Date: 05/08/2005
Feast: 7th s o Est
Church: LHPC
Bible text: Acts 1:6-14
Theme: Ascension - Mother's Day

After the baptism of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His mother and father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, “That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home. But I want to stay with you.”

Which is, I think, where a lot of people are. You strive to be good, faithful, Christian people. But there’s this Sunday morning idea of how the world (how your FAMILY) ought to be. And this Sunday morning idea of how your family OUGHT to be butts up against Sunday-12:05PM through next-Saturday-night REALITY. You want – you really want – to stretch the Sunday stuff through the rest of the week, and sometimes it works. But most weeks, you’re just glad Child and Family Services doesn’t have hidden cameras in your house.

Here we are on Mother’s Day – a holiday, but NOT – officially – a Christian holy day. You have to really look to find Mother’s Day in the Bible. Some churches have re-christened it, “Christian Family Day.” But you won’t find a lot of cards that say that. Plus, if you give your mom a card saying, “Happy Christian Family Day,” it’s likely going to be a very long year.

On the Christian calendar, Mother’s Day falls near the day of Ascension (after Easter and right before Pentecost), which is how we get our scripture readings. On Ascension Day we celebrate how Christ ascended from earth up to heaven. And you won’t find a lot of cards to give your mom about that, either.

Ascension reminds us of a couple of things, though, that DO speak to our families, in whatever Christian (or satanic) state they’re in. First: Ascension reminds us of the vast distance between earthly reality and heavenly how-things-ought-to-be. Heaven and earth are related, even bound together, but heaven and earth are NOT the same thing. That’s probably not a news flash. But what the Ascension says, though, (and which IS newsworthy) is that there is a distance, there is a difference between life on earth and life in heaven – even in God’s family. Here’s heaven, here’s earth. Here’s the ideal, here’s reality. And they’re not the same thing, even for God. That can be some powerfully comforting news when we get stressed or depressed over how things are supposed to be. There’s a vast difference between the ideal and the reality, even for God and Jesus.

Second, the Ascension teaches us that glory belongs exclusively to God. But good news for us, and good for our families, God shares. God shares glory so that there CAN be a bit of heaven here on earth. God is willing to share the glory so that we can (for the most part) accept whatever families we’ve popped out into, and even then, still know that we live in a Christian home. A Christian home – Christian parents, Christian kids – isn’t a perfect home. YOU might join hands and sing, “Kum By Yah,” (in harmony) every night. You might lie in bed and call back and forth, “Good night, John-Boy,” “Good night Mary Ellen.” But even so, that’s not what makes a home “Christian.” What makes a home a Christian home is the amazing grace of God who has all the glory, and who freely shares it, even with sinful people like you and me. So even if our households aren’t perfect, they can still be glorious. Even if our families aren’t perfect, they can still glorify God. But not because we’re so fantastic despite our faults. We can glorify God because God says we can glorify God. God lifts us up, just as God lifted up Christ in the Ascension. God lifts us up to places of glory even when we’re stuck in the soggy bottoms of life on earth.

And so, on Mother’s Day, or Christian Family Day, or whatever you want to call it… on THIS day, the Ascension of Christ is good news for families who strive to be normal, only to find out that “normal” really isn’t that normal. Whether you’re bringing up kids, or whether you’ve reached the age where your kids think they’re bringing you up, or whether you’re all by yourself – you CAN do your bringing up in a “Christian” home, and still stay together. In the Ascension, we see how God “brings up” Jesus, and brings up us along with him.

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Back on Easter morning, when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden, and she reached out to touch him, he said, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (from John, Chapter 20)

Well, Mary DID run to the disciples. But she DIDN’T say what Jesus told her to. She skipped over all the “ascending-don’t-touch-me-yet” stuff – the commanded message from Jesus. Instead, she said, “I have seen the Lord.” Which was probably a good choice, in hindsight, because no one has ever understood what Jesus meant. “I’m ascending… don’t touch me….” It’s all a bit much for human minds. When it comes to God, we’re all better with small words spoken slowly.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that earthly Mary mis-interpreted, or re-interpreted, or completely ignored what heavenly Jesus told her to say. Jesus had this heavenly ideal – some sort of ascension-morphing, energy-transforming cool stuff going on – and Mary Magdalene reduces it to a very earthly true-or-false reality. “I have seen the Lord.”

Now, seven weeks of Easter later, the Ascension process reaches its conclusion. In the Book of Acts, the risen but not yet completely ascended Jesus is talking with his disciples.

When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Of course, they’re all standing there, slack-jawed. Watching Jesus rising on the cloud. Wouldn’t we all? It’s not something you see every day. But the angels appear and say, “[Ahem.] 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.”

Again, it all gets a bit too mystifying. If you asked them what happened, the disciples would probably have said, “We saw Jesus on a cloud.” Even if we SEE the heavenly ideal, a slack-jawed, semi-attentive, half-connection is the best we can expect. Why? Because they’re human. Messenger Mary is human. And God is God. Here’s heaven, here’s earth. Here’s the ideal, here’s reality. Here’s the INTENDED message from God, dictated – and here’s what gets spoken. And they’re not the same thing, even for God and God’s family. The difference, the distance between heaven and earth is there, even for God, even in the Bible.

