A Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Text: Acts 1:1-11
I speak to you in the name of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
“While he was going and 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, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven.”
This morning, I tuned in online to watch the live-streamed broadcast of the 198th Commencement of the Virginia Theological Seminary—the seminary where I graduated from six years ago.
At one time, I knew a lot of people at VTS, both faculty and students. Now, there are only a handful of faculty members that I still know, and all of the students that I knew as a seminarian have graduated and gone on to serve the wider church. The main reason I decided to tune in this morning was to listen to the commencement speaker—our own Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Michael Curry. I can say confidently that I’ll drop pretty much anything I’m doing to listen to Bishop Curry speak or preach. I quote him often in my own sermons, not only because he has such insightful things to say, but also because he loves Jesus. You can tell that he loves Jesus by the way he preaches the Gospel, both in his sermons and in the way he lives his life. I was surprised to learn this morning that this was Bishop Curry’s first public appearance since the beginning of the pandemic. It speaks a lot to who he is as a bishop and leader of the Church that he chose to make his first public appearance at a commencement service for graduating seminarians.
Bishop Curry’s central message in his address to the graduates this morning was this: As we begin to emerge from this pandemic, the Church needs you, the Class of 2021, to show us the way. The Church needs you to help us remember that we aren’t just another institution. We are the Jesus Movement in the 21st century.
Watching the commencement service and listening to the Presiding Bishop speak reminded me of my own commencement service six years ago. It was a time of joy and celebration, but it was also bittersweet as my fellow classmates and I prepared to say “goodbye” to the place we called home for three years. Of course, things were very different six years ago. For one, we were able to graduate inside the seminary chapel and sit right next to each other during the service. This morning’s graduates had an outdoor commencement service with everyone spread out on the front lawn and wearing masks. Six years ago, we were preparing to leave the seminary community, at least somewhat prepared for what was to come in our own ministries in the Church. This morning’s graduates are going back into the world and discovering a Church that’s been rocked over the past year by a global pandemic and changed in drastic ways. Like all of us, they’ll be called upon to do ministry in ways that they never could’ve imagined before answering the call to go to seminary and become priests in the Episcopal Church.
Commencement ceremonies and other occasions like it can be quite scary, can’t they? One moment, you’re studying to be a priest—going to class, participating in daily worship, and doing field education at a nearby parish. The next moment, you’re graduating from seminary and asking yourself, “Now what?” I remember having that same feeling on the day of my graduation. “Now what?” I had already received my first call to ordained ministry at a large parish in northwest Texas. So, I knew where our family was moving after seminary. But, if I’m being totally honest, I didn’t know what to expect. We were moving to a brand new place in a part of the country where we had never lived. All I had to take with me into my first call as a priest was what the seminary had equipped me with—some knowledge and some experience—and the comfort of knowing that I was carrying with me God’s blessing into my ministry.
In our lesson this evening from the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples experience something very similar to a commencement service as they bear witness to the ascension of our Lord Jesus into heaven. One moment, the risen Christ is with them, encouraging them and giving them his final instructions for after he’s gone. The next moment, he’s being lifted up to join his Father in heaven. One moment, they’re being comforted by the physical presence of their friend and teacher. The next moment, he’s gone.
Like the experience of graduating from seminary or reaching some other important milestone and time of transition, I imagine the experience was bittersweet for the disciples. On one hand, they experienced the joy and amazement of seeing Jesus being lifted up and ascending into heaven, but on the other hand, they were likely left with that terrifying question that all of us ask ourselves when one chapter ends and a new one begins: “Now what?”
Jesus is gone. What do we do now?
In the story from Acts, we learn that, following Jesus’ ascension, two men in white robes—which we can assume were angels—appeared and stood near the disciples. The angels said to them, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
In other words, “Don’t waste your time looking to the past and expecting it to be like before. It’s time to get to work. It’s time to put to use everything Jesus has equipped you with for the building up of God’s Kingdom, trusting that the blessing of God will be with you wherever you go.”
The ascension of Jesus provides us with a place to focus our attention when we’re feeling lost and afraid. We look up toward heaven, the place where Jesus is seated next to the Father, interceding on our behalf, and we also look for that day when Jesus will come again. But, as Christians, the ascension of Jesus also beckons us to keep moving forward, not to stand still, because there’s still plenty of work to be done before Jesus returns. We’ve been empowered and entrusted to show people the way to Jesus. As the Presiding Bishop stated in his commencement address this morning at VTS, the Church to which we belong isn’t just another institution. It is the Jesus Movement in the 21st century, and it needs all of us. So, don’t stand still. Let’s get to work in showing the people of this world the Way of Love, which is the way of Jesus. Amen.
A video of this sermon is available below, beginning at the 18:32 mark.
The Rev. Eric Mancil 