Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:6-11; John 20: /10/2018 Ascension, a bad strategy?

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1 Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:6-11; John 20: /10/2018 Ascension, a bad strategy? A bad strategy. Some of you will remember that infamous football match back in It was the England versus Sweden group decider in the European Championships. The winner would take a place in the semifinals. England had taken an early lead in the fourth minute through a David Platt goal but that all changed early in the second half with a Jan Eriksson equaliser. The game was on a knife-edge when, after only 60 minutes of play, Graham Taylor decided to remove England s skipper and prolific goal scorer, Gary Lineker, replacing him with Arsenal s Alan Smith. Arguably, Taylor removed England s best player and best chance of winning. Seven minutes from the end Sweden scored again. England lost and Lineker never played another international game. He might have equalled Bobby Charlton s record of 49 goals for England, but that was not to be. It was a an incredibly bad decision. The captain, the best player, was removed and quite naturally the team lost. What was Taylor thinking? If it was any sort of strategy, it was a bad strategy! Well, isn t this a little like the Ascension of Jesus? Let s just retrace some of the steps, some of what has happened. What has happened. Jesus has spent three years leading and teaching 12 disciples all about God and Himself. He has travelled around Galilee, Judea and environs telling people that the kingdom of God is near, that they should place their trust and faith in Him if they truly want to know God. He has been declaring that he is the Christ, the Anointed One God promised through the OT prophets, the Messiah who will redeem Israel and indeed all mankind. Jesus has built up a sizeable following that goes well beyond the inner circle of the 12 disciples. People from everywhere flock to hear Him, listen to Him and see what He does. And He has done some truly amazing things. He has cured lepers and people with severe fevers, He has made deaf people, literally deaf people, hear. He has made blind people see, mute people speak. He has on a number of occasions fed thousands of people miraculously. He has calmed raging storms simply by saying a word. He has cast out demons from people whose lives have been torn apart by their demonic activity. He has opposed the greed of those who are supposed to lead and shepherd the people. He has taught in ways that no-one else has ever been able to, with an authority no-one else has ever had. He has raised people back from the dead. People who ve been rotting in their graves! He has shown immense compassion, He s blessed a bride and groom, saving them from embarrassment at their wedding by changing huge quantities of water into the very best wine. He has spoken up for the downtrodden and rescued people from being stoned, like the woman caught in adultery. When crowds have been outraged by what He has said, instead of them stoning Him or throwing Him over a cliff in their fury, He has simply walked away through them. He has taken on the twisted religious leaders of the day and challenged them to repent and come clean. He has outwitted them at every turn in any argument they ve raised with Him. And then, He d seemingly given in to the plots of the religious authorities and allowed Himself to be arrested and tried by a rigged kangaroo court. He d submitted Himself, without complaint to Roman flogging and crucifixion. And He d died. For a day or two His followers had dispersed in fear for their lives. Hiding wherever they could. But then, on the third day after His execution, reports began filtering back to Jerusalem, first to the disciples Jesus has risen from the dead! And indeed, He had. Mary saw Him in the garden outside the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, in which His body had been placed. She mistook Him for the gardener, but when He spoke to her, she recognised Him. Naturally she tried to cling to Him, but He gently rebuked her and we ll come back to this.

2 Over the next six weeks Jesus appears to His disciples on numerous different occasions, demonstrating time and again that He wasn t a ghost or some apparition. He even invites Thomas, who wouldn t believe unless he actually saw the risen Lord himself, to touch Him. To feel His hands and feet, the places where the nails had been driven through His flesh. To feel that He really is a living, physical human being, albeit no longer in mortal form. On one occasion He appears to more than 500 people at the same time. These appearances aren t just wishful thinking on the part of desperate devotees. These are real actual occurrences. And so, we come to our first two readings this morning. The two passages, both written by Luke, that directly record what happened next. The Ascension. So, Jesus has been among the disciples, on and off, for some six weeks or so in His resurrected form. Make no mistake, just like us, the disciples would have been totally taken aback by His resurrection. This was not something they had expected. This, in spite of all Jesus had taught them. It was only in retrospect that they understood much of what they d been taught. But now that their eyes were truly opened and they at last understood what it was Jesus had come to earth to do, they think that it must be time, surely, for Him to set up His kingdom tangibly here on earth? So, they ask Him when they are gathered together, Lord are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? In the light of all the recent events they d been through and in trying to make sense of it all and where everything might be headed, it is an understandable question. Is this now the time in which You will set up the Kingdom of God here on earth? The Kingdom that God promised throughout the OT to Israel. But Jesus replies saying, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Having said this, He is taken up before their very eyes! And a cloud hides Him from their sight. He literally rises, it seems, into the sky to be hidden by a cloud. And the disciples are gob-smacked, they just stand, staring into the sky mouths agape. Suddenly they become aware of two men, dressed in white these are angels, messengers from God, and they ask what seems to be a rather silly question. "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? Why indeed? They ve just witnessed their risen and triumphant Lord disappear upwards into the clouds. If I had been there and seen this happen, you can be sure I d be just like those disciples staring up into the sky, wondering where Jesus had gone, what this all meant, would He return? The men in white continue, This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." So, Jesus will come back we re not told when, but He will return just as dramatically as He left. He will step back from heaven to earth one day. In the meantime, He is in heaven. Let s just think about this for a moment. It is all rather weird. Frankly, it seems to be like some sort of science fiction story. Not only does this man Jesus come back to life after dying on a cross, and then appear to numerous people as the risen and glorified Lord, not only does He seem to be able to appear and disappear at

