Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Thursday I stopped at the Amish market, but it was closed. A sign said, "Closed for Ascension Day." Somewhere, in the far reaches of my mind, I remembered that this was to be Ascension Sunday, but to me Ascension Day had always been one of those lessor holy days - certainly not one to lose work over, nor one to stand in the way of my getting some good bacon! But it set me to thinking. If the ascension of Christ is so important to the Amish, and to other Christian communions, perhaps it should be more important to me.

The story is not complicated. It helps to know the topography. From the top of the Mount of Olives, one walks down a long, steep hill to the Kidron Valley, and up again a short way to the walls of old Jerusalem. It is the same path Jesus took on Palm Sunday, riding that donkey, and one can still see the arch in the city wall through which Jesus entered (although it is now half below ground and closed). Over the crest of the Mount of Olives, going the other way, is Bethany, the little town where Mary and Martha lived, where their brother Lazarus was raised from the dead, and where Jesus (presumably) spent his nights during that last, dreadful week. Between the top of the Mount of Olives and Bethany is a unassuming little chapel, built by the Crusaders, marking the place of the ascension. Here Jesus, it is said, after rising from the dead and appearing to many over a period of several weeks, said goodbye to his disciples, and was taken up into heaven. (There was a legend in the early church that he would return to the same spot, so the whole hillside is covered with graves - devout believers who wanted to be right there for the general resurrection when he came.)

The Ascension is the other bookend. The story of Jesus, the Word of God, begins with his coming down from heaven, and ends with his going back. That's tidy. But the Ascension is also an important moment of transition, and it comes with a promise. From now on Jesus' followers would not see him, neither in his earthly nor his resurrected form. They would be on their own (but not really). He instructs them to preach the gospel to all nations. How? The world is enormous. They are few: a tax collector, some fishermen, quite ordinary. They are dumbfounded. He comforts them. Of course, they will not be expected to do this on their own. God will "clothe them with power." (That's why the Amish take this day so seriously. It contains the promise of the Holy Spirit - that Jesus' followers would be clothed in power.)

What I read this morning is the very end of Luke's Gospel, but (remember) Luke also wrote the Book of Acts. And Acts starts right up with the story of that amazing "clothing with power," on Pentecost, when the church came into being by the dramatic manifestation of the Spirit. Today I would like to look at Jesus' promise (that his disciples would be "clothed with power" - some translations say "armed with power."), not so much as it applies to the church (That's next week's story - Pentecost.), but as it applies to individual men and women. Because, today, we're not comfortable with the notion of power. We fear the power of big government, big corporations, big money. Power is always a temptation to exploitation. "Power corrupts," Lord Acton said, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In our psychobabble we say some one is a "control freak," or that he is "power hungry." The founding fathers of our nation feared power, and wisely divided it among three branches of government that would check and balance each other. It's a sensible concern. Even the church, when it and its clergy enjoy power (as we are seeing very sadly today), that power has often been abused. And yet…and yet, it cannot be denied that millions of Christians, over the centuries, starting with these disciples, have been endowed with some kind of power, far beyond their natural abilities, and have used that power for amazing good. The Spirit of God touches the spirit of a man or woman, and remarkable things happen. Power is not necessarily bad; it can be used for good or for ill.

One young man was carousing in a tavern with his buddies when they suggested a drinking contest, where the losers would pay for the drinks of those who drank the most, and (for some reason, at that strange moment) this young man suddenly realized how utterly meaningless and empty his life was. He refused to join their game, but went home instead and knelt in prayer. God told him that if his life was to have meaning, he could not be everyone's friend, nor could he have many friends. He accepted that honest sentence and began preaching and teaching a simple, unadorned gospel in the streets of London. He was George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, the Quakers. The Holy Spirit of God touched the spirit of George Fox, clothed him with power, and he did amazing good.

Jacob, an absolute scoundrel, wrestling with God's Spirit at the fords of the River Jordan, and God touching him on the hip, (leaving him with a limp!), but also clothing him with new power to take his rightful place as the leader of the Hebrew people and to do amazing good. Luther, as a young man, frightened in a thunder storm, crying, "St. Anne, I'll be a monk." As silly as that sounds to modern ears, great things followed from that! God clothed Luther with power. John Wesley, a failure as an Anglican priest, attending a little prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, feels his heart strangely warmed, and "that's all she wrote." The Methodist movement was born. And out of the Methodist movement came not only the United Methodists, but also the Free Methodists, and the Wesleyan Methodists, and the Church of the Nazarene, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Salvation Army, and many more. The Holy Spirit of God touched the spirit of John Wesley, clothed him with power, and enabled him to do remarkable things. Martin Luther King, sitting in that Birmingham jail, writing his famous letter to the other clergymen who had urged him to go slow. The Spirit of God touched him, and he was clothed with power. And the stories of how God's Spirit has transformed people's lives go on and on.

The Old Testament Book of Judges contains an interesting twist of this image of God's Spirit clothing someone with power. God comes to Gideon, an unlikely hero. The Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon (the word actually means "clothed itself with") Gideon, and he blew a trumpet. A different image. Not that Gideon was clothed with the Holy Spirit but that the Spirit clothed itself with Gideon. In other words, the way the Spirit of God would appear, at that moment in history, was as Gideon. And thousands answered the trumpet call, and with Gideon in the lead they defeated the Midianites.

What if God's Spirit should clothe itself with us? So that we would be what people saw of God. This is Mother's Day. The Spirit of God has clothed itself with many a mother over the years so that her children should first see God in her, and in her loving kindness. That's a heavy responsibility. Thank God for mothers! The Spirit has clothed itself with many a teacher, and many a church leader, and many a youth worker, and many a political leader, so that it (the Spirit) could be manifested in them and in their work. There is incredible power in that. "Not me, but Christ living in me," Paul said.

And he did amazing good. We need to take hold of this power. There is not the slightest reason to be timid. It is not the power to serve ourselves, but the power to serve God and others.

Peter Marshall said that all too often church people reminded him of deep sea divers, "encased in suits designed for many fathoms deep, jumping in bravely to pull out plugs in bathtubs." God has more in mind for us than that. He says he will clothe us with power - always for something big, but not always for something newsworthy. Who, I wonder, were the ordinary church people who were kind to George Fox when he was coming along? Who were the teachers who encouraged Luther when he was a child? Who were the priests who nurtured him? Who were John Wesley's Sunday School teachers? What faithful church people inspired Martin Luther King when he was young? We don't know their names. But they, unbeknownst to themselves, were clothed with power, and they (in their quiet ways) changed the world. What if God's Spirit would clothe itself with us?