Feast of the Ascension (transferred)
17 May 2026
Acts 1.1-11; Ps. 47; Lk. 24.44-53
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
North Little Rock, Arkansas
The Rev. Carey Stone +
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end. Amen. – from the Nicene Creed, 325AD
This past Friday I had the honor of being involved in the commissioning of 2nd Lieutenant, Peyton Price and to witness his oath of service in the United States Air Force. His parents were witnessing yet another milestone among the many milestones of their son’s life.
One of the great challenges parents must face is how to strike a balance between being present and at times ever so carefully being absent. The mother is especially important early on to be practically ever present, with dad having the ability to be periodically absent. But that absence is for the child’s own good. Dad can run to the pharmacy to by a bottle of that pink medicine, to buy food, diapers, and to do some work.
As the child grows in childhood they are allowed to pour their own cereal, pick out their clothes (with parental approval, of course). When they get a few years older, they are allowed to have sleepovers with friends, and play with friends in the neighborhood. More responsibility comes their way at school and eventually they learn to drive and can go to places alone.
Then comes college preparation, and before you know it the parents are helping to furnish a dorm room or apartment. All throughout this process there has been a dance of absence and presence of gradually letting go between the parents and the child. Too little absence and the child is stifled and self-esteem suffers. If there’s too much absence, a child can flounder and make life altering mistakes. Hopefully they have enough of both while taking on more responsibility and finally growing into young adults who are mature enough to take over much of the control of their lives.
Jesus was a master of the dance between his absence and presence. We recall how he would often slip away for prayer and contemplation, especially in the early morning hours, and sometimes late at night. His disciples would ask him for direction on how to feed 5,000 people and Jesus simply said, “You give them something to eat.” Obviously, he could have rained down plenty of bagels and cream cheese but his disciples wouldn’t have learned anything. They managed to find a young boy who had brought a lunch of five loaves of bread and two fish, reluctantly gave it to Jesus, he blessed it broke it and there were plenty of leftovers. Jesus’ friend Lazarus was ill and dying, Jesus waited three days until Lazarus died, then he shows up to the wailing of the grieving crowd. He raises Lazarus from the dead. Absence and presence.
This past Thursday was the official day in the church calendar called Ascension Day – when we remember Jesus departing the earth and ascending into heaven. After three years of living together Jesus is about to take a very long leave of absence. I love the meme I saw on one of our parishioner’s Facebook page it had a painting of Jesus ascending into heaven with the disciples all watching him rise into the clouds. The caption read “The feast of the ascension: Celebrating the day that Jesus began working from home!”
Jesus was going home, returning to the Father and he had told the disciples to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit. They went back to the upper room and they weren’t given a calendar date! Would it be three days? Three weeks? Three years when the Holy Spirit would come? They simply did not know. So, what did they do? They obeyed and leaned into the Christian community. While in the upper room, they prayed, praised, read scripture, shared food, and encouraged each other with faith, hope, and love – waited for this Holy Spirit to arrive.
The Church with a capital C was just about to be born, and Jesus’ absence accelerated the process of giving birth to the Church. The presence of God was about to exponentially explode with a franchise of the church anywhere two or three would be gathered together in the Name of Jesus. God’s plan was about to get underway in earnest and it would be through his people that the ministry Jesus started would continue and spread to every continent of the globe.
During the pandemic, the Christian community throughout the world was hampered in gathering in person for worship and fellowship. Almost miraculously through the internet we discovered a new ‘virtual way’ of gathering our community. Since returning to ‘in-person worship’ one of the phrases that was created during that time, it was notable across the globe that those coming back were fewer in number. Some have decided they didn’t need in-person worship or the church for that matter. But at the same time there were folks who had been orbiting churches, and being drawn closer to the church by the Spirit. We are grateful for the steady stream of visitors that have been coming and for those who joined us over the last couple of years. I counted at least twenty people in our electronic directory that were not with us prior to the pandemic.
In these uncertain days in which we are living, between the first and second advent and before Christ comes again – now more than ever let us draw near to God and one another, let us encouraged one another in faith, in hope, and in love trusting that the coming Spirit can give us everything we need to flourish and finish the work Christ calls us to.
There is a ninth cen. hymn that has been sung at ordinations ever since then, and we will all sing it at Michael Mitchell’s ordination next month. It reminds us of our great need of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit of God:
Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,
and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heav’nly aid,
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
O fount of love, and fire of life,
and sweet anointing from above,
Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God’s right hand we own.
• Veni Creator Spiritus
• Attributed to the 9th-century bishop Rabanus Maurus
