“No Longer Grounded” Text: Luke 24:44-53
Ascension of the Lord
June 2, 2011
Elpis Christian Church
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to counsel a young man who had gotten into some serious trouble. For the sake of confidentiality, I won’t go into the details today. But suffice it to say that the matter was grave enough that there were legal as well as personal ramifications. (By the way – this young man doesn’t belong to our congregation – so don’t get sidetracked this morning trying to figure out who I’m talking about.) At any rate – as I say, it was a very serious matter.
At one point, early on in the conversation, since I knew the boy’s parents pretty well – and the probable reaction they would have to the incident in question – I joked, “So I guess you’re pretty much GROUNDED FOR LIFE, right?” To which my young counselee just sadly smiled and said, “Yeah…That’s pretty much it.”
Can you remember such a day in your own life? Can you remember a time when you messed up so profoundly; so irrevocably, that you thought you’d never be able to recover? Can you recall a time when you thought your only options were to slink away in disgrace or change your identity and try and start fresh somewhere where no one had ever heard of you? Can you remember a time when you had really blown it completely and you couldn’t imagine there being the option of a second chance? Let me give you just a minute or two to think about that.
If you’re like me – it didn’t take more than a few seconds for an image and a memory to come to mind. Because some moments; such difficult episodes in our lives; our etched into our psyches in a particularly powerful way. And what’s more, it’s something we pretty much universally share with each other as human beings. I know some very good people – but I don’t any saints. To put it scripturally, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” To put it in simpler terms: “We’ve all been ‘grounded for life’ before.”
So today – even while I’ve caused you to drudge up some unhappy memories of your own failings or shortcomings – let me now hopefully lead you to happier ground. In fact, I hope by looking at the scripture before us today we can not only go to happier and higher ground but get off the ground completely. Today is Ascension Sunday – when the scripture reminds us of, and promises us, something truly extraordinary. That just as the Lord Himself ascended to heaven – so we, with His blessing, are given the possibility to ascend as well. Not just to some glittering city in the sky, in the sweet by and by, but to new, rich, full, joyful, and powerful life in the kingdom of God – in the here and the now.
Life in the kingdom is to never be grounded again. Let me repeat that – it’s the sound bite I want you to remember, if you remember nothing else, after I’ve finished preaching today.
LIFE IN THE KINGDOM IS TO NEVER BE GROUNDED AGAIN.
What does that mean? Well, let me unpack it for you a little bit if I can.
I believe it is a sad reality that too many people live as if they have been grounded for life. They live with their wings clipped and their spirits bowed low. Perhaps it’s the political environment in which they live or work. Maybe it’s the economic hardship under which they try to manage. It may be the emotional or spiritual baggage that they carry around with them wherever they go. The hardships may be visible; palpable realities – an oppressive political regime that rules their land; or an oppressive boss at work. The difficulties which chain and restrain them may be made of actual iron or constructed in their own minds or both. But either way, they are as tied to the ground as are the great balloons of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the day after Thanksgiving. People – far too many people – lived wounded and ineffective lives.
It’s nothing new. The disciples of Jesus knew all about it. Just days after they had failed him; betrayed him; and fled they knew what real defeat, in all its horror and shame, was about. They locked themselves behind closed doors and sat licking their wounds and pondering their next move. Most were probably wondering when the Roman guards would be coming for them and when they would be hung on their own crosses of shame.
Then Jesus came knocking on the door. More than that – He came walking right through the locked one. And, so Dr. Luke tells us, both in his gospel and the book of Acts, he spent the next forty days with them – opening their minds so that they could “understand the scriptures.” Now if that causes you to picture in your mind a sort of Master’s level Bible Study class – with the disciples sitting around with scrolls and notebooks in hand while the good Rabbi expounds – I think you’re only partially correct. I picture something more real, down-to-earth, and “grittier” if you will. I see Jesus sitting with his friends – the very ones who in their shame and sense of unworthiness probably found it difficult to look him in the eye when he first showed up in that locked upper room. I see Jesus embracing them, and reassuring them, and eating with them, and making the scriptures come alive to them – literally.
