Ascension Anxiety; May 17, 2026

speaker-0: and now we'll have our first reading from Ephesians 1, 15 to 23. I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. And for this reason, I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power? God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Far above all rule and authority, name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him to head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. The word of the Lord.

speaker-1: Thank you.

speaker-0: Our second reading comes Acts. ⁓ Luke purported to have written both ⁓ the gospel of Luke and Acts. ⁓ And when ⁓ we begin here and says in the book, he's referencing the gospel ⁓ according to Luke. ⁓ And he gives two different versions of what happens in the Ascension. We've got ⁓ multiple versions here, but all of them have Jesus leaving, and it's confusing all around. So let's listen now for the word of the Lord from Acts chapter one, verses one through 11. In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions to 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 40 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, Jesus 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? Jesus replied, it's not for you to know the times or the period 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 and 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 and 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. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Gracious God, we gather before you to hear a word from you. May we trust in your power. May we trust in your power in us. And may you give us by your spirit the courage to move in such power. And now, O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. O Christ, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. In 1965, John Coltrane decided that he was bored of being conventionally incredible. He had just been nominated for a Grammy for A Love Supreme. It was voted Album of the Year by both Jazz and Downbeat magazines. He was the hottest of stuff at the time, Daddy-O, but he was searching for something more, something else. You know that Hans Gruber quote from Die Hard about Alexander the Great, the best Christmas movie of all time? And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer. It was like that for John Coltrane, but with music. At age 12, both John's father and grandfather died, and he began to find solace in learning the clarinet. At 19, after spending those seven years really honing his craft, he enlisted in the Navy to keep from being drafted into the Army because World War II was raging. And lucky for him, by the time he finished basic, the war was ending and he got to go home early, only spending a year in Hawaii playing the clarinet in the Navy band, which oddly enough is my deepest prayer for everyone who enlists, that you get to spend a year in Hawaii playing the clarinet. When he gets home to Philadelphia, he uses his GI bill to take music classes and he throws himself into the jazz scene, taking up the saxophone, probably because some girl he liked told him that the sax was a sexier instrument than the clarinet. Turns out he was great at that too. And eventually, After gigging all over town, he falls into an opportunity through Dizzy Gillespie to be mentored and work with some guy with a trumpet by the name of Miles Davis for four whole years. The culmination of that work is that in 1959 Coltrane plays on A Kind of Blue, one of the most iconic jazz albums of all time. Coltrane continues to hone his craft, becoming an honest-to-God star in the jazz world, hitting love-supreme heights when in 1965, he records an album named Ascension with some really talented musicians. Musicians so talented, in fact, that he didn't bring them music to play. Instead of music, he simply offered them his trust. and a handful of modes, which are like keys to work in, and a very simple melodic idea, one that he stole from himself from A Love Supreme. And then they just went after it, not having really the clearest idea of what it was. This album would knock the dust from thesauruses worldwide in attempts to describe it. Some called it a quote, sheet of sound, which doesn't strike me as a compliment, but I think it's supposed to be one. Others would call it polyphonous, which is smart people talk for, it's a lot. And one reviewer said that it was quote, a sustained flow of ideas that crash against the ears in white capped frothy waves. It was a hit. And it was a watershed moment in free jazz, the culmination of a life's work for John Coltrane, who would die only a year later at age 40 of liver failure. This album is also incredibly difficult to listen to. And I'll prove it to you.

speaker-1: you

speaker-0: Now, you might be telling yourself, I bet he stopped playing right before there was some resolution. And you would be wrong. It's just those sweet, sweet, white capped frothy waves of sound as far as the ear can hear. There is absolutely no clarity in the entirety of the album. I gotta tell you, I really like jazz music, but I am not smart enough to like the way that sounds.

speaker-1: you

speaker-0: And truth be told... I haven't ever made it through the entire record and it's only like 20 minutes long because it gives me anxiety. Like it truly unsettles me and if you know me, that's pretty hard to do. I am a cool customer. It's almost as bad as when you're trying to decide with a group of people where to eat. Like there are just too many options, not a clear enough direction and you're always waiting for a resolution that always comes 45 minutes after your best friend's partner makes their way to Hangrytown, USA. You know what saying? Our Ascension Day text says that when Jesus ascended, the disciples stood there staring. And I wonder if they aren't having their own Coltrane-style ascension moment. Because this event in their lives opens up a thousand questions that have no resolution. Where is he going? Like a cloud takes him away. Did he go to heaven? To sit on the right hand of the father? The father who has no hands because the father is spirit and spirits don't have hands? And can't sit because spirits neither need seats nor have butts? But Jesus has a body, and so his handy body could sit if there was a throne in whatever place he's about to ascend to. And why exactly is he leaving? And why right now he just got back? Right? If we match Matthew's gospel up with Acts, then one of the last things that Jesus says to his disciples is, and truly I am with you always, even to the end of the age, and floating away is a heck of a thing to do if you just promise to be with somebody forever. I'm gonna make a note about adding that to my premarital counseling advice, I think.

