A Sermon preached on May 17th,
Easter VII and Sunday after Ascension, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Acts 1:1-11, 1
John 5:9-13, John 17:6-19
Thursday was Feast
of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, the day the Church celebrates the conclusion
of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances and his bodily ascension into heaven,
well we didn’t here at St. Augustine’s, not this year anyway, which is why I’m
going to focus on the Ascension today in my sermon. Like the appearance of the
angels, the heavenly host, to the shepherds at Christ’s birth, the Ascension
event is unique to Luke. He has two versions: a shorter one with which his
Gospel ends, and a longer one in his second book, Acts, which we heard this
morning. The other Gospels just don’t tell us how Jesus departs – though
they all have some sort of commissioning event, some encounter with Christ at
which he empowers and commissions the disciples to carry on his mission in the
world.
And that is the
most important part of the Ascension, not how Christ departs and whether, like
Elijah (2 Kings 2: 11) he physically ascends up into heaven, into the clouds
with just his feet sticking out below a cloud for a moment: a popular
illustration in medieval paintings! No, it’s about what this event means for
and does to us.
Both today’s
Collect, in which we prayed that “we may also in heart and mind ascend”
and the preface for Ascension, in which I will pray later that Christ may “prepare
a place for us (in heaven); that where he is, there we might also be, and reign
with him in glory” also focus on the implications for us. There is a
concept in Christian theology, particularly in Eastern Orthodoxy, called theosis – this is not the long form of
Theo’s name, but the idea that the Holy Spirit, acting as the transforming agent
of divine grace, will make us become more divine, and more like God.
By becoming like
God I don’t mean what happens to the character Bruce in the 2003 film “Bruce
Almighty” with Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman (who does a very good God by the
way, almost as good as George Burns). Some of you may remember the movie. After
the Jim Carrey character Bruce complains to God, because he feels unfairly
treated, God gives Bruce his powers. Bruce uses them for personal gain and when
he starts hearing prayers – lots of prayers – answers them all affirmatively.
And chaos breaks out, because we really should not always get what we pray for
and some prayers contradict one another: only one team can win a game! It’s
only when Bruce begins to solve things personally and practically that things
work out and he is very glad to be able to give God his powers back again!
No, theosis is to be understood more as the
ultimate goal or purpose of life, not something we reach fully in the here and
now, though it is something we should strive for and start working on. We can’t
achieve theosis on our own or through
our own power or will – but it does requires
our cooperation and our acquiescence to God’s gift and power. Theosis is also recognized in the
Anglican tradition. The late 16th century bishop Lancelot Andrews
wrote that just as Christ partook of humanity – through the incarnation – so we
are now made partakers of his divine nature. “He (was) clothed with our flesh,
and we (are) invested with His Spirit.”[1] John
Wesley, who while the founder of Methodism also remained an Anglican priest all
his life, wrote and preached about the doctrine of Christian perfection or
sanctification as the goal of life. And to take a more current example, the
last Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has written extensively on this
subject – also in connection with the Ascension.
Both Christ’s
Ascension and his promise to the disciples just before he departs that they
“will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5) are elements
of theosis. The importance of the Ascension – however it
happened, with our without clouds – is that Jesus did not leave his humanity
behind, it was not discarded like some used and unnecessary garment. Instead, in
Rowan Williams’ words, “The ascension of Jesus … becomes a celebration of the
extraordinary fact that our humanity in all its variety, in all its
vulnerability, has been taken by Jesus into the heart of the divine life.” [2]
The Son of God not only became human during his time on earth but has
incorporated this humanity into God – all our experiences, all our joys and all
our sorrows! In that sense he has prepared a place for us not only in heaven
but in God’s heart.
The other element
of theosis is the promise of the
Father that Jesus tells the disciples to wait for in Acts and what Jesus asks
the Father for in the prayer for and over the disciples that we heard in John’s
Gospel this morning. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you
have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their
sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (John
17:17-19) Jesus prays that they be sanctified, made holy or simply set apart as
he was set apart by the Father. Jesus’ followers, both the original 1st
century ones and us today, have a mission to be his witnesses to the whole world
in word and deed and they and we are be equipped and empowered for this task by
the Holy Spirit. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and
to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8)
Rowan Williams
again: “When … Jesus speaks of the promise of the Father that is going to
descend on the world, he's speaking of the way in which the gift of the Holy
Spirit of God enables us not only to be a new kind of being but to see
human beings afresh and to hear them differently. When the Holy Spirit sweeps
over us in the wind and the flame of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit gives us the
life of Jesus.”[3]
We are already in
God – through the Son who is both perfectly human and perfectly divine – and
God is in us – through God’s Spirit. That doesn’t automatically make us divine,
nor perfect, not even you, but it does set us on a road that can lead to that
goal and purpose if we cooperate.
Of course as Bruce
discovered in the film, being God was not a cushy option. It was not about
getting everything he wanted, instead God’s powers came with an enormous and
for him, on his own, impossible responsibility. God is love, and so becoming
like God means seeing things God’s way: seeing every human being as God’s
child, loving every other human being equally. Becoming like God means taking
delight in all of creation and looking after it with the same love and
attention as the one who made it – that’s the task God gave us on day five of
creation by the way, when God created us in God’s image and gave everything
into our care. Becoming like God means going where God the Son went: to the
poor, the outcast, the rejected, and the sick and disabled. Becoming like God
means helping them, we may not be able to restore them physically, but we can
bring them hope and new life simply by being in relationship with them. These
acts of Christian life and living, together with prayer, the sacraments –
especially the Sacrament by which we partake of Christ, Holy Communion, are
part of the journey towards theosis, they are signs of our loving cooperation
with God and our acceptance of his gift.
This is what C.S. Lewis has to say
about the process of theosis or deification
in his book ‘Mere Christianity’: “If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we
choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess,
dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy
and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror
which reflects back to God perfectly ….. His own boundless power and delight
and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is
what we are in for. Nothing less.”[4]
Amen I say, Amen!
[1] Lancelot Andrewes, Ninety-Six Sermons, (Oxford: J H Parker), 109
[2] http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/883/a-sermon-by-the-archbishop-of-canterbury-at-the-ascension-day-sung-eucharist#sthash.vVqqewAv.dpuf
[3] Ibid
[4] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity,
174—75.
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