Introduction
Today we celebrate, as part of the Easter story, the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. Jesus' resurrection from the dead, his ascension into Heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit - which we celebrate next week - are all part of the same event. They are part of the same plan of God for humanity. Many of us wonder about the Ascension, what it means, how a physical body can live in Heaven. In England this part of the Easter story is downplayed in our culture, whereas, most European countries have a public holiday to mark it.
For me the Ascension of Jesus is about two things. Our discipleship and prayer.
Discipleship
There is a story about Jesus meeting up with the Archangel Gabriel after his return to Heaven. Gabriel looks rather surprised to see Jesus: "back so soon?" he asked. Jesus said, "yes, they crucified me" "Ah," said Gabriel, "so that means you failed." "No," said Jesus, "you see I called together this little group of disciples, they will carry on my work". "Umm," said Gabriel, "what if they should fail?" Jesus replied, "I have no other plans, they won't fail." Jesus had preached the Good News of God's love, acceptance and forgiveness to Israel, but he left the task of telling the rest of the world to you and me - this is our Commission.
For the last few weeks the cycle of readings we have heard from St John's Gospel have focused on the last speech that Jesus gave his disciples. He knew that we would not be with them in person in the same way anymore and was trying to prepare them for this. They were confused and apprehensive; they had been on a whirlwind of emotions from seeing him die, to the surprise, delight and mystery of having him with them, risen from the dead. And now, he was going to go away. Jesus had to prepare them. He told them that they would do even greater things than he did, that they should preach the Gospel to all nations and should encourage people to become effective disciples. We know the rest, we are here as Christians, some 2000 years later because of the success of that mission of the disciples. But Jesus' words are also directed to us; we are called to spread the news of God's love, of the fact that we can be forgiven and set free from the guilt that seems always to cling and that we can be, and can help others to be true disciples.
Prayer - A Scene from the Apocalypse
It seems to me the hallmark of a true disciple is prayer. I want to think, for a moment, about a Biblical image of prayer taken from the Book of Revelation. It starts off in the sixth chapter where John pictures heaven as a place where angelic beings fly around God's throne in the heavenly sanctuary singing an endless chorus of praise to God, a kind of never-ending worship service, if you like. In this scene, Jesus is depicted as "the Lion of Judah", a lion in sheep's clothing, to be sure; and this Lamb of God is opening the scroll of human destiny.
Now, as the first of these scrolls are opened the sorry spectacle of human history is laid bare: a story of violence, cruelty, famine and death, as depicted popularly by the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. When the fifth seal is broken, all those who have been martyred for the faith and who are seated under the heavenly altar cry out an anguished plea for justice. And when the sixth seal is opened, the whole creation shudders and trembles in anticipation of the great and terrible day of God's judgment.
But then, just before the seventh seal is opened - the seal that will reveal all those who are to be spared God's wrath, in other words, the seal that will reveal the future - something very strange happens. John says,
When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for half an hour.
In other words, this eternal chorus of praise that is going on in heaven is suddenly interrupted. Everything in heaven falls completely silent. Why?
John goes on to say that the heavenly chorus is silenced and the seven angels of destiny are prevented from blowing their trumpets to reveal the future because something is happening that captivates heaven's attention: the prayers of God's people are ascending to God, prayers for justice, vindication, victory.
Silence in Heaven
Everything remains silent until an eighth angel takes a censer from the heavenly altar so that silently these prayers may rise to the nostrils of God. Then, the angel fills the censer with fiery coals and hurls them upon the earth.
The earth is convulsed. The silence is shattered. The angels are permitted to blow their trumpets and the future is revealed. What does this strange, marvellous image mean?
It means that the prayers of God's people affect the decisions that are made in heaven. It means that God waits to hear the prayers of the people before deciding what to do next.
The unexpected becomes suddenly possible, because people on earth have invoked heaven, the home of the impossible, and have been heard. What happens next happens because people prayed.
Prayer Changes God
Prayer, in other words, is not just a nice thing to do to get our meetings going. Prayer is what people do to change God.
That is the best way I know of in order to explain why the followers of Jesus end up doing what they do in today's reading. Presumably, it was a very difficult time for them. Now it was up to them to carry on what Jesus had started. How on earth could they do it? They must have been terribly anxious and confused about what lay ahead; and, if they had been wise, sensible, reasonable people, like you and me, you would think they might have found better things to do with their time than sitting around praying - you know, like having meeting after meeting to discuss what they should do, like calling in the experts in conflict management to teach them how to avoid the kind of trouble that Jesus had stirred up for himself, like commissioning a demographic study of the surrounding municipality so as to better meet the needs of the people with whom they wished to connect, like revising their budget or drafting an alternative strategy and coming up with a five-year plan - practical, reasonable, hands-on, pro-active stuff, the kinds of things to which church people today devote most of their time and energy.
But they didn't do any of those things. They got together and they prayed. They not only prayed, they devoted themselves to prayer, which meant that they didn't just start their meetings with prayer before they got on to the more important stuff on the agenda, like how to fix the photocopier. No, prayer was the agenda.
Apparently these ordinary men and women really believed that it did not all depend upon them. Apparently they believed that the job ahead would get done not solely or even primarily because of their efforts but because of what God would do. First of all, prayer for them meant waiting and listening to what God was telling them to do. Secondly, prayer meant contending with God, struggling with God, even demanding that God do what was right. That is what happened when those first Christian people began meeting together.
Haggling with God
Often when we pray, our prayers are hardly ever the kind one hears in the Bible. Not the flowery, sentimental, often boring monologues one hears in church, but the kind of haggling that goes on in an oriental bazaar. When God was going to destroy Sodom, for instance, Abraham blocked God's way, praying, "Suppose there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will the Just One of the universe destroy it then?" And God says, "All right, for fifty righteous people, I'll spare it." But Abraham presses the point. "What if there are forty?" "Alright for forty, I'll spare it," God says. "What about thirty, twenty, ten?" says Abraham. God is forced to agree and even though ten are not found, God saves Lot and his family even though there were only four of them. The point: it pays to haggle with God!
When God wants to destroy Israel, time and time again, Moses argues with God and refuses to let up until he gets what he wants. Jesus tells a story about a widow who harangues a judge until she gets justice. It's a story about prayer.
The point being: the God whom many of us have too long worshipped in the church, the God of Stoicism, the God who never changes, the God who is never affected by what we do and say is not the God of whom the Bible speaks. That God, the God of Jesus, the God who commands that even heaven be silent while God's own self listens to the prayers of the people, is a God who cares passionately about what we think and want her to do. Prayer is not like sending off a letter to your local politician, hoping politely that someone will have time to look at it. Prayer is like rattling God's cage, waking God to action, setting God free to do what he might not otherwise do.
That should not seem so strange to us. If we believe in a God who really loves us and who cannot violate our freedom, then God needs to know that we really do hunger and thirst for right to prevail and for her kingdom to come. Prayer is what passionate people do who stand up for what is right before God himself. It is the way Jesus told us to pray: to harangue God to give us things we need, to do what is right, to come to the rescue of those who need it because that is what prayer is: an aperture that opens in the world, permitting God to do what needs doing because the change in even one person thus changes what God can do in the world.
Conclusion
Ascension day is, thus, a passionate reminder to us to do what those first friends of Jesus did: storm the gates of heaven itself until the impossible becomes possible.
Questions to Ponder
1: Do you haggle with God when you pray, or are you very polite?
2: Can you think of other examples in the Bible, or in your own experience where you have haggled with God?
3: Why do you think God likes us to nag and haggle in prayer?
4: How easy is it for you to find time to pray? What would make it easier?
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.