Ascension – Goodbye?

Readings are Acts 1:1-11 and Luke 24:44-end

I struggle to “feel” Ascension as a part of the Christian story. I mean I get it, but I don’t feel it if that makes sense? Partly, this might be because I came from a church tradition where it didn’t really figure as part of the church year. I am not sure I knew there WAS an Ascension Day before I started theological college!

But I think one of the other reasons I struggle with Ascension is that I am not very good at goodbyes. Not the sort of goodbyes where someone is popping down to the shops, but the goodbyes that mean a stage of life or relationship is ending and a new one beginning. Leaving my curacy churches was excoriating. I can remember wishing that it was possible just to do my last Sunday service, hand in my keys and go without any fuss.

I wonder why I dislike these goodbyes so much. I think that partly it is because these changes in stages mean that inevitably you take stock of what you have done. You celebrate the things you have shared, but there will always be loose ends, a bit of unfinished business, the things not achieved. And as a recovering perfectionist, I find facing up to the things not done – and things that will now never be done – hard.

But in Jesus’ goodbye, we don’t have this problem. Jesus has achieved everything needed, everything he was asked to do. He lived among us, loved us, died for us, defeated death, conquered sin, made a way for us to be reconciled with God and inaugurated a new Kingdom of justice, love and peace. Mission accomplished and more. On the cross he cried “It is finished!” but in Ascension, it truly is. God made God’s home among us so one day we might go home to God, and Jesus leads the way. As Oswald Chambers said: our Lord entered heaven and he keeps the door open for humanity to enter!

And while I might had fantasized about sneaking off from my curacy churches without any fuss, the reality is that it wasn’t right for either my churches or me. Goodbyes are important.

If you watch daytime telly these days, it is impossible to avoid adverts for direct cremation. Some clergy get very sniffy about this, but I have every sympathy with people who want to have a simple send-off when they die that doesn’t cost them or their family a small fortune. I think that the church should be proactive in engaging with people who want this option – we have lots to offer. But alarm bells ring when the adverts suggest no fuss, as if a funeral is a bad thing. Of course, the person who dies doesn’t want a fuss – but perhaps their family do. We need our goodbyes. We need our moment of remembrance, a moment to be sad even as we are thankful, our moment to hope either that our loved one lives on in us or in heaven. We need to feel we have done our last act of love for those we have lost. Whether that moment is in a church or on a beach or in a hot air balloon, we struggle without it.

Goodbyes help us let go of what has been and look forward for what is to come. Jesus’ ascension helps his disciples let go of one way of knowing him, and prepare to know God in a whole other way. And Jesus could have said “bye chaps!” and popped off from anywhere at any point, but he took them to a mountain, he reminded them of what they needed to do and then he ascended into the clouds. Jesus knew they needed a little fuss, a reminder of who he was and who they were that would sustain them as they waited. It clearly worked – our gospel tells us they returned to the Temple overflowing with praise for God.

We have over the past five months journeyed with Jesus as he came to be with us, our Immanuel, at Christmas, revealed himself as God during Epiphany, walked the way of the Cross during Lent and Holy Week, rose again, defeating sin and death on Easter Sunday and shared his resurrection life and hope ever since. Like the disciples, we now need to learn to journey on, beyond Jesus’ earthly story to live its truths ourselves in the places God has put us. This is a goodbye which prepares us for what is to come.

What is to come is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which we will celebrate next Sunday. God with us – not as the person of Jesus, but the God we met in Jesus now lives in us. The incredible African saint, Augustine of Hippo, said “you ascended before our eyes, and we turned back grieving, only to find you in our hearts”.

I still don’t like goodbyes, but perhaps being sad to say goodbye to Jesus is no bad thing. Perhaps it just means that I love him. Perhaps it means that there is a piece of my heart yearning for that day when I will see him again in glory, bringing his Kingdom to its fulfilment. And perhaps that yearning will help me to work for that Kingdom here, to long to see Jesus in the way our community and society treats one another especially the last and the least.

The joy is that the Spirit of Jesus will never leave me and always be with me as I try to follow and serve Jesus wherever I am. This is true for you too. So let’s spend this week rejoicing in all Jesus has done for us and praying for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives to enable us to live for Jesus.