Archbishop's Ascension Day Service

To listen to the service 'A jazz celebration for Ascension Day', live from St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, please click here

READINGS: Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24: 44-53

THEME The Body of Christ and its Witness

PRAYER: May I speak in the Name of the Son, in the Power of the Holy Spirit, to the Glory of God the Father. AMEN

Sixty-four years ago, on sixteenth July 1945, a Mexican farmer woke with a start, rather earlier than he expected, as the sun 'rose', suddenly and with great heat. He got up and began his chores but he had barely begun when the sun set again. A few hours later the sun rose 'again', and this time lasted the whole day. The false dawn was actually the first test of the Atomic Bomb in the Mexican desert, which left the farmer and his animals completely bewildered.

Our Gospel reading from Luke Chapter 24 tells us about the true dawn of God's work which has been done in the midst of humanity; the very humanity that constitutes my being/your being.

First, it stresses the reality and physicality of the Resurrection.

The risen Christ was no phantom or hallucination. He was a real person. The Jesus who died was in truth the Christ who rose again. The Christian Gospel isn't founded on the dreams of people's disordered minds, or the visions of their fevered eyes, but on One who in actual historical fact faced, fought and conquered death and rose again. Jesus of Nazareth had been to hell and back. The Jesus who appeared to Mary Magdalene was physically real. The face that looked at her wasn't a grey, ghastly gleam; the voice she heard wasn't a dead voice. The form she saw wasn't a form that trembled in the twilight far within the tomb, but one that stood boldly forth in the warm, clear, cheerful day outside. That same risen Jesus came and stood among his disciples on the day of his ascension. And they were witnesses to the reality and the physicality of the Resurrection.

Secondly, the Gospel stresses the necessity of the Birth and Death of Jesus Christ. It was to the Birth and the Cross of the Saviour that all the Scriptures looked forward. The death of Jesus of Nazareth wasn't forced on God. It wasn't an emergency measure when all else had failed, and when the scheme of things had gone wrong.

It was part of the plan of God, for it is the one place on earth, where in a moment of time, we see God's eternal love.

Nearly a hundred years ago a Scottish theologian, P T Forsyth, put it beautifully when he said, "Jesus Christ's sacrifice began before he came into the world, and his cross was that of a lamb slain before the world's foundation. There was a Calvary above which was the mother of all.

His obedience as a man was but the detail of the supreme obedience which made him man. ...Unlike us, he chose the oblivion of birth and the humiliation of life. He consented not only to die, but to be born." (P T Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p.271)

We are witnesses of the necessity of the Birth, Death, and Resurrection of the Anointed Saviour.

Thirdly, the Gospel stresses the urgency of the task. . The Church wasn't left to live for ever in the upper room. The days of sorrow were past and the tidings of joy about repentance and forgiveness had to go out to all the world. "You are witnesses of these things" ... here at St Martin's, throughout these Islands... "and to the ends of the earth."

Next to worship, witness is the primary and urgent task of the Church. "To declare the wonderful deeds of him who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light." Simply telling the story of one's lived experience of Jesus Christ.

And, putting it bluntly, Jesus today is on trial in the court of the world by the witness of what we say and how we live. If we just warm ourselves by the fire of our congregations, and do not totally identify ourselves with him, then we shall be guilty, as Simon Peter was when he denied his master.

Jesus Christ is the message. Therefore all we can do in obedience to God the Father is to bear witness to God the Son in the power of God the Holy Spirit. We are witnesses to the urgency of the task.

Fourthly, the Gospel stresses the secret of power. The disciples had to wait in Jerusalem until power from on high had come upon them.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you: and you will be my witnesses..."

Our witness is first and foremost through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who bears testimony to Jesus Christ. It is his witness in us and through us which really counts.

It is the Holy Spirit filling our hearts with the love of God, which will overflow in the words of our mouth and in our works of charity.

When the Holy Spirit fills a person, he sets that individual free: free to worship, free to witness - even the most nervous can't stop witnessing because they are filled with a love which has come by the Holy Spirit.

Before Pentecost the disciples were not free. But after Pentecost, not even locked prison cells could stop them in their witness to Jesus Christ.

Luke Chapter 24 ends with a most spectacular happy ending. The Ascension of Christ. A gallant attempt at the impossible: putting into words that which is beyond words and describing that which is beyond description.

However, there had to come a day of dividing when Jesus of earth finally once again became the Christ of heaven.

Just as the death of Christ had ended the days when the disciples' faith was in a flesh and blood Jesus of Nazareth, and dependent on his flesh and blood presence, similarly the ascension ended their reliance on the physicality of the Risen Christ. Now they were linked to someone who was for ever independent of space and time.

The Ascension gave the disciples the certainty that they had a friend, not only on earth, but in heaven. And it is a joy to know that he awaits us there.

So the disciples of a Risen and Ascended Lord went back to Jerusalem, and they were continually in the temple praising God. It isn't by accident that Luke's Gospel ends where it began: in the house of God.

Dear friends, I bid you today to take hold of the reality of the Resurrection. The necessity of the birth and death of Jesus Christ. The urgency of the task to be witnesses for Christ. The secret of power given to us by the Holy Spirit.

Let us experience the reality and the certainty that we now have a friend, not only on earth but in heaven.

Let us worship him, and then return to our homes with great joy and continually praise God in our hearts, in our churches, in our communities, in our families, in our leisure. For Christ is with us to the end of time.