On Mother’s Day, it occurs to me that moms might resonate with this better than most everyone else. Why? Because moms worry. I’m pretty certain all women worry almost all the time. Men worry, too. But moms elevate worry to an art. Moms worry. And if they’re not worried, they’re worried that they’re not worrying enough. Moms are in touch with the concept of a heavenly ideal. Moms know how they want us to behave, what they want us to wear when it’s cold, the retirement home we should move into.

Moms worry because they see so well how ideals and reality are different. You moms are both blessed and cursed to be able to see the gap between heaven and earth. You see the gap it took Jesus to ascend. You meditate upon the gap as you worry over how things ought to be. And while the rest of the world might not always appreciate your worry, were it not for your concern, our high, heavenly ideals might have been dragged down to earth long ago.

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And then the angels appeared and said, “Moms of Jerusalem. Why are you standing there, looking up towards heaven?” Well, that’s not exactly what they said. They DID say, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come again in the same way.”

It’s true that because of our mothers’ worries, many of our households are a lot more like heaven than they’d otherwise be. But it’s also undeniable that even the best of households has a long way to go. The angels tell us: Standing in the road, staring at the distance ahead doesn’t get us anywhere. Even the disciples had to break the paralyzing effect of wonder. Whoever we are, if we’re blessed with the intuition to see the heavenly ideal, we have to move in order to reach it, just as Jesus did. But not even Jesus did it on his own. God lifted him up. On our own, we’ll never ascend to the heights of our dreams. As with even Jesus, God has to lift us up.

The country band, Lonestar, has a song out called, “Mr. Mom.” It’s about a guy who loses his job and decides it would be easier to stay at home and take care of the kids. He learns…

Pampers melt in a Maytag dryerCrayons go up one drawer higherRewind Barney for the eighteenth timeBreakfast, six naps at nineThere's bubble gum in the baby's hairSweet potatoes in my lazy chairBeen crazy all day long and it's only Monday
Mr. Mom

There’s so much of life in general, and family life in particular, that’s about as far from glorious as you can get. Some days aren’t meant to be enjoyed; they’re meant to be simply endured. You reach the end of a week and the reward you get is that there’s another week coming when you get to get up and do it all over again. You wonder, IS this as good as it gets?

The angels catch us daydreaming, staring slack-jawed into space, and jolt us back to reality. But the angels are also the ones who give us hope. The angels tell us this Jesus will return in the same way as we saw him fade into heaven.

God has all the glory. But God shares. God has lifted Jesus into heaven and God will send Jesus back to us. God will send heaven down to us in the reality where we stand, in the world we endure, in the days we slog away to build a household of faith. Our work to bridge the gap to glory will be complete when God brings the finish line to us. A “Christian” home isn’t a perfect home. A Christian home is any home that waits. A Christian home is any home that hopes. A Christian home is a home that waits and hopes for the relief of God’s glory to descend from on high, to bless the little things, the worrisome things, the crazy, irritating, marvelous things that fill a home, day in and day out.

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The scripture ends by saying,

Then they returned to Jerusalem…. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

It took having this scripture pop up on Mother’s Day for me to notice the importance of that one phrase, “including Mary the mother of Jesus.” Yup, Mom’s there. From birth to Resurrection to Ascension, and beyond, Mom’s there.

And so are Jesus’ brothers. And so are the disciples and “certain women,” too. If we saw them, we’d probably think they were a pretty odd bunch. And maybe they were. They weren’t perfect. They were likely very worried. They were a mixed bag of men and women, young and old. Misfits and outcasts.

But they were also the first Christian family. These odd people were the first Christian family, brought together by nothing less than the glory of the Ascension. We’re gathered here today because of them. But no, we’re here today because God blessed whatever it was they were, whatever their prayers led them to be. We’re here because God shared glory and glorified what they could do on behalf of their risen Lord. We’re here because God shares glory and glorifies what we can do. We come seeking to see that glory, and take some back to our homes.

The great good news of Jesus Christ is that he will bring that glory to you. The great good news of Jesus Christ is that he will once again bridge the gap between heaven and earth, between ideals and reality. God does “bring us up” into a Christian home, no matter how our earthly homes may be. Along with Jesus, and his brothers, and Peter, and John, and all the disciples. And Mom.

If you have the opportunity to glorify your mother today, please do. If that’s not possible, for whatever reason, know this: The glory of God that’s able to lift Jesus Christ into heaven is greater than all earthly powers. Because it’s not an earthly power. The glory of God that’s able to lift Jesus Christ into heaven now rests upon YOUR powers – to love, to forgive, to believe, to hope. In short, the glory of God is able to bring you up into God’s family, and bless your days. And on that day when our family reunion DOES match the ideal, on that day when we gather in that Upper Room with all the saints, Jesus, and his brothers, and his sisters, and his mother will say, “There you are. We’ve been worried about you. Welcome home.”