MISSION IMPOSSIBLE OR MISSION POSSIBLE?

A Sermon for Ascension Sunday
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 24:44-53

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

“Mission: Impossible” was a popular television show of the sixties that turned into a movie franchise in the nineties. The series focused on the dangerous world of espionage and spies—chronicling the missions of a secret team of American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force.

The format of the TV and movie series was rather predictable. Each episode would begin with the main character being given a secret tape. It would always start with the words “your mission, should you choose to accept it...” then continue on to describe the ridiculously impossible sounding mission. At the end—to add to the secretive nature of the mission—the tape would say: “This message will self-destruct in five seconds.”

Now, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I do not have a secret tape for you today and there will be no self-destruction of it. Nevertheless, you and I have been offered a mission that is every bit as exciting as a Mission: Impossible episode. And we must choose whether or not to accept it because, frankly, Jesus wants to know our answer.

What is this mission all about? Well let’s begin with the event that happened last week on Thursday: Ascension Day. Forty days after Easter is when Christians commemorate Jesus' ascension into heaven. Christian traditions around Ascension very from country to country. In Germany, for example (where it is called Christi Himmelfahrt--"Christ's journey into heaven"), it is an official school holiday. In North American culture, even though many more of us Christians go to church, the day passes relatively unnoticed, especially among Protestants.

There is a tradition in Clayton County, however, of having an Ascension Day worship service at the Pioneer Rock Church at Ceres, on Highway 52 between Guttenberg and Garnavillo. The church has been closed since 1927 but the beautiful limestone building is maintained by its historical society and Ascension is now the only worship service held each year. It is led by the Lutheran pastors of the area. My ancestors worshiped at the Ceres church and I attended that service a few years ago with my parents. It really gave me a sense of the great heritage of faith my ancestors laid for me.

In the New Testament, the story of Jesus' ascension is found in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, both written by the same author. The classic text is Acts 1:9-11. After the risen Christ had spoken his final words to his followers, we are told: "As they were watching, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight." That’s more exciting than a self-destructing tape anyway. The text then refers to the disciples "gazing up toward heaven while he was going."

The interesting thing about the Pioneer Rock church is that the pulpit is extremely high despite the fact that it is a tiny sanctuary. So as we listened to the sermon, I felt like I, too was “gazing up toward heaven” and I got a real sense of what the disciples must have felt as Jesus ascended.

In the Acts version of this story, it really shows how confused the disciples were. I once saw a young man who was wearing a T-shirt with a big letter K on it. I asked him what the K was for and he said it’s because I’m confused. “Confused,” I said, “starts with the letter C, not K.” He replid, “You have no idea how confused I am.”

The disciples, too, are looking upward, dazed and confused and probably afraid. In all consideration, they shouldn’t be confused because Jesus has already told them what they need to know. In Luke’s gospel today we hear him explaining, once again, what he has done—how the scriptures foretold that the messiah would come and suffer death and would rise again. Jesus’ name means “he shall save his people” and that is exactly the mission he accomplished. He lived among us and taught us and healed us and then he was crucified, but he rose victorious on Easter morning. He triumphantly accomplished the seemingly impossible mission for which he was sent into the world.

But as with a lot of stories—that’s not the end of the story. There is much more mission yet to be accomplished. Jesus tells them that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. This is their mission. Mission Impossible? It probably seems like it to them.

He puts the future of his ministry in their hands, then takes them out to Bethany and ascends. Now, the mission is theirs—and ours—to continue so that all can hear the good news. That is a mighty big mission. How does Jesus ever expect we can accomplish it?”

A mother eagle, taking charge of her little ones, serves as a beautiful example of how it is that Jesus prepared his disciples, and how he prepares us for our ministries. You see, what a mother eagle does, once her young have developed their tiny wings, is to place them on her large, outspread wings, soaring into the air currents with them. The air currents then push the little ones off mama eagle’s wings, forcing them to try their own wings. After wildly flapping those tiny wings as they careen towards the earth, mother eagle eventually flies under them, allowing them to crash upon her soft wings, there to catch their breath, to rest and recuperate. Then, once again she will take them into the air currents, continuing this procedure off and on for days until the tiny muscles of her offspring are strengthened enough for the little ones to fly on their own. Her goal is not only to nurture them, but to enable them to fly.

Jesus, too, gives us the opportunity to try our own wings. We love to come up with excuses about how we are not equipped to evangelize. “I am not one to talk about my faith, I don’t really know the bible, I am just so busy...” the excuses go on an on. But we don’t have to be biblical scholars or great public speakers or have any other spectacular qualifications. We just need to love God and be willing to do God’s work.

And we’re allowed to make mistakes. Like the mother eagle, Jesus sends us his Spirit to rescue us and help us out again and again until our own “wings” become strong. And because of this, our mission is not so impossible as we might think. We can accomplish it if we only welcome the Spirit’s help. For as the angel said to Mary, “with God, all things are possible.”

We might be afraid of this mission handed down to us by Jesus, through all those faithful who have gone before us that we remember today. We might worry about living the life of discipleship, but this is the path to joy and freedom. The freedom and forgiveness from your sins awaits, the ability to share and live the gospel awaits. The ascension assures us that Jesus is Lord, that his mission is accomplished but that there is still a mission for us to accomplish. And yes, with God that mission is infinitely possible.

Let me close with the prayer Paul prayed for the Ephesians, which we heard in our second lesson for today:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. Amen.