Close to six months ago, our children and youth offered a Christmas musical about our Savior’s birth. One of the songs was called "Will You Go?" and it was about going to the Savior’s birth. I think the choir may have sung this song. (sing a little) We’ve spent these last six months worshipping that Savior and now the question has to come up once again "Will you go?" This time, however, instead of going to the Savior’s birth, it’s "Will you go to the ends of the earth?"

Today’s lessons shift our focus from the good news of the life of Christ to the good news of the life of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community. What we might look at as a glorious ending is actually a new beginning. We are shifting from the Easter experience of how God has been active in the world to a Pentecost encounter with God’s Holy Spirit. These texts for Ascension Sunday are a prelude for what is to come.

The events of Ascension and Pentecost are linked. At the same time that Jesus is lifted up though the Ascension, empowerment comes to the disciple. When we review the history of the early church, we find that in the first century Christ’s ascension took place at Pentecost. It wasn’t until the late fourth century that we see a separation in the two events, suggesting that they happened on different days.

This change in the history primarily comes out of the reference to forty days in our lesson. Technically forty days after the resurrection would have been Thursday, but we have the option of using these lessons for this service. If you are planning to stay for the second service led by our children and youth, you will find that they are using different lessons.

Yet today, we are called to move from recollection of the Christ event to anticipation of the future. This is not an easy transition. We would rather hold on to Easter and the risen Lord, yet we are beckoned to let go and look to the coming Spirit as the one who will lead us into the future. The difficulty is that we have to let go without being sure of what we will take hold of, and if we don’t let go we will not be able to take hold of the Spirit, our helper and advocate.

It’s like the moment when the trapeze artist has to let go of one swing in order to take hold of the next. "He flies through the air.." Yet for us it’s not so easy. Will we be able to catch the swing that is coming toward us? Will that swing be as safe and secure as the one we hold onto or will it break with the force of our fists grabbing hold? For a moment we will be free-flying; what could happen during that moment?

Whenever I think about the dawning of the Holy Spirit in our lives I am reminded of an elder woman in my home congregation who had the courage to speak out loud her questioning about the Holy Spirit. She surprised me about twenty years ago when in a brief discussion she said, "I believe in God and Jesus, but I’m not sure about this Holy Spirit thing." I think what surprised me is that she dared to speak what many of us have only thought.

Ascension represents an attempt to do the impossible – it tries to use the language of space and time to describe a reality that intentionally transcends both. The disciples were startled to see Jesus somehow float off into the sky and they stood looking at the apparition, wondering. People of every time period have struggled with the concept of the ascension which uses our language of this life to try to explain something that is beyond.

In the Middle Ages, people were unsure as to how to depict this experience. I was startled to see the clumsy way in which the ascension was portrayed in the mystery plays that I have been studying with our Thursday morning class. Jesus is on a swing like apparatus and lifted into these very fake clouds; he actually catches his foot on a cloud as he passes behind it. I laugh at the simplicity of this every time I see it and I must admit I am a little embarrassed when I share the video with others. I’m embarrassed when these clumsy attempts to portray something that cannot be shown in a literal sense cause me to realize juts what it is that we are asking people to believe.

And, even in our day of sophisticated AV technologies, we have a hard time depicting what is beyond our known tactile world. Mel Gibson used back lighting behind the head of Christ and holes in his hands to show the resurrection, yet it was just a glimpse. This week I heard in a review of the new movie about Troy that the producers chose not to show Mount Olympus and the gods of the Greek world because they could not portray them effectively. If we can’t portray the Greek gods in our videos than think how much more difficult it would be to show the ascension.

Yet, the ascension works in a faith sense! "By lifting Jesus out of first century Judea, the risen Christ of faith becomes knowable to every new generation of believers in every place on this earth. The Ascension makes every person a contemporary of Christ." (Homiletics online, May 23, 1993, p. 2, downloaded on May 20, 2004) The Ascension prevents us from holding onto a comfortable stereotype of Christ and gives permission for Jesus to be portrayed in many different ways.

Think for a moment about your image of Christ. How many of you see him as the brown-haired man with wavy hair and blue eyes portrayed in the popular? Yet, does he look Jewish in this painting? And I’ve seen images of Jesus as a black man and the holy family as if they were from the far east. The risen Christ of history ascends, giving rise to a multicultural Holy Spirit, capable of infusing the church with life throughout the ages. Where would we be without the ascension?

