Sunday 25 May 2025 is Ascension Sunday.
Christians celebrate the time when Jesus ascended to heaven. Ascension Day itself is generally observed on a Thursday, the fortieth day after Easter.
Today’s Main Scripture
Jesus speaks to his disciples, following his resurrection at Easter and shortly before his ascension:
John 14 (from The Message Bible Translation)
The Road
14 1-4 “Don’t let this rattle you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”
6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
8 Philip said, “Master, show us the Father; then we’ll be content.”
9-10 “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren’t mere words. I don’t just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act.
11-14 “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.
The Spirit of Truth
15-17 “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!
18-20 “I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.
21 “The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.”
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said, “Master, why is it that you are about to make yourself plain to us but not to the world?”
23-24 “Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we’ll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn’t mine. It’s the message of the Father who sent me.
25-27 “I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.
28 “You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.
29-31 “I’ve told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me. I’ll not be talking with you much more like this because the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don’t worry—he has nothing on me, no claim on me. But so the world might know how thoroughly I love the Father, I am carrying out my Father’s instructions right down to the last detail.
“Get up. Let’s go. It’s time to leave here.”
Sermon by Rev. Anne-Marie Simpson
To get straight to beginning of the sermon, click here.
Sermon Text
For 40 days after Easter morning, Jesus remained on earth.
We know of several occasions when he met with some of his disciples.
Mary Magdalene in the dawn Garden, the two walking the road to Emmaus. appearing more than once to those in the upper room. On the shore at sunrise, and now in this final time of parting.
We can only surmise how Jesus spent the rest of this time before his departure. How many others did he meet with, perhaps, who did not record the fact? How many lives did he touch in those final 40 days on Earth?
Just as it was vital for Jesus to prove his resurrection to his followers, so it was very important that he took his leave properly.
His appearances to them could not just stop suddenly. That would leave too much uncertainty in the minds of his friends. Nor could the story that we’ve heard today of this awesome ascension be omitted from the narrative.
People at the time needed to know this part most fully. Indeed, we need to understand exactly where Jesus has gone.
There have to be witnesses. There is much mystery to this story, ascending into a cloud seems, well, rather vague. We desperately want more detail.
Luke gives us a brief description in his gospel and another in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
Yet, however brief this story is, it is so important for both the disciples and for us today.
The disciples needed closure for them. This is an ending, the end of their time spent with Jesus – i.e. the end of Jesus amongst them present here in this world.
Yet it is also a beginning. The beginning of a brand new chapter for the disciples.
Now they have been given final instructions. Wait here in Jerusalem and show you are empowered by the Holy Spirit, then go out and preach the good news of repentance and salvation to all the world.
They must continue Jesus’ work of justice and compassion, healing and acceptance, but now they must also preach their testament, make new believers and baptise them in the Holy Spirit, not just the people of Israel, but everyone, right around the world.
They are witnesses. They have a testament to share.
And if this work seems impossibly huge to undertake, so very difficult to achieve, then Jesus has promised them a helper. That will be given power through baptism in the Holy Spirit. And so the disciples are not overwhelmed by the task in hand, or cowed under the weight of their commission. Instead, they go back into Jerusalem filled with joy at what Jesus has promised. Filled with joy at what they have seen.
They know exactly where Jesus has gone. They’ve witnessed him rising to heaven with their very own eyes, and there is no room for doubt. Now they have a friend in heaven, a friend whom we believe presents our prayers at the throne of God and intercedes on our behalf. A friend who has sent them a helper, a friend who has always present with us, always available when we need help.
The human Jesus could only be in one place at any given time, but now as a heavenly being, Jesus transcends the spatial and the temporal qualities of this world.
He can be constantly with his disciples. He is constantly with us.
Furthermore, Jesus has promised them that they will follow where he has gone.
Before the crucifixion he has told them that he goes to prepare a place for them. Those words that we say at every funeral, I go to prepare a place for you. Now they understand what that means. One day they too will be in heaven, where they will see Jesus again and live in the presence of their Heavenly Father. They also know that Jesus is listening to their pleas and prayers. He might be out of sight, but he isn’t out of their hearing.
And Jesus has promised to return, to come back one day when everything will be put right, and the whole of creation will be restored to its original state of balance.
The early church watched patiently and diligently for the coming, believing it to be imminent.
But God’s time is not our time, as we are reminded in the second letter of Peter: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
But we must keep watch and be prepared for this coming, for this event, so that we are ready to meet with Jesus on his return. Ready for whatever that will mean for us.
Jesus speaks of how his ascension has been written into Hebrew scripture in the laws of Moses, in the writing of the prophets, and in the Psalms, as we’ve heard in Psalm 93, and in Psalm 47.
The signs have always been there, but it would have been impossible for human minds to comprehend what was meant.
The story of death and resurrection and ascension is too full of wonder, too full of awe for us to fully understand. Jesus has ascended to sit enthroned at the right hand of the Father, where, as Paul tells us, he reigns supreme.
In the meantime, the disciples returned to Jerusalem in great joy to spend their time giving thanks in the temple, praying to God, knowing that they are heard, and knowing that whatever happens to them, Jesus awaits them with a place prepared.
And so what does this day of Ascension mean for us?
We’ve been promised everything that the disciples were promised.
We know that God, Jesus has gone before us, and we live in the hope that this and every other promise He has made will be fulfilled. that, through repentance, our sins will be forgiven, and we will go to take up that place, which He has prepared for us in his Father’s house, where we will live forever in the presence of God, reconciled and beloved for eternity.
And the second coming, what will that be like?
The angels in Acts have told us that Jesus will return in the same way as he left, descending from a cloud, perhaps, to the awestruck gaze of the people below.
Will you be there, as generations’-worth of prayers are answered, watching and waiting in joyful expectation, as your Lord and Saviour descends to bring the Kingdom that we pray for to come?
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
