Ascension Sunday 2019

Sermon given by Donna Miller
June 1, 2019

In the Collect prayer for today, we are invited to ascend with Christ. The wording is interesting, as it does not imply that this ascension refers to after we die. The prayer says, “We pray that we may also in heart and mind thither ascend and with him continually dwell….” The invitation is for an ascension that can happen now and become a way of life.

In the Epistle reading, the story of the Ascension of Jesus is told. It describes his form—the post-resurrection spiritual body the disciples had witnessed—“being taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.”

Afterward, two shining beings, perhaps angels, asked the disciples why they were standing there gazing upward and assured them that Christ would come again in like manner as he had gone.

Now if the point of the Ascension was that Christ had gone up to a physical place called heaven, up in the sky somewhere, and that he would return to them from that place coming down from the sky, then, logically, looking upward would make some sense, even if the time frame were unknown. The shining beings may then have meant, “Guys, it’s going to be a while, so just glance up from time to time, but you’ll get stiff necks if you just stand here gazing all the time.” But that’s not the implication here. “Looking upward” itself seems to be what is challenged. The text says Christ went “into heaven,” and, as we’ve heard in virtually all the metaphors Jesus used for the kingdom of heaven, it referred to a state of life completely in harmony with God, not simply a literal place in the sky where people go after they die. There is no need to deny such a celestial realm, but the spiritual goal of heaven is meant to begin in the here and now.

The word ascension (that is, the Latin word from which it derived) did not originate until the 14th century. Even then, it had both a literal meaning of some physical object rising upward, but it also was used figuratively, to mean arising into view or of reaching a new level. It also carried the meaning of a distillation, a more refined essence of something arising from a grosser state.

For most people today, the common connotation of ascend is the literal one—something physical moving upward. An airplane ascends, so do birds, seeds, steam, smoke, hot air balloons or ordinary birthday party helium balloons. And the cause of their ascension varies—propulsion motors, the wind, air pressure, aerodynamics and the fine design of wings, or a gas like helium that is lighter than air.

Ascending is also used to mean a rising up the ladder of success in some area—a  student becoming a graduate then attaining a master’s degree, a PhD, and the like.

But, as we know, the word ascension is also used spiritually, to mean rising up in a different way—“up” in this context not meaning literally upward but of experiencing a higher, more cosmically expansive vantage point on life. The word ascension is a fine metaphor for this, as it is similar to seeing from an airplane or a mountaintop, where the whole context is seen and not just the close details. When we ascend spiritually, our consciousness incorporates wholeness.

In the case of airplanes, birds, seeds, rocket ships, and so on, it seems as if they are escaping gravity. Actually, the force of gravity is as strong as ever, but the methods of ascension are able to work in spite of its pull.

Like that, the spiritual ascension that Christ invites us to experience, allows us to to live within the weighty gravity of the human condition without being held down and trapped by it.

Our growth to this state is gradual. For most of us, we slip in and out of it until it becomes really established within us. We experience times when we are especially full inside, lightened by a sense of spiritual vastness. Life can have the same disturbing outer events and nagging little problems that perhaps made us totally grumpy two days earlier, but in this inner state of wholeness, we can experience all of it while remaining full and open inside, even loving and grateful.

The point of the Ascension story is not that Christ ascended into some physical celestial place where He is separate from us until some future undetermined return date. As was made clear in many scripture passages and is highlighted on Whitsunday, which is next Sunday’s festival, the Light and Love and Power of Christ spread out, arose from its association with one single incarnation living on the earth, and was offered in its purest essence, to every one of us. He made it clear that this pure essence was the divine Light that shone through the life of Jesus and that has shone through every life and all of creation for all of time. And this is how we perceive life if our blinders are removed.

When we consider light, it’s important to note that light is not something we generally look at directly. It is something we see by. In fact, if we look into a light, we see less. We can even be blinded by the light. However if we shine a light onto something, we see the details around us more clearly. Like that, the indwelling Light of Christ within each of us is there so that by it we can perceive every thing and every person lit up by Divine Light. This is the invitation given to us in the Collect prayer—that our hearts and minds may ascend to this state of living, in which we may continually dwell, seeing with the eyes of Divinity.

You’ve heard me many times cite that beautiful prayer in our Solemn Benediction service: “Open Thine eyes in us that we may see.” Another way of saying that is “Raise the shades so the natural Divine Light within me can illuminate all that I see every day.” And this seeing, illumined by Divine Light—refers to understanding as well as seeing the glory of creation with our physical eyes. When we have an “Aha!” experience, we say, “I SEE!” This inner seeing is naturally increased as we see by the light of the Divine. This is the beautiful gift of Ascension that we celebrate today. Bishop Leadbeater felt that Ascension was an especially glorious Church Festival, because it represents our highest level of consciousness, wherein all that we think and do is in harmony with God’s will and made fully alive by the Cosmic Christ.

A side note from science: Physicists describe the presence of a detectable indwelling light in the universe.

Deep inside the sun are released mysterious particles called neutrinos. This process is thought to be the first step in the chain responsible for 99 percent of the energy the sun radiates. Scientists have only recently found proof of this.

Physicists calculate that about 420 billion of these neutrinos stream from the sun onto every square inch of our planet’s surface each second—yet they are incredibly hard to find because neutrinos usually fly straight through the empty spaces between the atoms in our bodies and all other normal matter. But occasionally through  extremely sensitive detectors they can be visible as a quick flash of light. These super abundant slivers of light are found to exist even in areas that seem to be completely dark.

I’m not a scientist and I only read about neutrinos in three articles from scientific journals, but it is a wonderful synchronicity with the spiritual view of a source of light that is present even in darkness. Scripture refers to such a Light, and it’s interesting that even physicists refer to the ever present existence of light even where there is apparent darkness.

Like that, the Inner Light of Christ is fully present even in our darkest times. We are all capable of ascending into that illumined vantage point, from which our evaluation of life can radically change.

So today, we join with Christ in this lovely story of Ascension—by inviting that Inner Light that can never go out to grow stronger in our lives. Prayer, meditation, the Sacraments, and loving God and each other all help remove the shades that keep that Light from naturally shining forth. And this inspiring direction continues next week with our celebration of Whitsunday, the day when all were filled with the wonder and comfort of the Holy Spirit and were transformed.