God's Strange Logic - A Sermon for Ascension Day

In the story of our salvation, there is a strange, divine logic that runs through the plot. At times, God’s logic is hard for us mortals to understand. And yet, when you look at the whole story, it’s magnificent to behold. The story begins at the beginning of time, when God created the world. God added us, hoping we would love God as much as God loves us. True love can’t be forced, of course, so we were designed with a bit of a rebellious streak known as free will. This caused a few things to go off the rails, and for centuries, God and humans worked on their relationship, with triumphs and failures along the way. And then, in a logic that only makes sense to the creator of the universe, God decided to become one of us. In Barbara Brown Taylor’s telling of the Christmas story from the perspective of heaven, the angels worried about this new plan to come as a baby without nearly enough safety features. It’s too risky, they thought. But when God decided to do it anyway, the angels erupted in applause.

The story of our salvation continued in glorious ways from there, as Jesus gathered people around him and taught them beautiful things about loving one another and loving God. Things were going well by all accounts, and this new messiah was getting some traction in the community. But then the strange logic of God caused the whole thing to take a foreboding turn. Jesus started to talk about his death on a cross. He also spoke of resurrection and ascension in those predictions, but the disciples couldn’t really hear anything past the part about Jesus dying. Death on a cross was not something anyone was expecting in our salvation story.

Easter was glorious, of course. God really outdid God’s self on the third day, claiming victory over sin and death once and for all. Grace, truth, mercy, love - these parts of our salvation story were as clear as they’d ever been. In Acts, Luke tells us that Jesus made a few appearances to the disciples in the next forty days, sharing meals with them, helping them understand everything in the Scriptures, and driving home his message of forgiveness. And just as the disciples were settling into this strange new normal, it was time for Jesus to go. His next call in this grand salvation story was to ascension, so wondrously described in Ephesians, to take his place at God’s right hand in the heavenly places and to put all things under his feet, filling all in all. So he gave the disciples one last message, as recorded in the Book of Acts.

"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.’”

If you read that closely, the Ascension comes with a deeply surprising twist. Though we often overlook it, this moment in our salvation story is as wild and significant as the moment God came to us as a fragile baby. We’ve already established that God in God’s own logic has a high tolerance for risk and uncertainty among humans, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. But what Jesus has in mind sure seems risky. To the faithful but very imperfect disciples, Jesus says that they will be his witnesses. In other words, it will be up to them, and now us, to testify to what we have seen, and to tell the story of our salvation. Jesus predicts that with the power of the Spirit, this story will travel person to person, and reach the very ends of the earth. And it has. The story has been told over and over again, based on the wobbly testimony of the likes of you and me, which is all God needs for our salvation story to keep unfolding.

I wouldn’t call that a foolproof plan, but the logic of it truly is genius. No one comes into the world as a Christian (Will Willimon). We are here tonight because someone told us the story of the good news. Someone testified to each of us about Jesus Christ - about his death, resurrection, and ascension, and the forgiveness of our sins in his name. We are here because God’s witness plan worked. The disciples accepted their call to witness at the Ascension, and the rest, as they say, is salvation history.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard my friend Patricia read the Gospel. She was a newly ordained deacon, and we were serving in the chapel in a small weekday Eucharist, nothing fancy. She started out, “The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.” And she began to tell the story of our salvation in her own voice. And that’s when it really dawned on me, the brilliance of God’s strange logic. The good news has traveled via human voice, person to person, in ancient times until now and far into the future, to the ends of the earth just as Jesus predicted. Our own voices carry the good news just as it has been carried to each of us. Given our imperfections and that original rebellious streak, I would have called this a risky plan on God’s part, but it has worked miraculously well.

So my friends, on this Ascension night, remember that you are called to be witnesses to these things, beginning in Jerusalem and now to the ends of earth. While Jesus reigns in the heavenly places, filling all in all, we now add our voices to what stated at the Ascension. We tell the story of our salvation, and those who need to hear that it’s their story, too, will hear good news. Only God’s strange logic could come up with such a brilliant plan.