TEXT: Ephesians 1:15-23

In Paul's prayer we see him thanking God for investing us with this great power that he used to ascend his Son into heaven. Ascension. This Sunday is termed Ascension Sunday. What does "ascension" really mean? According to the dictionary, it's a transitive verb, and it means "to go or move upward, to rise, or to succeed to." Ascension, for Jesus -- what does that mean? He was raised from the dead, death had no power over him, and then he ascended through God's power to the right hand of his father. That sounds great, but what about the disciples who were still on earth? What about us? We have eternal life secured for us, but what about while we're still here in what Hamlet calls, "this mortal coil?" Ascensions are happening all around us. We just have to learn how to look for them.

Human beings are wonderful creatures because we're very dynamic. We're susceptible to change. Change is good. We grow, we learn. That is what ascension is. It's a moving upward. We have many new lives among us. They're just starting out. They've already ascended, they've gone from heaven to earth to start a new life here, to learn to love God. They're going to be growing, just like many of us have. This congregation is filled with people who are at different walks of life, who have had many different experiences, who have ascended in so many different ways. I want to talk about some of those different ways that people ascend and that we learn and grow.

I'll give you the typical example since we're moving into summer now and spring is upon us. Caterpillars. Look at a caterpillar. It's kind of a gross looking worm. It's not very attractive. All it does is move around very slowly and eat leaves. Then, it stops, it spins itself a chrysalis, and it disappears for a while. Let's liken that to Christ. He came to earth, he was a person just like you and me -- divine, of course, but mortal nonetheless. He worked as best he could to spread the word of God, and then the crucifixion. He died and he went into his chrysalis. He stayed there for three days. I don't know the exact length that a caterpillar stays in a chrysalis, but then what emerges from a chrysalis? A beautiful butterfly. Ascension. He threw off the shackles of death, threw off the "thousand natural shocks that the flesh is heir to," and he went to heaven. He became this beautiful thing for all of us to model after.

We're like that too. It may not be as monumental as rising into the air into heaven, but we all ascend in our own way. My personal ascension is coming up in a short time -- graduation. Graduation is a time of change. You move from a very secure home environment to college life, or college graduates moving on to the career field. It's an ascension. You're changing. You're not the same person. Right now, everyone in this congregation is not the same person that they were a moment ago. Things that I say, things that you think of, that you read in the Bible, they've all changed you. Some people may not think it's for the better. What is change? Change may not seem good but we grow and we learn from it. How many parents do we have in the congregation? That was a change too, wasn't it? Remember what life was before you had your child? Slightly easier, I suppose, but look at it now. You're still happy, aren't you? Children are a wonderful thing. Ascension. It's always there.

The wonderful thing is, while your own private ascensions may seem to affect only you, they don't. They affect everyone. I'll bring it back to the parents again. You've learned. by growing up, behaviors and morals taught by your parents that you teach to your children, as well as add a little of your own angle. So you're affecting your children. Your children will eventually grow up, perhaps become parents themselves, and teach their children what you've taught them, as well. Ascension is more like a ripple in a pond, where it has many different effects on many different people. It's not just something that you have, and you hold on to your own. Much like Christ's ascension. Although he went to heaven and left the disciples behind on this earth, he left them with this duty, this message of love that they were to spread among everyone else. It wasn't like he just abandoned us. In fact, now he's with us more than ever since he's with God, at the right hand of God, and God is everywhere. It's not like he said, "I've done my work, I'll see you guys later." No, he's here with us. And it's our duty, with our own private ascensions, to help each other -- parents with their kids, teachers with upcoming students.

I recently attended a Memorial Day service that was hosted by the Dover Veterans' Council. The speaker, and President Abraham Lincoln, whose Gettysburg Address was also read there, made another wonderful example of ascension -- the veterans. Memorial Day seems to be just another holiday, another day off from work, but that service was so wonderful, because the speaker really made a point that these veterans -- not just the ones deceased but the ones that are living as well -- have also made a great impact on us, and that those that are not living now have ascended into our memories. I took that and I thought about all our deceased loved ones, ones that we've lost through accidents or natural causes. They're not gone, just like Jesus. It's thanks to Jesus that they're still with us in this eternal life. Even if you don't buy the eternal life theory, they're with us in our memories. That's what ascension is. They've made a mark on you so you will remember them. Even after they're gone they still live with us.

In a wonderful novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse Five, he addresses the fire bombing of Dresden during World War II. It's a very abstract book. In it, he talks about a race of beings from another planet called the Tralfamadorians. The difference between the Tralfamadorians and humans is that they see time as a succession of events. As humans, we see things going moment by moment. We have the past, the present, and the future. The Tralfamadorians see everything as one succession. They liken it to a mountain range -- mountain after mountain, moment after moment of events, all frozen in place. When someone dies, to them it's not like that person is dead, because they can always go back and look at scenes where that person is still alive. We can liken that to our memories. Although our memories are not stacked one on top of the other like a mountain range, we can still choose to look back on those memorable events where people have had effects on us with their own personal ascensions. And we have faith that we'll see them again through Christ's promise of eternal life, in another time. But while we do have eternal life to live for, let's also make some differences here. Let's make some ascensions. Let's make some ripples in the pond. Let's affect other people, make people remember us. Because that's the way we'll live on.

I met some very interesting people last summer who were Buddhists. I was curious about their idea of what reincarnation is. They believe that the whole cycle of life is a wheel, and that you stay on that wheel until you've learned the purpose of life. Buddhists believe in the idea of reincarnation, where the soul lives on after death in another body. They see that as a whole growth period, where one can have several tries to finally get at what life is really all about. It may take several lifetimes. When they finally reach that stage where they understand things and they grasp what life is all about, then they've finally ascended and they can step out. Regardless of whether you buy into the reincarnation story or not, you can see again the idea of ascension, of trying to grow and learn, even if it may take several lifetimes.

Since we're Christians, we have one shot at learning all there is to know before we join God. It's a safety net, to know that we have God behind us with the eternal life that Christ promised us, but that doesn't mean that we can just sit here and not grow any more. Even though Christ knew that he was the Son of God and that he was supposed to preach, and he knew that he was going to die and be lifted up, he still had to go through the motions. That's what we have to do, because we don't know all the answers. We don't know what's going to happen in the next moment, but we have to grow because that's the purpose of ascension. Eventually we will end up with Christ in heaven and he'll have all the answers. But we still have to make every effort to make our own private ascensions, and to grow while we're still here. Since it is our duty is to model after Christ, what better way to strive for bigger and better things, than to work with one another and help each other ascend?

Amen.

© 2000, by Lee Sims