Preached Ascension Day (Year C), May 29, 2025, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by the Reverend Samuel Torvend.
Acts 1:1-11
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53
Psalm 47
In 1529, the German reformer, Martin Luther, met the Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingli, in the city of Marburg in order to discuss how Christ is present in the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Communion. Zwingli cited this confession in the Creed: “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” Of course, this portion of the Creed was inspired by todays’ gospel reading. Given that the risen Christ is seated with the Father in heaven, so argued Zwingli, he could not possibly be present in any real way in the eucharistic gifts of bread and wine. What this feast day acknowledges, he continued, is Christ’s physical absence from the earth and its many forms of life.
Luther was dismayed by this interpretation and called out Zwingli for being a poor student of the Bible even though Luther knew that Zwingli was quite learned. But that was not enough: he also accused Zwingli of a childish literalism. “Seated at God’s right hand in heaven above us?” asked Luther with astonishment. “Why, you naïve priest,” he continued, “God is spirit. God has no right hand, no right hand. God is not seated on a throne in the highest heavens for we know that the right hand is a reference to God’s presence throughout the universe and God’s power to be wherever God wants to be: in the smallest acorn as well as the most humble house servant. Christ is not distant from us, for Christ was raised into the Father’s presence throughout the universe.”
Luther thus claimed that the risen Christ is really, truly, deeply present in, with, and under the bread and wine of the Eucharist, offering himself to anyone who is hungry and thirsty for his presence in their lives. Thus we might say that this feast of the Ascension is not about taking a trip into outer space but just the opposite: Christ’s ascension from one local – a hillside – is his ascension into our world. We might speak of this mystery as his descent into the creation with all its wild diversity; his descension, if you will, into you and me.
And yet in a time of sickness or loss, or in the midst of the chaos that has gripped our country over the past few months, it might be difficult to discern that presence should we experience bewilderment, anxiety, or fear. So frequently we can live between the promise of the divine presence and the downright cussedness of life. In such moments or stretches of time, I have found these words of the Anglo-Catholic poet, W.H. Auden, to be both challenge and consolation:
“He is the Way. Follow Him through the land of Unlikeness. He is the Truth. Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety. He is the Life. Love Him in the World of the Flesh.”
In the midst of anxiety, bewilderment, or fear, suggests Auden, Christ is present – not as escape but as companion. For this is the truth of who he is: our ever-present friend and advocate. Thus, the poet invites us to find Christ in the world of the flesh, our flesh, in the face of the person next to you, in the ordinary bread and wine that reveal his life-giving presence; in the world of matter, of materiality, of which he is the creator. Come, then, dear friends, to his table and let bread fragment and sip of wine nourish your soul with the pulse of his love.