This ascension of Jesus Christ is good news for us as Christians, and through us, for our world. It means that God loves, values, holds and will transform our fragile and broken humanity in Christ. … Jesus took all of human life, which he cared for so deeply, and brought it ‘into the heavenly places,’ into the very heart of God. This includes the suffering refugee, the abused child or spouse, the victim of war or terror, the lonely one in the nursing home, the one who struggles with depression or a lost sense of worth and value, those who are sick, all who are in difficult transitions in life." (John S. McClure, "The ascension – a promise of great things to come," Presbyterians Today, May 2002, 20., downloaded from Homiletics Online, May 20, 2004.)

This should be the most anticipated week of the church year. We are invited to become witnesses with a testimony and conviction that will extend "to the ends of the earth" (v. 8). Instead of knowledge, Jesus offers empowerment. That empowerment will transform us from ignorant left behinds to go-before believers, if we let it.

The disciples apparently get the hint that they had best be about Jesus’ directive of witnessing. This fearful community has no power of its own. It possesses none and it can generate none by itself. Yet oddly, power is given that causes this fragile little community to have energy, courage, imagination, and resources completely disproportionate to its size.

Can we get the hint this morning? Let’s make ourselves available to receive some of this power. In this very activity of witnessing, we provide the channels for the Spirit’s power and grace. Perhaps our whole lives are about establishing the trust necessary to let go of worshipping a static and secure god and take hold of the wild and unruly Holy Spirit.

One of the reasons I went to seminary was that I wanted to try to figure out the connection between ethics and faith. The church that raised me taught that my faith should mean more than saying that I believed in Jesus; faith in Jesus meant acting in a way that proclaimed to the world that I believed in the God of love. Yet, I wanted to learn how the parables of the gospel and the life of Christ were connected to the Christian ethic I had been taught.

Now as I look back on that, it all seems so clear. I now have a hard time thinking that the events of the New Testament can lead to anything else but an ethic of love for all of humanity. I now see myself as a liberal evangelist, although some of you might think that is an oxymoron. You know two words that are contradictory to each other. I suspect that many Christians think, "Hey, I’m a liberal. I can’t be an evangelist!" Well, I think we can.

A few weeks ago, I heard that a colleague who is a Unitarian pastor was going to be talking about membership in their church. This was pretty unusual for a Unitarian church, the pastor claimed. They are so concerned about possibly offending anyone that they very seldom even suggest that someone might join the church.

Why is it that we are so afraid to offer a good news message to neighbors and friends? If God has been good to us, and He has been there for me, then it would be logical that we would want to share the saving presence of God in our lives. Is it that we think there’s not enough God to go around for everyone? No, of course not.

Recently I heard about a young reporter who wanted to get a feel for agriculture so he located a farmer who was willing to accept an interview. He did some background research and found that farmers in his area grow wheat, corn, and alfalfa.

Part way through the interview the reporter asked, "How’s your wheat coming along this year?"

The farmer replied, "I didn’t plant any."

"Really? I thought this was supposed to be wheat country."
"Some say it is," came the reply. "But I was afraid we might not see enough rain."

"Well, what about your corn. How is it doing?" the reported continued with the interview.

"Didn’t plant corn this year," the farmer said. "I was afraid of corn blight?"

"Alfalfa?"

"Nope. Afraid the price might drop."

"Well then," asked the reporter, "what did you plant?"

"Nothin’, I just played it safe."

This story raises a question: When is a farmer not a farmer? It also leads me to wonder "When is a Christian not a Christian?" Sometimes we seem like farmers, not willing to risk enough to plant

But we’re a fractured people with many different theological views; how could we ever come together with the same kind of unity and purpose that the small group of disciples had?

Irregardless of our fears, we are called to witness, trusting in the Spirit lurking in the back room, listening at the side door, transforming all that we do into magnificent occasions for the outpouring of God’s love.

I want to conclude with words from an unknown author that might encourages us to take a risk and step out as liberal evangelists.

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach for another is to risk involvement.
To expose your feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd, is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying. To believe is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, - is nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live. Chained by their attitudes they are slaves; they have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is free.