"Angels, Nostalgia, and Dangling Feet" (An Ascension Sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 17, 2026 – 7^th Sunday in Easter (Ascension Sunday)
Scripture:  Acts 1:6-14

Jesus’s ascension into heaven is a story that comes around every year.  It’s not one of the big flashy church holidays like Easter or Christmas or Pentecost.  It doesn’t even fall on a Sunday – technically last Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension.  But it is part of the story of Jesus, and it bridges the gap between Easter and Pentecost.

Easter is a season in the church year – one that stretches on for 50 days, or 7 full week.  Today is the last Sunday in the season of Easter, but Easter doesn’t end until next Saturday.  And I love how long the season of Easter is.  The 40 days of Lent can feel like a slog, in a season of contemplation and repentance and continual turning back to God and extinguishing our candles as we move into the shadows.  But then we get 50 days to celebrate the joy and the hope of Easter before the year asks us to move on to the next exciting festival.

But 40 days into the season of Easter – it’s always on the Thursday between the 6^th and 7^th Sundays of Easter – we encounter the curious story of Jesus ascending into heaven to return to be with the one whom he calls Father.

It is a strange and holy moment of transition, equivalent to his birth at Christmas, his death on Good Friday, his resurrection on Easter - a moment of transitioning from one way of being to another.  And holy moments can be hard to translate into words or into images.  Jesus’s disciples were there to witness Jesus’s ascension, yet it hasn’t become a core story to our faith the way that the resurrection has.  In my Mid-Week Message last week, I said that the strangeness of this story often gets translated into art as pictures of Jesus’s feet dangling down from a cloud.

 

“The Ascension of Christ”
Hans Süss von Kulmbach, 1513
Public Domain

 But I actually think that the story of the resurrection is just as strange, or maybe even more so.  Have you even noticed, though, that there is no witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  His disciples see his dead body being laid in the tomb.  They witness the tomb being sealed shut.  But then the next thing that they see is the empty tomb.  No-one witness the moment when Jesus’s body goes from being dead to being resurrected.  I also sometimes wonder – if there had been witnesses to the resurrection, would Easter art be equally as strange as Ascension art?  Paintings of Easter usually focus on Jesus’s lifeless body lying in the tomb, or of the empty tomb, or of the already-resurrected Christ meeting with his disciples.  When artists try to depict the moment of resurrection, they usually turn to very abstract art to try and convey the holiness of the moment.  And here with the ascension, we have Jesus’s dangling feet.

Anyways, all of this to say that the Ascension is a key story in Jesus’s life, but one that we usually don’t usually linger on.  But it’s a story that we read every year, and every time I turn to a familiar story, I like to ask myself, “What detail in this story is jumping out to me this time?”

This week, the detail that jumped out at me were the angels in the story.  Or were they angels?  They actually aren’t identified – the author of Acts only names them as “two men in white robes” standing next to the disciples.  But I think that this might be the case for a lot of the angels who appear in the bible.

Sometimes the angels are definitely named as angels.  The heavenly choir that appeared to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus – they were definitely angels.  The angel who appeared to Mary and invited her to carry, birth, and raise God’s son – again, explicitly named as an angel.

But do you remember the story in the Old Testament of Jacob wrestling an angel on the banks of the river, trying to win a blessing?  That angel was only ever named as a man.

Going back even further, Sarah and Abraham saw three men standing outside their tent, and welcomed them and fed them, and it was only later that they realized that they had been entertaining angels.

Even when you look at the resurrection stories from the four gospels, and who was at or in the empty tomb when the disciples showed up on Easter morning, the accounts don’t agree with each other. in Matthew, he is named as an angel, a being dressed in white with a face like lightning.  But in Mark, sitting in the tomb was a young man in a white robe who tells the women not to be afraid.  In Luke there are two men standing there in gleaming bright clothing. And in John, we are back to two angels named as angels, sitting where Jesus’s body was.

But taking all of this together, I’m fairly confident with naming the two men in white robes standing next to the disciples after they have watched Jesus be carried away – I’m fairly confident with naming them as angels.

And angels, at the core of their being, are messengers from God and bringers of good news.  So what good news do they have for the disciples in this moment?  Their message is “Stop standing here, staring up into the heavens. Get yourselves back to Jerusalem, the way Jesus told you to do!”  Which is a strange bit of good news to go with a story that is always strange.