I think that forty days following the resurrection must have been amazing. All that they had experienced in some half-witted way; all the miracles they had witnessed and the challenges they had faced; all the hardship of the road travelled which had culminated in watching Jesus die; and all the failure they had felt to the very marrow of their bones – that came crashing in on them. And all the promises, all the teaching he had done, finally all the scriptures and prophecies to which he had referred – began to take on new, shining, glimmering, reality in their lives. It was TRUE – the gospel was TRUE. The KINGDOM WAS AT HAND. And then, even while they still hadn’t fully comprehended it all, because they mistakenly asked “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” Jesus did something even more amazing. He ascended to heaven. But not before He promised that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them, enabling them to be witnesses to this new life in Christ, even to the very ends of the earth. And not before he blessed them. That is key to see. When Jesus left them – he did so – while blessing them. They weren’t grounded anymore. Not physically, not emotionally, not spiritually, not politically, not economically, not racially – not in any way possible – were they grounded anymore. Christ had lifted them once and for all, with a blessing and a promise that was beyond their wildest dreams or expectations. And the result is that the Church was born.
What does that mean for us? What does it mean that in this mysterious, mystical, inexplicable way Jesus of Nazareth became the risen Christ, lifted on high, hidden by a cloud, borne witness to by angels while blessing and commissioning his disciples to go into the entire world in His holy name? It’s staggering stuff, isn’t it? And we – like those first imperfect men and women who dared to believe in and follow Him are tempted to stay grounded in our own limited vision and deflated energies. But God has so much more for us than that. God hopes so much more for us than that. And God calls us to do so much more than that. Ascension isn’t just about falling on our faces in worship and awe of Christ as He is lifted up into the heavens – though that is a perfectly appropriate thing for us to do. Ascension is about our own lifting up and responding to the call He has issued. And ascension, above all, is about receiving blessing and assurance.
What has you grounded today? What has clipped your wings and caused you to doubt yourself or the goodness of God? What is holding you back from doing that thing you know, deep in your heart, God is calling you to do? You know one very important difference between us and those first disciples is that the locked doors behind which we hide are far more insidious and deceiving than the real, iron-bolted ones they hid behind. Ours are more subtle. The chains which bind us are not as obvious as the ones which burdened them – or which burden the political prisoners of today. We will leave here today and go home to rich meals and well appointed houses cooled by air conditioning. We will leave here today and go about our business at our leisure – the household errands; the sporting event; the parties or the family outings. And then we’ll go to work tomorrow – either to earn some money from our employers or to undertake some task we’ve set for ourselves. And another day and another week and another month and another year will unfold. And even when there is real, obvious difficulty and struggle in our lives – whether it is caused by illness or other challenges - when we are honest about it – wouldn’t you agree that our lives are pretty good?
And yet – there is something lurking – something hidden – something threatening as well. It is a darkness or a fear or a discouragement or a self-doubting – or something else, you have to name it for yourself. I think many of us – indeed I think most of us – are burdened by this unnamed demon. And it is this that causes us to falter when the night lengthens and sleep won’t come easily. It is this that brings people into my office for counseling. It is this that brings us to our knees, sometimes in prayer, sometimes in simple despair. This demon is what grounds us and threatens to destroy us. And – thanks be to God - it is this demon which the risen Christ defeats.
If we can trust in and receive the blessing of Christ as He ascends above us; which is to receive the promise that there is nothing in this world or any world that can ultimately separate us from his love and empowering grace, then we will be lifted up in a way that the world cannot ever understand. That is grace. That is power. That is possibility and new life.
A few weeks ago I sat in my office and joked with a young man about how his parents had “grounded” him for life. We talked openly and honestly about the mistakes he had made and the damage that had been done. But then I tried my best to reassure him of the fact that our God is a God of second, and third, and fourth, and infinite chances. And I hope I was able to paint a picture for him of a life of possibility and promise that lay ahead, thanks to God’s grace.
We will never fully understand the mystery of what occurred the day Christ ascended to heaven, at least not until He comes again. But we can embrace the possibility and promise it offers. Don’t stay grounded for life – not today – not ever.
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