A sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter

Texts: Acts 1:1-14; John 17:1-11

Preached on May 12, 2002, Concord Covenant Church, Concord, NH

The Rev. Beth Jenkins Ernest

The fifth grade class in my daughter’s school is preparing the play, "The Wizard of Oz." After many trials and tribulations, after facing the terrible Oz, after fending off the flying monkeys and destroying the Wicked Witch of the West (or is it the East)?, everyone gets what they want. Almost. Scarecrow gets a brain. Tin Man gets a heart. The Lion gets courage. And, the great Oz heats up his hot air balloon and prepares to take Dorothy back to her beloved Auntie Em in Kansas. There is great excitement, and tearful good-byes among the friends who have weathered so much together. But Toto spies a cat and jumps out of the balloon! Dorothy jumps out after him, only to see the balloon take off without her. The one creature in the whole universe who could get her back to Kansas is sailing up, up into the sky. What agony! What heartbreak! Has she gone through all this only to be stranded? Left behind? Abandoned by the one who can lead her safely home? And as she pleads with him to return, he sails out of sight.

Perhaps if the disciples had read Frank Baum’s childhood classic, they would be nodding their heads just now. "Yes, that’s how it was when Jesus sailed up into the sky! We didn’t know what would happen now. We hoped he would come back for us, as he said he would! We had been through so much together both before and after the resurrection. He was our friend, our leader, our teacher, our master, our guide. But there we were, powerless to do anything but watch him go."

Of course, Jesus had already promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to them, to be with them. "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). In short, they would be transformed, sent out. They would see the world. But first, they would stand and stare for awhile, looking for that speck against the clouds, perhaps shedding a tear or two, perhaps made speechless by the sudden, miraculous departure.

When will the Holy Spirit come? That’s up in the air.

When will Jesus return as he said he would? That’s up in the air.

How should the disciples go about fulfilling Jesus’ words to witness to the ends of the earth? That’s pretty up in the air, too. (Never did that before!)

For fishermen and craftsmen and earth-bound types as the disciples were, that’s a lot of uncertainty.

Now two men clothed in white ask them why they are just standing there staring up at the sky. "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 as you saw him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11)

Reassured by the men, or merely broken out of their trance, the disciples return to Jerusalem, and…. pray. All the followers of Jesus, men and women, met to pray, no doubt asking for leadership and guidance now that Jesus is gone, but the promised Holy Spirit is not yet come and they find themselves somewhat caught between the past and the future.

This story is known as the Ascension and it is important in the life of Jesus Christ and in the lives of the disciples. It is important for Jesus Christ, as it records his final glorification in which he ascends to heaven where he "Sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead," as the Apostles’ Creed says. Christ now reigns with God. This story returns him to the place from which he came, heaven. William Willimon says, "In the words of the ancient Ascension Day hymn, Deus Ascendit, ‘God has Gone Up,’ not gone away from the church but gone up to be the empowerment for the church," (Interpretation Commentary, Acts. John Knox Press, Atlanta. 1988. p. 22)

The Ascension story is also important for the disciples, because it confirms their new mission in the world--"to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth," and shows us how they initially respond to that mission, namely, through communal prayer.

But the story is more than that, for it also offers us something today. It meets us where we live—remembering what we have learned from Jesus, and it finds us knowing and yet still awaiting further activity of the Holy Spirit. Don’t we sometimes look up in the air, longing for that day when we shall see Christ—for the first time as it were, all the time seeking strength to accomplish the tasks we know we must do?

My own belief is that it also offers us something on this Sunday, the day designated as Singing Sunday. What does this all have to do with music and worship? Lots, actually. I believe at its best, the music of the church tells both the story of the ascended, enthroned Jesus Christ and reminds us of our mission in the world. Music, like no other human medium, allows us to praise Jesus Christ who, as hymn-writer Bryan Jeffrey Leech says, "is risen, ascended, regally splendid, King of all Kings." (Glimpses of Glory, The Covenant Hymnal, p. 749). Our music affirms the story of Jesus’ time on earth and human interaction with him. Our hymns "love to tell the story" for it is also our story. Had this not been a Sunday when people were invited to choose their favorite hymns and songs, I probably would have chosen "All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, let angels prostrate fall, break forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all…" (a great Ascension hymn) as the opener and through the course of the service, worked our way up to "O Zion Haste, thy Mission High Fulfilling to tell to all the world that God is light," a great mission hymn. And in these two wonderful songs is summed up the praise of the glorified Christ, and what we are supposed to do about it, namely tell others! Maybe that is why they are two of my favorite hymns! And yet, the hymns chosen by all of your tell a similar story—those these themes run through the music of the faith.

In the story from Acts, it doesn’t say that the disciples were singing as they all gathered there in Jerusalem, men and women, but it would have been very much in the spirit of the early church if they were. The early church was characterized by gathering together to worship and break bread, and in these gatherings were prayer and singing.

I would go so far as to say that the music of the church is our communal prayer, and also at times, our solitary prayer to God. Prayer that is sometimes raucous, meditative and reflective at other times, or instructional, and oft-times sorrowful, reflecting the condition of our soul as we await God’s comfort.

The disciples were awaiting the baptism of the Holy Spirit to come to them as Jesus had promised, and where the Spirit is, there is always music. Early Covenanter, C.M. Youngquist, wrote this of the early, Spirit-led days of the Covenant:

The hymns chosen by you to be included in this service—including those that we couldn’t get to today but will sing in the next weeks—are a wonderful mix of older and contemporary hymns. I see a healthy appreciation in this congregation for history and future. Without out tradition, we have no story, no anchor, no jumping off place. Without our future, we have no vision, no challenge.

My prayer for Concord Covenant is that you will always be a singing church. Because if you are, it means you are also a praying church, a church that witnesses to the risen, ascended Christ the King, and a church that takes seriously its mission to take that story to others.

Hymns from:

The Covenant Hymnal: A Worship Book. Covenant Publications: Chicago, Il. 1996.