speaker-1: you

speaker-0: Luke's gospel says that Jesus ascended while he was blessing them in the act of spilling over with wisdom. And so now... We're never gonna know the conclusion to, and lo, there will be great controversy about pizza and pineapple. And truly I say to you, and then he's just gone. And we'll never know what the right thing is. Years of being together, being taught by Jesus and seeing this new way of truly living, he introduced to them the trauma of watching him die and then being astounded by his resurrection. and then he's just gone. Their response is to stare intently at the sky. Like really stare at it. There are four different verbs for looking in this passage. And this one is the most intense. Like if somebody was doing to you what they are doing to the sky, you would be texting for help. You know what saying? And I imagine... that they are hoping that if they looked hard enough, they're going to be able to make something of this confusing, anxiety-producing moment. You know in the movies when detectives stare at a floor covered in evidence? I imagine how you do this all the time. You just stare at the floor with pictures, and then if you stare long enough, the truth pops out at you. I suspect that that's what they are hoping for. But as they stare at the clouds, all they see are white tipped, frothy waves. There's a hymn ⁓ from 1922 called Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. You may have heard it. Do you know this one? I love the way it sounds, but it's truly terrible theology. I'd invite you to sing it with me if you know it. It goes, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. That's what they were trying to do. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim. in the light of his glory and grace. And I wonder if the disciples in this confusing moment were like, okay, let's fix our eyes upon Jesus and maybe he'll take us with him. He promised that he was going to prepare a place for us, so maybe he's gonna take us with him. Maybe this is our time to get beamed up as well. And the things of earth for them are growing strangely dim. They're confused, they've gotta be. Life has been hard, especially the past couple of months for them, and maybe they just wanna be done with it all. And so they want Jesus to take them away. And that's when an angel steps in. Hey! Tell me! What are you doing? He told you what to do. Go do it. What are you waiting for? Every little kid in the room just thought they were in trouble, by the way. Here's the deal. I think that a lot of Christian people, myself included sometimes, feel anxiously stuck today. They feel, we feel, the disconnect between all that Jesus taught and lived and the fact that he is apparently ascended reigning Lord of the cosmos and then they look at the world around them. and the condition that it is in. We hold this thing to be true and also we see the stinking patterns that we've fallen into in our relationships or in our own habits. And we don't know how to reconcile the two and we feel stuck. We don't know how to get out. We often... feel stymied in this way. And sometimes it's more mundane matters than the spiritual and ethical brokenness of our world. Sometimes it's just the regular decisions that we have to make in life that so much pressure gets piled upon, right? I mean, we're about to honor some seniors in this worship service and we make a whole, the places you'll go hullabaloo about what comes next. And that can feel really intimidating. Like this next step is gonna be the one thing that determines the every other step you take for the rest of your life and you've got to make it right. But the truth is that this angel was trying to snap these disciples back into this truth. You have got everything you need. It's gonna be okay. Just move forward. and do the next right thing and trust Jesus because Jesus is in fact not gone forever. He's just got a better vantage point to look out for you now. know, John Coltrane invited those particular musicians to come in for this album because he trusted them to enact the vision. He gave them directions and then he hit record and those musicians trusted themselves and his direction enough to believe that they could make it happen. So they didn't stand slack, John staring at John Coltrane. They got to playing and they trusted themselves to feel where the music was headed, where the spirit was leading because they've been training for this moment their whole lives. It's a remarkable thing. A scandalous thing even. But the God of the universe trusts you. If he didn't, Jesus probably would have stuck around to dictate every little thing that you're supposed to do. But God has drafted you onto God's team and God has given you a vision. He's given you the keys in which to play all that is good and true and right and holy and God trusts you to walk in that. We don't need to retreat into some super spiritual keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus so that the world goes strangely dim reality because God is invested in the world. That Jesus upon whom our eyes are fixed, he is in a body. And he cares about what happens here in your body. Because every time that Jesus looks at his own body, he remembers you. Isn't that incredible? Jesus came down from heaven, took on a body, and kept it with him. He brought a piece of us into the beyond. So this old world oughtn't to grow dim. It ought to sharpen in focus as God gives us our marching orders to go out into it to be his people. And you can do this because dwelling within your body is the very power of God. The same power, Paul says, that God put to work in Jesus in his resurrection is at work in you. And as you come alive to that fact, as Paul puts it, as the eyes of your heart are enlightened to this truth, you will begin to see and to trust the work of God within you. Indeed, Jesus is not far at all, though he is enthroned as Lord of all. As we baptize and confirm some of our young people, They are going to affirm for themselves that this power is within them. They have studied and they have discerned the work of God in the world and in their lives, and they are determined now to trust God with the free jazz of their days. I suspect that all of us need an angel. to clap their hands at us every now and again, to get our heads out of the clouds, or as it often is, to get our heads out of the gutters of despair, or out of the merry-go-round of indecision and fear and lack of courage. So let me stand in today. Hey! You've got everything you need, everything you need to follow the Lord Jesus into this world. So trust the power of God within you, have courage and go. And may the polyphemous and sometimes confusing sounds of your life be a pleasing melody to the Lord. for you are a masterpiece. Thanks be to God. Amen. Would