Ephesians
1:15-23
Ascension
Sunday
Those
of you of a certain age may remember Charles Atlas, a bodybuilder who marketed
his training system with ads which became famous in their own right. Perhaps
the most notorious one was a little comic strip entitled, “The Insult That Made
a Man Out Of Mac.” Mac is at the beach with his girlfriend when a big bully
kicks sand in his face. When Mac protests, the bully grabs him and says he’d
punch him in the face, but he’s so skinny he would just blow away. So in the
next frame Mac tells his girlfriend that he’ll get even some day, and his
girlfriend says, “Oh, don’t let it bother you, little boy!” Well, that doesn’t
help. So Mac goes home and kicks over a chair and says he’s tired of being a
scarecrow and that Charles Atlas says he can help him have a real body, so he’s
going to get his book. So, in the next frame, entitled, “Later,” Mac is
standing in front of his mirror, all muscular and strong. So of course he goes
back to the beach, finds the bully, and punches him out. The last frame has the
words “Hero of the Beach” written in the sky while Mac’s girlfriend clings to
his arm and says “Oh, Mac! You ARE a real man after all!” I don’t know how many
teenage boys saw that ad at the back of comic books and Boys’ Life magazines,
but it touched a cultural nerve. We respond to stories of transformation: the
ugly duckling becoming the beautiful swan, Cinderella becoming the belle of the
ball. And such stories are even better when they are spiced up with revenge:
Mac not only gets strong — he gets even. The ad is ridiculous, but the
storyline is seductive and deeply appealing.
So
we need to be careful not to apply it to Jesus. Today we celebrate the
Ascension, Jesus ascending into heaven after his resurrection. Moving beyond
the pictorial imagery of Jesus rising into the clouds, it’s a story of
glorification: Jesus is taken up into the life of God and shares in the glory
of God. The language used to describe this in our passage from Ephesians is
striking. It says that God seated him at
his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and
power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age
but also in the age to come. Christ has been elevated to the highest
possible status. And with that comes what the author describes as an immeasurable greatness of power.
So
what does that mean? A Charles Atlas theology would say that Jesus was weak and
vulnerable, but now he is strong and powerful. The defenseless man who died on
the cross is gone; the new and improved Jesus is buff and tough. Oh, and by the
way, he’s coming back someday and is going to punch some people out. Some,
maybe many, Christians harbor this transformation and revenge fantasy. But is
that really what the Ascension means? Do we really hope and believe that Jesus
Christ has just become a bigger and badder version of the Roman soldiers who
crucified him? I don’t think so. In fact, I am convinced that is not true. And
if we see it that way, if we view the Ascension as just another variant of the
“Mac gets strong and gets even” storyline, then we will miss what is most
important and life-changing about this amazing event.
Certainly
Christ is being glorified, which is to say that he is being taken up into the
heart of God, to share in the power of God. But who is being taken up? And what
exactly is the nature of that power? Well, it is the crucified one who is
exalted. And the immeasurable greatness
of power he shares in is the same power he demonstrated on the cross: the
power of self-sacrificing love. The Ascension does not show Jesus going from
being weak to being powerful; the Ascension confirms that the apparent weakness
of self-giving love is in fact the very power of God — and the greatest power
in the universe.
This
is so important that I cannot overstate it. Please hear me: the power of God is
the power of the cross. When Christ is exalted, it is self-giving love that is
exalted. It is not replaced or exceeded by any other kind of power. God’s power
is and always will be the power of love. Paul says it beautifully in
Philippians: Christ Jesus who, though he
was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be
exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human
likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient
to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted
him and gave him the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:5-9).
I
emphasize this because, then and now, we humans resist it. We don’t necessarily
want God’s power to be the power of love. Like the ancient Israelites, we often
want a magical God who will make all our problems disappear, or a tribal deity
who will smash our enemies, or an idol that we can control and manipulate like
a power tool or a weapon. But that God has never existed: the prophets
understood that, and Jesus proved that. Jesus Christ is Lord because he
incarnates the true power of God, the only power of God, which is the
self-sacrificing, self-emptying power of love.
This
has immediate and huge ramifications for us. Because if we truly want to experience the power of God
in our lives — for real — then we need to let go of the fantasy of God as macho
man in the sky. We need to stop looking for lightning strikes, flashy miracles,
and displays of divine firepower. If you want to know God’s power, go spend
time with someone who is hurting and listen to them, even though you can’t fix
them and make their pain go away. Go out of your way to help someone in need.
Hold someone who is crying. Be kind to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Find
ways every day to give yourself away, without reward, without applause. We just
buried Stuart and Norma Adams yesterday. Norma grew weaker and weaker from
dementia, and so many times I watched Stuart lead her by the hand to the altar
rail, and hold her hands up for her and help her receive Communion. And in that
gender act, I saw the almighty power of God’s love. When we do such things, we
are entering into the stream of God’s love. And the more we swim in that
stream, the more we will experience that same love enfolding us at every
moment. It may seem inconsequential, it may seem weak, but it’s not. It is
gentle, yes, but it is relentless, and it is unstoppable. Over time, it
conquers everything, even death. That love is the glory of God. That love,
embodied in Jesus Christ, has ascended far above all heavens that it might fill
all things. It fills us all right now. And it is the one and only sure way to
experience the presence and the power of God — which, by the way, God wants us
to experience every day.
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