of? Fear, anger, or resentment often weigh us down. The need to be right or be in control is a heavy burden. For some self-righteousness, jealousy, or pride is the gravity. Many of us will be caught in the chains of perfectionism and the need to prove we are good enough. For others, it may be indifference or apathy. Far too many lives are tethered by addiction, to substances, to greed, to power, to shopping, to porn, to guns. Gravity takes many forms and I wonder, what is the gravity that denies you, denies me, denies us, Jesus’ ascension?
In recent weeks there have been multiple discussions at my house about Valerie’s struggle with her job at TCU. She came her 4 years ago to build their Healthcare MBA program. Once her, she found very little organization, support or strategy to build such a program. Mixed messages from academic leaders about recruitment and networking not being her responsibility; yet, meeting after meeting were questions of what are you doing to get students here in this program. It was the proverbial notion of if we build it they will come – well, not if you don’t sell it, promote it, support it and give it the foundation needed to grow, then it is quickly going to crumble. It has left her feeling as if she has failed in some way, that her confidence in her ability and strengths in healthcare are just not what she thought because of the lack of commitment within the business school. She has verbalized on more than one occasion that coming to Texas for this job was a mistake. The gravity she has felt has been suffocating, she has almost literally descended into hell and she sees little way out. Everyday has been work to continue, to find the inspiration within to continue to beat her head against the proverbial wall or ceiling, if you will.
I too have felt that type of gravity, that sense that nothing I do is enough. And although it is risky for me to say this in Texas and many other places where guns are valued perhaps more than children’s lives, I like many other people in healthcare realize and recognize that we have a public health problem in our country related to gun violence. I’m not mixing politics with church today, but I would be remiss if as a clergy, if I didn’t voice a sense of frustration and perhaps even desperation having been in the Emergency Room on multiple times when multiple victims from gun violence come rolling in on a stretcher with life literally dripping from its sides. Having sat with far too many family members when a physician walks into the consultation room and simply says, “I’m sorry” before the wails of despair shatter the quiet of that room. There is no other feeling as a chaplain that is more helpless in that room in that situation than knowing on a deeper level within that this didn’t have to happen, it very well could have been prevented if . . . only if.
I’m not advocating getting rid of guns, because that is just not realistic in our country that values individual rights. But I am saying, that as a person of faith, a person who works diligently to be both a follower and worshipper of our twice risen Lord, I feel the gravity of violence when I wonder how many more children in schools have to die; how many more people in a grocery store, a church for crying out loud, have to die because of the all too easy availability of weapons of war to any Salvador, Payton or David, the names of the shooters in Uvalde, Buffalo and Laguna Woods in the last two weeks. My picture of the twice risen Christ right this minute as I consider these tragic events are similar to when Jesus encountered the death of his friend Lazarus, weeping. The weight of this type of senseless tragedy is at times unbearable – a gravity that I could just as soon do without.
And still, we know from scripture that Jesus told the disciples – had explained to them more than once – that he would leave them and I can imagine the gravity of losing the one they called Lord and Savior. Yet, even in his absence they would not be alone. With Jesus’ second rising, he gave them instructions – commandments on how to live – abide in my love. Love one another as I have loved you. Today is Ascension Sunday – the day when the rubber meets the road.
Perhaps the real miracle that day wasn’t Jesus’ ascension itself, but what happened after. The disciples then, first with their eyes fixed upward, began to look side-to-side. And looking side-to-side, they began to form real community. A community based on what Jesus lived and taught. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrick Bonnhoeffer described what it means to be a community of faith. He wrote, “A truth, doctrine, or a religion need no space for themselves. They are disembodied entities. But the incarnate Christ needs not only ears or hearts, but lively people who will follow him. It may be that Ascension Sunday is not a call to look up, but a call to look around and see how we can continue to embody Jesus’ love in and around us,” so that everyone feels safe and loved.
Maybe the most unbelievable thing about the Ascension is that the disciples didn’t simply return to their old jobs and homes and routines after Jesus was raised that second time. If they had only been out for themselves, that is exactly what they would have done. Instead, they took a leap of faith, looked each other in the eye and went about speaking truth to situations, bringing God’s boundless love where no one imagined it could be found.
When Christians gather together to pack grocery bags for the hungry; when Christians share talents and resources to rebuild devastated parts of the world; when Christians say enough to gun violence when more school children die senselessly; when we see Christians offering time and money to reach out to refugees and children through community partnerships; when Christians gather to care for God’s beloved creatures through pet adoptions; when Christians seriously consider how their giving makes a difference, we see people willing to not only look upwards but side-to-side as well.
Because of Jesus’ second rising, Ascension Day is how we see things, or perhaps how we can see things today. In a multitude of quiet ways, in and through our faithfulness to God and our following the path of Jesus, we conspire together to make visible the kingdom of God and the lordship of Christ our risen Lord. We know from our readings of scripture and even of our experiences of the twice risen Lord that Jesus’ power is not power as the world reckons it. So also our lives may consist mostly of quiet, humble acts of loving others. But, we are not called to be lukewarm, ho-hum Christians that make it easier for people to believe Jesus is a joke. Sometimes we have to take a stand with Jesus against the structures of society and the church even if it makes it quite uncomfortable. I suppose that is what it means to be twice risen as a follower of Christ – may God bless the resurrection of each and every one of us – this day and each – thanks be to God – amen.