A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA
by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025
Ascension Sunday/A • May 17, 2026
Acts 1:1-11 * Psalm 47 or Psalm 93 * Ephesians 1:15-23 * Luke 24:44-53
Imagine two boys. One is born while his parents still live in student housing. His dad starts a new job; mom stays home with him. His parents don’t have a lot but they get by. The move to a new state; his dad gets promoted. He gets a new brother; he’s not very good at the games bo ys play, he prefers books and his mother feeds that, encourages it. They take vacations with an extended family at the beach. It isn’t luxury but it’s fun. He grows up in a turbulent time, goes to college and marries at 20, moves far from family. The other boy is a surprise; his mother is 41 when she has him. She stays at home at first but then she goes back to college; his dad works a lot and he’s going to school too. So he’s mostly on his own. He learns to make friends; he has two older brothers. By the time he’s a few years old, his parents are both working professionally and the family is doing well financially. He’s smart and engaging and his parents take him on vacations to Europe. These two boys are brothers but if you ask them about their history, you’ll never know they come from the same family.
It’s the same with the stories of Jesus after the resurrection. We have about eight accounts. Mark says nothing; Mark ends in the middle of a sentence, some scholars believe there was more that got lost, like a book you find in a “$1.00 pile” missing the last chapter. Matthew tells us the disciples saw Jesus and he told them to go to Galilee and wait; then he appears there and tells them to go baptize the whole world. John tells us Jesus appeared to Mary and a week later to the disciples and then yet another week later to the disciples and Thomas. Paul sees him years later on the road to Damascus and writes to the Corinthian Christians that he was seen by more than 500 people; we don’t have their accounts. Luke says Jesus appeared to some people on the road to Emmaus who didn’t recognize him at first and only did when he broke bread with them; he tells them to wait in Jerusalem. I suppose some people would come away from this confusion of stories and contradictions wondering whether anyone saw anything. What I take from it is that just like the two boys in different families that are the same, Jesus appeared in different ways at different times to different people.
Luke is the one who tells us about Jesus’ ascension. Luke is the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of the Act of the Apostles. He says Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days; apparently he isn’t counting the appearance to Paul. This is the scene he presents. The disciples are gathered by the Risen Christ. Is it a picnic? A meeting? We don’t know what they thought. Maybe they’re just happy to be with him again. He tells them they are going to be baptized by the Holy Spirit; we’ll celebrate that next week on Pentecost.
But the disciples are like children: they’re focused on what they want to know, not what he’s telling them. “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” They have in mind the kingdom as a conquest, a reforming of the government. They imagine General Jesus will ride to victory over the Romans and the Herodians and set things right and, oh, by the way, put them in charge. He’s already had to stop them bickering between themselves over who is the best disciple, who will sit at his right and left hands when he reigns in victory. This is like two boys too isn’t it? “Mom loves me best, no she loves ME best!” Jesus has been to Jerusalem, been crucified, died, been raised, just like he said They’re impatient for the next chapter; they want to get on to the good part, where they help him run things. “Will you restore the kingdom now, Lord?”
Jesus, as he always does, forges ahead with his purpose. He tells them in effect that when the kingdom is restored is none of their business: “It is not for to know the times or period that the Father has set by his own authority.” When I was the pastor at Suttons Bay Congregational church, I used to take our youth group to rallies. They were far away and we’d often leave at night. Periodically kids would wake up and say, “Are we there yet?” I’d always say my version of what Jesus says: “In about ten minutes.” It took them a few trip to realize that “about 10 minutes” was the answer regardless of the reality.
Once again, Jesus tells them they are going to receive the Holy Spirit. He tells them they are going to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria. These are places progressively farther away. They’re near Jerusalem; Judea is the larger area. Samaria is next door. “You’re going to be my witnesses in Harrisburg, in Mechanicsburg and Maryland;” something like that. The fundamental point is that they are going to have to go out into the world and tell people about him, about what he taught, about what he did, about who he is.
Then he’s gone. He ascends to heaven. We are human, we have up and down and sideways, so Luke uses the language of direction to describe this. We get focused on the details: how did he do it? How far up did he go? A confirmation kid asked me once, “Did he sprout wings?” This all misses the point. The point is not that heaven is up there somewhere and he’s on his way. The point is that Jesus is fully revealed as who he is, always has been: the Son of God, Lord, a heavenly one who is now going home.
So one moment they are standing there asking questions, maybe chattering among themselves. Did they hear what Jesus said? Did they understand it? We don’t know. Luke tells us that he gives the command and then ascends and they’re left there, on their own. Oh! Not totally alone: there are a couple of angels. The angels say, “Why are you standing around? Can you imagine this moment? The artist Dali has a wonderful painting depicting just Jesus feet: it’s meant to be what the disciples see as Jesus ascents. I think they must have been stunned; this meeting hasn’t gone like they thought it would. They came prepared to hear the next phase of Jesus’ campaign to take over Jerusalem; they came prepared to be promoted to sit at his right and left hand. Now they are left just standing there, gazing into heaven. And they realize they are not on their own.
Luke says what they did was to worship Jesus and to go back and were in the temple constantly rejoicing. Perhaps they remembered what he’d told them: “I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” [Luke 24:49] In a sense, they are doing exactly what we sang about at the beginning today: “This is the day, I will rejoice”. We’re coming near the end of the season of Easter so it’s a good time to remember this.
Because this IS the day to rejoice.We live in a culture that constantly tells us to worry. We worry about prices: will we be able to afford gas and food and other things. We worry about our country and whether it will be able to sustain the democracy which is its core principle: that all people are created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We worry about our church and its future. I’m sure you have your own list. Now think of those followers of Jesus. They have most of those things to worry about too. They have the looming shadow of powers that have just executed Jesus but they know this IS the day to rejoice because God’s power raised him up. This IS the day.
This IS the day to do what Jesus said and what Jesus said is: wait for the Spirit. It’s hard to wait, we want to do things, make progress, get ahead. But Jesus wants us, to wait for the Spirit. When I was first on my own, my mother gave me one of the most useful books I’ve ever had. It was the Betty Crocker cookbook. Do you have this? It had recipes for everything. I didn’t know how to cook but all I had to do was open Betty Crocker and she’d tell me exactly what I needed and what to do to produce everything from a hamburger to a cake. I could do it on my own: no waiting. Don’t we often treat church like this? I was ordained in 1975 as the mainline churches began to lose members and Christian bookstores were full of recipe books on how to grow; I still have bunches of them. It felt like I could do it on my own. But I couldn’t. The first time I used one of the big recipes and put together a whole church project that was going to transform our little church in Seattle into a big church, it was a total failure. I hadn’t waited for the Spirit.
This is the day to wait for God’s Spirit here. I am done reading recipes and doing it on my own and I hope you are as well. This is the day that the Lord has made: This is the day to be sure God’s Spirit will come if we wait.
This IS the day to seek that Spirit. We have this wonderful platform, this building, our history. This is a place where enemies were loved: once upon a time Salem was filled with wounded Confederate soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg. Once upon a time slaves on their way to freedom were hidden here. Once upon a time a crowd of people filled these pews in the new settlement of Harrisburg. But that was then; this is now This is the day when we should look forward. We live in a city full of lonely people and we ought to be praying every single day on how we can heal them, give hope. They don’t need a recipe: they need the love of God. This is the day to offer that love. Jesus said: “You are witnesses” So this is the day to tell someone what God has done in your life and invite others to that Spirit of gentleness, that spirit of acceptance, that spirit that we share.
Amen.