Given by Sherry Black On May 28, 2003, I went to work as usual, but very soon thereafter received a phone call from my step-mom in California. My dad had had emergency surgery the day before. She couldn’t tell me much, but it didn’t sound good. I asked her if I needed to come, and she said that she couldn’t tell me that. She was on her way back to the hospital, and the last thing she said was, I hope he knows me. I called the hospital a few hours later and Dad’s condition was unchanged; he was critical. He had suffered from a ruptured colon, and probably would not recover. By 5:00 p.m. I was on a plane out of St. Louis headed for California. I rented a car in Sacramento, and was at the hospital in Santa Rosa at midnight. I found my dad’s ICU room, and went and sat with him. His eyes were open but not blinking; he was on a respirator. The only way I knew he was alive was by the monitors showing his heart and blood pressure. But I sat with him, talked with him, prayed. I found out later that his doctor didn’t expect him to last as long as he did, and if his heart had failed they would not have resuscitated him. But I knew he waited for me. I was always a “Daddy’s Girl.” Some of my favorite memories of my childhood were in my teens. Then we lived in Colorado, and my dad and I went skiing many weekends in the winter, often without my mom and sister. We had a few special summer backpacking trips. Backpacking with my dad was not really roughing it. He carried a grill, and steaks, and wine. We would sit under the stars, drinking wine and smoking roll-your-own cigarettes. Wonderful times!! But I did more than my share of teen rebellion, and even as a young adult I know Dad didn’t always approve of the things I was doing—but I knew he loved me and wanted the best for me. By 2003 we pretty well had worked things out. One of the most amazing things is that he gave one of the talks at the Cursillo I attended—I’ll never forget. So in our hearts, we had a pretty good relationship. He had some minor medical problems, but he was just 67 and looking forward to a slightly less active retirement. In the hospital I held his hand and was just with him, hoping, but I knew he wouldn’t have wanted to be a vegetable. I had to let him go. When I first arrived, I thought his blood pressure improved a little, but as I watched the heart monitor told me his heart was getting weaker, beats were more irregular. The hospital called my step mom, Doris. But Daddy couldn’t wait for her. At about 2:00 am His heart fluttered a few times, and then he was gone. The fluttering reminded me of butterfly wings. Doris arrived, we hugged and cried and sat with Dad a little longer, and then we went to their home. I had been up nearly 24 hours, and soon went and got a few hours sleep. When I woke up, we had some breakfast, and Doris had read the Forward Day By Day meditation. She said . . . It’s Ascension Day. Last Thursday, May 1 st, was the Feast of the Ascension which is always 40 days after Easter. And today’s reading from Acts tells us that this is really Ascension Sunday. Ascension to me means hope. I know my Dad was a Christian, that like a butterfly his spirit had fluttered up and away to be with the Lord, and I knew then as I know now that I will see him again. For me, this is the hope of the Ascension of our Lord. Every year I remember two anniversaries of my Dad’s death: one is May 29 th, and the other is Ascension. Every time we say the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed, we say that “he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” Jesus had spent 40 days with his disciples after his resurrection when he gathered them together, and they watched as he ascended into heaven, disappearing from their sight in a cloud of God’s glory. Jesus’ ascension is sometimes called his exaltation. When he “ascended into heaven, he received glory, honor and authority that had never been there before as one who was both God and man.”1 God has exalted him to a place of honor, and the choirs of angels are singing praise to him. In contrast to the hostility, opposition, unbelief and unfaithfulness he encountered on earth, he now is surrounded by the hymns of angels—the Lord has returned! He has overcome death! He is exalted! He is seated at the right hand of the father—a dramatic indication of the completion of his work on earth. Just as we will at times sit down and enjoy the satisfaction of having completed a task, so Jesus, seated with the Father, shows his work of redemption is complete. And, at God’s right hand, he received authority over the universe “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named” (Eph 1:20-21). One part of this authority was the ability to pour out the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the same Holy Spirit who works in us as well—but we’ll hear more about that next week. Christ’s ascension has other significance for our lives. Christ’s ascension foretells our ascension; we will meet him in heaven. Jesus says he will take us to himself; we will share the blessings of the life he now enjoys in heaven. His ascension gives us assurance that our final home will be in heaven with him. He has gone before us so that we may follow him there and live with him there. Since he’s gone before us we have assurance that we will follow. And because of Christ’s ascension, we are able to share in Christ’s authority over the universe—at least in part. We have his power in us to combat the powers of the world. Jesus reigns with the Father, interceding on our behalf. Because Christ physically ascended into heaven, he is God and Man—still. And Jesus acts as a mediator, a priest, interceding for us to the Father. The message of ascension is Hope. Hope that sickness and death are not the end. Hope that we will be with Jesus in paradise, that we will live forever in his presence. Hope that Christ is working in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Hope that we will see loved ones again. We are witnesses . . . of hope. Frederick Buechner wrote an essay called “A Sprig of Hope” about Noah and the Flood. In this section he describes the return of the dove. After many days, Noah sent forth a dove from the ark to see if the waters had subsided from the earth, and that evening she returned, and lo, in her mouth a freshly plucked olive leaf. . . . The dove stands there with her delicate, scarlet feet on the calluses of his upturned palm. His cheek just touches her breast so that he can feel the tiny panic of her heart. His eyes are closed, the lashes watery wet. Only what he weeps with . . . is not longer anguish but wild and irrepressible hope. That is not the end of the story in Genesis, but maybe that is the end of it for most of us—just a little sprig of hope held up against the end of the world.2 Hope. . . Amen. 1 Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. 618. 2 Quoted by Craig Loscalzo, Apologetic Preaching: Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World, p. 61 |