3 will, not only can He appear in a proper human physical form in locked rooms, but now He is beamed up like Scotty in Star Trek, to goodness knows where! And for those familiar with modern sci-fi stories, it s not the men in black that we are concerned with here but the men in white! For some, people whose credulity has already been stretched by Jesus miracles all this that happens after His death can feel a little too much. We seem to have moved from this wonderful man, who sets a wonderful moral example for us to follow to something that is a little hard to grasp or give credibility to So, people pick and choose those parts that they feel comfortable with and leave the rest, writing it off in their minds as myth, tall stories embellished by His followers to enhance the prestige of a truly magnificent human being. Yet, the reality is even weirder than this! You see Jesus is, as such people think, a truly magnificent human being, a perfect human being, the only perfect human to ever live - and at the same time He is also the One and only God He is fully human and fully God. And it isn t the easiest of truths to get across to people. You may well have had a conversation that goes something like this: - I don t think there is a God. If there was, He d surely make Himself known in ways that we couldn t deny? You know, He d make sure we all know He exists by revealing Himself to us in ways that can t be disputed. But He has done so. He has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God s Son. He lived among us, died for us and rose from the dead. He says that if we have seen Him then we have seen God. He says that the only way to know God is to come to Him. Jesus makes God known. Not only that, He, through His death and resurrection, has opened the way to heaven and eternal life to all those who trust Him. Well, that s what you claim. But all that, if it did happen, happened a long, long time ago. How can I be certain it happened? How can I know for sure that there s life after death? We can know for sure because the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead is overwhelming. It is key to all the claims of Christianity. Disprove the resurrection and the whole edifice of the Christian faith will collapse. The Christian faith is based on historical fact. These things really happened. How can you know that it wasn t just made up, by people trying to justify their misplaced beliefs? The evidence is as I ve said, overwhelming. Jesus tomb was empty, His body gone. The only sensible argument to explain that, is that He rose from the dead. I can explain that a little more in a while if you want. Also, He appeared to numerous witnesses who recorded what they saw. If He didn t rise from the dead, someone would have come forward to refute it and produce His body. The disciples, who witnessed the resurrected Jesus changed from a scared bunch of cowards into a group of people who died for their faith. Their changed lives, the change from hiding from the authorities to boldly declaring that Jesus was risen and alive to the point where many of them were martyred, is massive evidence that these things really happened. Yes, but science has shown that people don t just rise from the dead. When people are dead

4 they re dead And so, the conversation may continue. Wouldn t it be a whole lot easier if Jesus hadn t ascended? What was God thinking? Imagine He was still physically somewhere on earth? Imagine Him living in a house somewhere in the Middle East. Perhaps He d be in a house, a reasonably humble home, on the Via Dolorosa? Only now, instead of it being called The Via Dolorosa, The Way of Suffering, it is called The Place of Victory. Imagine if Jesus were still here on earth, and scientists had been able to check out His DNA and confirm that as a human He was now older than 2000 years. Imagine if He periodically went on tour around the world, speaking at packed arenas in city after city. It would make evangelism so much easier! What was God thinking? In the light of this, the Ascension starts to look like a bad strategy, a strategic error on God s part. It is as if Graham Taylor is God, he s substituted our captain, our key and best player at the crucial moment, right at the point when the game is really beginning. The Ascension seems to remove the most compelling piece of evidence that would substantiate every claim of the Christian faith. But our thoughts are not God s thoughts and our ways are not God s ways and His wisdom is way beyond anything we can conceive. We should not be questioning God. The Ascension is a brilliant move on His part. Why the Ascension is essential. Far from being a bad strategy, the Ascension is the best strategy possible and really good news for us all. Like so much that God does, actions that look weak, that look like failure, turn out to be the greatest triumphs. The cross looked like the ultimate failure, but it was the ultimate victory. The Ascension looks like a very bad strategy, but it is in fact the very best strategy possible, a strategy that only God could have planned. Without the Ascension there would be no salvation and there would be no good news for us to take to others. This series is going to look at the Ascension in some detail so that we can better understand its meaning and purpose and how it fits in with God s greater plans. But for this morning, what was the immediate response by the disciples to the event they d just witnessed? We find it in Luke 24:52,53. Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. Worship, joy and praise! Even though their Lord, their friend, had just left them, they now understood enough for them to be obedient to Him and therefore to start living their lives for Him, to worship Him, to praise Him and to be filled with joy because of all He had done and now was doing. Just before this event, as they d gathered in Jerusalem for one last time with Jesus, He d told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to stay there until in a few days they were baptised with the gift the Father had promised the Holy Spirit. This command would have brought back Jesus instructions to them in the upper room in Jerusalem on the night He was crucified. Jesus had told them quite plainly, though at the time they probably hadn t understood what He was talking about, John 16:7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

5 He had told them that He would be going away but that He d send another, just like Him, the Counsellor, which they now knew was the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus is saying that His physical absence will be far more advantageous for those who believe than His continued physical presence. Unless I go away the Holy Spirit will not come. If I go, I will send Him. This is why Jesus told Mary not to cling to Him in the garden when she first saw Him in His risen form. He must leave so that He can send the Holy Spirit. And as we start to understand the Ascension more clearly through this series, we ll discover what a great comfort His leaving is. So often when watching the news, the anchor says, Now we ll go over to our man in Washington or our man in Paris or something like that. Jesus ascended bodily. He is now a human presence in the Godhead. Jesus is our man in heaven. He is there, with the Father, representing us, pleading our case on the basis of the cross, securing our salvation. He is our Advocate in heaven. Because He is now present there, He can truly represent us in the courts of heaven. The Ascension is also immensely challenging. The Ascension marks the enthronement of Jesus as King. He now rules as King, King of kings and Lord of lords. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and He now sends us to declare that authority to the world. The Ascension is the beginning of true mission. The Ascension is essential to our Christian faith. Amen.