The Christian celebration of Christ’s Ascension really hasn’t “caught on” like some of the other feast days of the Church. Even inside the church, today’s Ascension Sunday doesn’t foster too much fond remembrance or spiritual reflection.
Sure, Christmas and Easter are big deals. But maybe that’s because the set-up for those two holidays guarantees you’ll get something out of it. Think of Christmas: Jesus is born! There he is! God’s gift to you, all swaddled and lying in a manger! Or think of Easter: Christ is risen! There he is! God’s new gift of new life rose up and walked right out of the tomb. Or yet think of next Sunday’s Feast of Pentecost: At least you have an excuse to wear something red!
Now think of Ascension Sunday: Jesus is lifted up! And there they are! The lumpy questions! Where did he go? Is he coming back? What do we do now? No brightly wrapped giftbox under the tree, no spring basket lined with color-dyed eggs. Truth be told, the Lord’s Ascension leaves a body feeling quite empty-handed. With fellow disciples we gaze skyward in stunned confusion, wrestling with the last words that anyone heard Jesus speak on earth: something to the effect, “You are my witnesses.” Whatever that means?!
Here’s what it means through the careful witness of Luke the Evangelist, as he continues God’s epic story, in the second volume of his New Testament writing. Listen to the Word that God has spoken, as Luke begins “The Acts of the Apostles.”
In my first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 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.”
When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 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 as you saw him go into heaven … .”
[A short time later,] the apostle Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about 120 persons) and said, “Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled … .” (Acts 1:1-11, 15-16a NRSV)
In the disturbing wake of the Ascension, as it tries to navigate faithfully an earthly path without the physical presence of Jesus, the early Church immediately turns to Scripture to ease its queasiness.
To the outsider, turning first to Scripture seems rather quaint, perhaps silly. To those who ever and always stand on the outside looking in, that first act of the apostles looks absurd and sounds naïve. After all, no one really makes Scripture the primary rule of faith and life, right? The Word of the Lord is all good and fine on Sunday mornings, but sadly, for the rest of a typical week, the holy scriptures oftentimes don’t seem to matter much. Those ancient-but-ever-true words of heaven fit daily living on earth as well as a square peg fits into a round hole.
And maybe that’s not all bad. We Christians, after all, aren’t supposed to live by fitting in. We exist to reflect the nature and desire of the God who made us, and that often puts us at odds with the natures and desires of fallen humanity. We exist to be the hands and feet of Christ Jesus, but our blessed labor isn’t always appreciated, let alone welcomed. We exist in the peace and grace of the Holy Spirit, whereas others ignore their better angels and lustfully fall in line behind dark forces.
That’s why Scripture really does matter, why Scripture is your first go-to. It’s because Scripture is your unique and authoritative witness for every moment of your every day.
Which means, if anyone bothers to get to know you – if anyone thoroughly looks over your life to check out your academic and professional conduct, your home life and choices in entertainment, your care for the environment and behavior as a friend and neighbor – if anyone scrutinizes all of that, then it very much matters that what folks see in you holds integrity with the biblical witness to the truth of Jesus as the Lord of all – and to his command to imitate his example of how God would have the Spirit gather us into the body of Christ.
The Church, and our lives here and beyond, need to be the places, in a broken and fearful world, where Christ’s Lordship is always visible and tangible, forever nourishing and fruitful. The Lordship of Jesus flows from the human heart in love that knows no bounds on earth or in heaven. Steve Hartman of CBS News shares one mother’s witness to such faith.
“Their need was greater than my pain”: fitting words of explanation that answer Ascension Sunday’s lumpy questions of where, when, and what now.
Their need remains great, let not your pain prevent you from serving them, until Jesus one day rises from his current seat at the right hand of God the Father almighty and returns to judge the living and the dead – and to finally, mercifully and graciously, fulfill all needs of all Creation, in his making of all things new.
Ascension Sunday witnesses to the truth that Jesus is Lord and we are his people; that the church, his gathered community – despite all appearances to the contrary – strives for constant contact with Christ.
Thus our very lives of constant contact with Christ – our living, our moving, and our breathing – all must bear witness to our ardent faith. And the only way that happens is only if Ascension Sunday is how we see things, only if Ascension Sunday becomes the lens through which we view our world: the nightly news, our decisions, our lifestyle choices, our everything. The Holy Spirit empowers of enactment of Jesus’s Lordship as consistently and boldly as our spiritual maturity allows.
Regardless of where you are on the walk of faith, the shape of our words and deeds must make our claim of Jesus as Lord more credible, not less so. And your claim becomes more reliable when you explain what you say and do for another with lyric simplicity, “Their need was greater than my pain.”
By grace it can be, and by grace it is! Faithful discipleship is not an impossible task, because in a very real sense it’s not a task at all. Discipleship is who and whose we are by grace. Pentecost is coming up next Sunday, yet we are drenched in the Spirit’s presence now, and as a result of that divine gift, everything changes. By the Spirit God bestows upon us a new identity in Christ, and now the Spirit empowers us to live like Christ every day and in every way.
The Ascension and now the Lordship of Christ are how we see things, because in our baptisms, we were given a new set of eyes: “Their need was greater than my pain.”
And that is the God and Lord we serve; that is why we can be so sure that despite all our smallness, God abides with us and does great things through us. When the divine power of the human spirit enters the void, some truly amazing things really do happen. Imagine even greater things, when the power of the Holy Spirit enters in. The saying is sure and true: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:20 KJV)
Friends, Scripture has been and continues to be fulfilled.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Ascension Sunday, June 1, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Commentary, scholarship, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Scott Hoezee, and Stan Mast inform the message.