A spirituality of kite flying is not recorded in any of my theology books. Yet it has become a custom at St. Paul’s for the Sunday school to gather on the St. Bonaventure athletic field on the Sunday after the Ascension to demonstrate their kite flying skills. Kite flying can give a sense of lift to one’s life. On a day with some wind it can make one’s spirit soar. Wonderful bonds are created between our youth, who will do a lot of running to launch the kites on a windless morning like this one, and the little ones who want to grow up one day to be as strong and talented as their mentors. But what all of that has to do with Jesus’ Ascension to his heavenly Father’s right hand in glory has yet to become clear to me.

Of course it might be asked why modern Christians must still hold the Ascension of our Lord as a key doctrine. Isn’t that a rather silly notion in the age of the Hubble telescope which can produce photographs of distant galaxies, or at a time when the earth sciences offer a real understanding of the subterranean layers of the planet? The very idea that Jesus was lifted up bodily and disappeared in the clouds seems like a story best left in a children’s Bible.

Still we miss the point if we leave it as a story of a levitating body. For the Ascension is about Jesus’ departure. We know saying goodbye is never easy. There are all the preliminary goodbyes that occur whenever we see our friends in advance of their trip. Then there are the inevitable last questions which generally seek to confirm in our heads and hearts that our friends will be safe, and that we will miss their company dearly. So in Acts 1 Jesus’ disciples asked if the time for him to establish his government had finally arrived. Jesus turned that one around by saying no one knows the time of his return; so stop the guessing.

When Jesus’ ascent to the Father occurs the disciples stare into space perhaps in hope of getting a glimpse of his destination, but two angels give them the “Why are you looking up there, you’ve got a mission to undertake!” lecture.  We have only to hear the Mission Impossible theme music and imagine the cassette tape self-destructing. The Ascension of Jesus motivates his disciples toward their ministry in the awesome new day in which they find themselves.

There is an interesting mosaic at the Church of the Ascension at Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives, the location of Jesus’ Ascension in Acts 1 (1:12). The mosaic depicts the ascending Jesus flanked by two angels who tell the nostalgic disciples to stop gazing up into heaven by pointing the disciples’ attention earthward not heavenward. That present day Lutheran hospital, attending to the earthly ills of the Palestinian peoples, clearly embodies a vital ministry of Jesus’ disciples.

Today’s reading from Acts 16 is another incident pointing to earthly ministry. In the market place at Philippi Paul and Silas encounter a young woman we’d expect to see in the sideshow at the county fair. She’s a fortune-teller who earned good money for her employer. She declared that Paul is a man of God making it known to all within hearing. But Paul became irritated. This was not the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead it reduced Paul’s message to an unwilling sideshow personality, so he cast out the subversive spirit in this young woman by the power of God. Angered, her owner gets the other business people to charge Paul, a foreigner and a Jew in this Roman garrison town, with disrupting the peace and threatening the economy. The barons of Wall Street who appeared before a congressional hearing recently disavowing responsibility for our economic meltdown come to mind. Inappropriate mortgage financing, derivatives, credit default swaps were not their fault and should not be regulated. The purpose of the market is to make money for investors not make moral judgments about the process.

Paul and Silas were put in prison for casting out a spirit in control of this young woman, interfering with a profitable business, and introducing foreign religious beliefs. But the climax of the story is yet to come. In prison Paul and Silas sing and pray. Their courage and confidence changed the atmosphere for all the prisoners. A quake shakes open the prison’s doors and releases the shackles that bound the prisoners. But no one took advantage of the opportunity to escape. In a previous story in Acts 12 Peter was freed from his prison cell by an angel. The other disciples were thrilled on account of the miracle, but the lives of Peter’s guards were put in jeopardy. Here Paul, Silas and the others stayed in their cell. Discovering the jail a shambles, the jailer knew his life was over and would have fallen on his sword with dignity. But Paul and Silas sensed their mission in prison was not over. The fact that all the prisoners were accounted for gave evidence to the jailer that a prison had no real power over them, instead the power of God made them free. The jailer wanted that freedom, regardless of future consequences, and he and his whole household were baptized.

In John’s gospel Jesus prayed for the disciples gathered around him at his last supper the night before he was arrested and later crucified. Prayer is Jesus’ gift. Prayer unites teacher and disciple in bonds of secure friendship. Prayer unites them with their heavenly Father. Every community will experience stresses and strains from within because each person has a plan to achieve, and from without because others wish to impose their will. Jesus’ example teaches that prayer helps keep us elastic to meet both the push and the pull in a dynamic relationship with his spirit.

Our reading from the Book of Revelation is from the very last chapter of the book, and the very end of our canonical scriptures. The book opened unfolding a vision John the seer received in worship on the Lord’s Day. The vision illustrates at many levels what the victory over sin and death on the cross accomplished. The great beast of empire, all military, economic and social forces, the power of Satan is overwhelmed. A new heaven and earth are created with the New Jerusalem, a restored city and proper dwelling place for God’s people made manifest as the fulfillment of God’s eternal design. That day’s liturgy had progressed through the proclamation of God’s word and the prayers of the people; now the time had come for the great banquet. The table is set and the saints raise their voices to invite the Lord, Maranatha: Amen, Come, Lord Jesus. An echo comes from all creation, Maranatha: Amen, Come, Lord Jesus. And every last person who craves the water of life to quench their inner thirst says, Maranatha: Amen, Come, Lord Jesus.

We too say, Come, Lord Jesus. In the Eucharistic prayer we’ve been using throughout the Easter season at the 10:15 am service, the congregation recites the acclamation: Dying, you destroyed our death. Rising, your restored our life. Christ Jesus, come in glory. That is followed by words over the gifts of bread and wine: “Remembering now all you have done for us, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection and ascension,…send your Holy Spirit upon us that we may be the body of Christ in the world.” Like our sisters and brothers of generations past, we will hold out our hands to receive the bread of Christ’s body broken for us and drink from the cup of the Lord’s suffering and glory for our soul’s health and the spiritual energy to serve.

I’d like to close with us singing, while we remain seated, one of my 700 favorite hymns, #475 “God himself is with us,” which recapitulates for us today our sense of praise for the glory of our risen Lord, our anticipation for the mission of making his love known in the world, and the joy of worship that unites both in God’s love.