Carrying Light into the City
Easter • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewTonight's sermon explores how the Ascension transforms the disciples from spectators into Spirit-filled witnesses. Reflecting on the Ascension window at night, this homily invites the Church to move beyond self-preservation and participate in God’s ongoing work of restoration, hope, and radical welcome in the world.
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Transcript
There are moments in life when we find ourselves standing between what has been and what will be.
...moments of transition...
...moments of uncertainty...
...moments when we do not yet fully know what comes next.
That is where the disciples find themselves tonight in Acts and Luke.
Jesus has risen.
He has taught them.
He has blessed them.
...and now he ascends from them.
...and what do the disciples do?
They stand there looking upward into heaven.
Honestly, who wouldn’t?
But then the angels ask them a question...
“Why are you standing here, looking toward heaven?”
Biblical scholars suggest that in the Lukan account, the ascension is the revelatory moment beyond which the disciples are never the same.
In other words, ascension changes them…
Until this moment, they are still trying to hold onto the Jesus they once knew...
But now they begin to understand that Christ’s presence is no longer...
...confined to one place...
...one building...
...one mountaintop...
...one shared ministry structure...
or one moment in history...
...and because Christ is no longer confined...
...neither is the reach of God’s grace...
You see friends...
This is the mystery of prevenient grace...
...before we fully recognize Christ...
...Christ is already drawing near to us...
Already preparing us...
Already calling us forward...
Christ reigns everywhere...
Christ is present everywhere...
Christ is at work everywhere...
...and perhaps this is what the disciples are finally beginning to understand...
The Church does not exist for self-preservation.
The Church exists to participate in God’s ongoing work of restoration in the world.
That is the mission of the Church.
Tonight we gathered at an unusual hour...
...because our Ascension window is visible most beautifully in the darkness...
...and perhaps faith is sometimes like that too.
Some truths become visible only in the dark.
Tonight, this window shines not only as a work of art, but as a witness.
Its light reaches outward into the night.
...and perhaps that is what the Church is meant to do as well.
The light of Christ was never meant to remain trapped in stained-glass windows...
...it was meant to shine outward into the darkness.
...and in Syracuse, that darkness is real.
We proclaim Christ reigns in a city marked by poverty, loneliness, fear, and division.
We proclaim Christ reigns where children grow up too fast and need mentors and communities who remind them of their dignity and worth.
We proclaim Christ reigns when immigrants and refugees are treated with suspicion and fear and find welcome in churches.
We proclaim Christ reigns whenever we loosen our grip on comfort, property, fear, and self-preservation...
...so that others might experience hope, mercy, and belonging...
...and perhaps that is part of the challenge before the Church in every generation.
The disciples could not remain on the mountaintop forever...
Eventually, they had to return to the city where ministry awaited them...
...and maybe the same is true for us.
As United Methodist churches across Syracuse begin reimagining how we remain connected in ministry to serve our neighbors...
...perhaps Ascension reminds us that the church has always lived between...
...endings and beginnings...
The disciples did not yet know what Pentecost would look like.
But they stayed together...
They prayed together...
They trusted together...
Because Jesus gathered them as a community...
...taught them as a community...
...and entrusted them with the work of the Kin-dom together.
...and that reality has not changed in two thousand years...
It still takes a Spirit-filled community to bear witness to hope.
It still takes a community to help turn the world right side up...
So tonight, in a few moments...
...as we stand beneath the great Ascension window...
...may we remember...
...Christ has ascended...
...Christ reigns still.
...Christ remains present through the Holy Spirit.
...and now we are the people called to carry that light into the world.
In the name of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.
