So here we are, more or less at the end of the season of Easter, looking up (metaphorically at least) into heaven from whence Jesus came, just a few months ago, at Christmas. For odd though it may seem at first glance, Christmas and Ascension go together.
Think about it for a moment. For us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man. Think about the joy of Christmas, the extraordinary thing: God becoming flesh, God living among us. Think of that line from the intercession for Midnight Mass: In this holy night heaven is come down to earth...
The divine became human. Think again of the words from the creed, the beginning of the section that describes Jesus Christ: the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made... This, this is the one who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man.
We know it so well that we don't really give it very much thought, this staggering thing: that this Light of Light, this Very God of Very God... came down from heaven and became one of us: truly God and yet also, incomprehensibly, wonderfully, truly human too.
With the incarnation, the birth of Jesus Christ, heaven really did come down to earth; the human and the divine came together in one person: Jesus Christ, a human being like us, who knew human joy and human sorrow, human pleasure and human pain. It's only just over four months ago since we gave thanks for all that in the joyful Christmas liturgies, and in our celebrations with friends and family.
What a lot has happened since then. During these four months we have lived, liturgically-speaking at least, through tremendous events, not least the terrible suffering endured by this man, this son of God. And if the torments of betrayal and beating and execution are not, please God, part of our lives, we know that they are very much part of the lives of many other members of our human family around the world today.
But the message of Easter is as astonishing as the message of Christmas: death is not the end; death has no ultimate power over us; death is conquered. The gospels tell this astonishing story, the story of the resurrection, in a series of vivid accounts. They tell of the disciples' contact with Jesus, with the Jesus they had known and loved and followed and sometimes understood and sometimes not understood; the Jesus they had acclaimed and denied; the Jesus they had eaten with and talked with; the whole thing.
And this was the Jesus they encountered after the resurrection: the real thing, albeit changed and different in some ways, but Jesus, the one they knew from before: from before his life changed for ever, and theirs, and Life itself. Again they talked with him and ate with him, the friend and teacher they knew from before. But now he bore the marks of his suffering: the imprint of the nails, the wound in his side.
And that is the body that, in the words of the creed, ascended into heaven. That is the body that, having come down from heaven in the miracle of the Incarnation, returned to heaven in the miracle of the Ascension; the body that now sitteth on the right hand of the Father; the body that is now part of God forever; the body, tortured and broken, risen and ascended, that changed something about God.
For the Ascension is, first and foremost, about God. It is not, as Fr Malcolm explained to us three nights ago, about gravity or the physical location of heaven; it is not about space and time or any of that stuff. It is about God: the God who loved us so much that he became one of us in the form of Jesus Christ, his Son, our Lord.
The Ascension is about God and about his relation with humankind; and that is why it may be thought of in the same mental breath, as it were, with Christmas. Both the Incarnation and the Ascension say a great deal about the business of being human.
We may not always feel very good about ourselves, about our humanity, about our imperfections and limitations. But the Incarnation and the Ascension show us that being human is a good thing. More than that, the Incarnation and the Ascension show us that being human is more than a good thing: it is wonderful thing; it is a holy thing.
Being human is such a good and wonderful and holy thing that God became human too. That's the Incarnation bit of it. The Ascension bit goes further. For the Ascension shows us that the fullness of God now includes what it means to be human. Because of the Ascension, being human is part of the life of God. Let me complete that line from the intercession for Midnight Mass, the first half of which I quoted just now: In this holy night heaven is come down to earth... and earth is raised to heaven.
Earth is raised to heaven. Which doesn't mean that everything about being human is good and wonderful and holy. It is quite clear that not everything human beings do is good or wonderful or holy. Turn on the news, open a newspaper: see how our sisters and brothers are betrayed and beaten and executed by others who are also our sisters and brothers.
However, it is also quite clear that in the eyes of God it is a good and wonderful and holy thing to be human. We can see this because God, truly divine, became human like us in the miracle of the Incarnation. For this reason alone we should treat ourselves and others with care and respect. The circle is completed by the miracle of the Ascension, when God took into himself one who was truly human. To be a human person is truly a sacred thing.
God loved the world so much that he sent his only begotten Son to share our life and by that Son's return from whence he came, God has gathered into himself all that it means to be human: the good and the bad, the dark and the light. This is significant for us in so many ways, not least when it comes to prayer.
There is nothing we can tell God about being human that God does not know intimately, because of the Incarnation and the Ascension. There is nothing God does not know about being human and therefore we can tell God everything about being human. We can tell God everything about the people we are: the things of which cause us sorrow and the things which cause us joy; the things of which we are proud and the things of which we are ashamed.
There is nothing God does not know about human pain or human happiness; nothing God does not know about what it is to live and what it is to die. He knows because of Jesus, who was made man, And was crucified... [Who] suffered and was buried, And [who] he rose again... And [who] ascended into heaven.
Sermon by: Jonathan Mason