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Sermon text: 1 Kings 8, 22-24.26-28
Dear congregation,
Ascension day is the most inconspicuous of the main Christian celebrations on our calendar. Most people, even Christians, go by it without noticing; even in Germany, where it is a public holiday. Why would it be important to pause again on the way from Easter to Pentecost? Did an angel not warn the disciples: “You men of Galilee, why do you stand and look up to heaven?” One almost wants to add: there is much to do. Do not stand around doing nothing! Why are you taking a break on the road?
It is a necessary break. It forces us to think about the fact that we are down here on earth, while our Lord is in heaven, where no-one can reach – so that we do not become careless when we pray: our Father who is in Heaven. Jesus taught us that we may call God “father”. He also told us that he does not look like earthly fathers. He is not a “father figure” as we say, half admiringly, half appraisingly: “No-one knows the father but the Son and those to whom the Son will reveal it.” He is the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, exalted over all. With him is our crucified Lord: “He sits to the right of God, the almighty Father, from where he will come to judge the living and the dead.” We are down here. We feel abandoned and do not know how to go on without him. We are helpless and call: “Come Lord Jesus”. Come Lord Jesus was the call of the very first Christians. If we really think about it, we cannot say much more than they.
This is why the break is there on the road from Easter to Pentecost. We need to pause and reflect, so that we do not run in the wrong direction, and lose the road in our following of Jesus. This is why we call to him and listen for an answer.
It is difficult for people to grasp the fact that God is with them everywhere, that one can not lock him into one place. So they built the temple, raised altars and sanctified holy places, where one could go to find God, whom one could not see and touch otherwise. In this way, what Nathan told king David did not suit the people, who added the comforting words to the rejection by the prophet: if you, king David, do not build a house for God, your son Solomon will do so, and God will confirm his throne for ever more. (2 Samuel 7, 13)
And so it happened. Solomon, the son of David, built a beautiful temple for the Lord on the mountain of Zion in Jerusalem. Solomon was a wise man. He knew that one could not bind the Lord of the world to a place. So he contemplated: “Should God really live on earth?” and he called to the Lord: “See heaven and the heaven of all heavens cannot grasp you – how should the house that I have built do this?”
What Solomon suspected, that the Lord of heaven and earth would not let himself be bound to a house built by Man, was proven by history, but people have learnt little from this. Even the Christians had to be reminded again and again that God does not live at memorials, and that our Lord Jesus Christ can not be found at the site of his earthly acts. This is visible in some works of art. One sees, for example, a cloud, from which only the feet of the Saviour protrude, while on the ground, where he had stood, two footprints are visible. His footprints – that is the place where we meet him even today. His footsteps are his words and deeds, which the apostles have recorded; his footsteps are the marks his spirit has engraved into the hearts of those that are his. The spirit of love and the freedom of the children of God.
When his disciples admiringly showed Jesus the temple of Herod, he said: “Not one stone will remain that will not be broken.” (Matthew 24 2) When he saw the money changers and pigeon sellers, he drove them out with the words of the prophet Jesse: “My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations.” When the devout questioned him about this, he said: “Break down this temple, and I will erect it again in three days.” The evangelist John adds to this: “He was speaking about the temple of his body.” (John 2,19) His body is all people whom he calls to him, and who believe in him. There we can see and hear him even today. There he is among us. Where he is, our Father in Heaven is too.
Amen.