But then I think about those disciples who were standing there.  They had been with Jesus through his life and had witnessed his ministry.  They were the first ones to hear the parables he told and had front row seats to see his miracles.  But then they had been through the utter devastation and grief of watching their beloved teacher and friend arrested and tortured and murdered by the state.  Two days later though, they encountered the empty tomb, and once they were able to overcome their fear, they have just had 40 days, once more in the presence of their beloved.  But now they have just seen him carried away on a cloud, back to the fullness of the presence of God.

And I can totally understand their inclination to stay there staring at the sky, focused on the place where he has just disappeared.  I can even imagine them choosing to stay there, setting up a picnic lunch, remembering Jesus as they broke the bread and poured out the wine.  I can picture them reminiscing about the good old days, and re-telling the parables that Jesus has taught them, every so often glancing back up at the sky to see if Jesus is going to float back down, “Just kidding – did you really think I was gone?!”

But then those messengers from God, those two angels show up, and basically tell them to get on with things.  Don’t stand here looking up at the sky; get back to Jerusalem just as Jesus told you to do.

I think that maybe God saw that the disciples risked getting stuck there, that they were at risk of spending so much time reminiscing and looking backwards that they might forget that they had to keep on moving forward.  If they had stayed there staring at the sky and watching for Jesus’s feet to come back, they would have missed everything that comes next.  Ten days later is going to be Pentecost – if they were out in the field staring at the sky, then they would have missed that whole event where the Holy Spirit shows up with a rush of mighty wind and tongues of fire, and the ability to speak in different languages to reach all of the people.  They would have missed the opportunity to be the church moving forward if they were stuck looking at the sky feeling nostalgic for what used to be.

Sometimes I wonder if we in the church need a visitation of angels like these two – a message to stop lingering in the past, a message to stop staring at Jesus’s feet up there in the sky; a message to instead move into the future with excitement and anticipation.  Churches – and I’m not necessarily talking about our churches specifically, but churches in general tend to be very good at nostalgia, very good at remembering the good old days.  But we don’t want to get stuck staring at the sky, visions of former Sunday Schools, visions of past events and gatherings, filling the clouds where Jesus’s feet used to be.  Because if we get stuck there, then we’ll miss our Pentecost moment – that moment that catapults us into the future.  We can’t be the church that God is calling us to be if we are stuck reminiscing about the church that we were ten years ago, or thirty years ago, or fifty years ago.

And even if this might be a hard message to hear, the message of the angels is good news.  Don’t stand there staring up at the sky where Jesus’s feet used to be.  Get on with life, keep moving forwards, for Pentecost is coming!

And so today, as we prepare to celebrate Pentecost next week, let’s wave goodbye to the space where Jesus’s feet used to be, and let’s start dreaming about where God is calling us next.  Let’s intentionally release the burdens of the past that are weighing us down, so that we can dance our way into Pentecost; for the future that God has planned for us can be much more vibrant than the echoes of the past, if only we have the courage to be the dreamers who will lead us there.

And may it be so.  Amen.

"Spiritual Curiosity" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 10 – 6^th Sunday of Easter
Scripture Readings:  Acts 17:22-29 and John 14:15-21

This week, as I was driving to a meeting in Rothesay, I heard an interview with author Yann Martel.  He is probably best known for his book, Life of Pi, but he was being interviewed about his newest book called Son of Nobody.  Part-way through the interview he started talking about faith, and though he speaks of himself as someone with no specific religious faith - he talked about growing up in a world post-silent revolution where religion was actively discouraged at home and within his family - and yet he had some very interesting things to say about spiritual curiosity.

The whole interview was fascinating, and he has a lot to say about art and writing and faith, but then towards the end he says:

“Why, in an age of computers and vaccinations, do some people still have faith in these un-provable entities called gods?  But I’ve switched around 180 degrees in my thinking, and I don’t see the point of acting like a computer. Yes, I still disdain organized religion, but the quest for the divine, this idea that there’s more than just this material reality that surrounds us – it’s not a question of finding the answer, but why don’t you at least ask the question that there might be something beyond this?

“And once you start exploring that question of what might be beyond the rational, while still using the rational, you can still use your computer to analyze the sayings of Jesus, there’s nothing wrong with using rationality, but use it to go beyond the rational.  Because we’re not computers…  You want to make those leaps of faith, not that are violent, not that hurt anyone, but why not believe in those things if they make life more of a dance than a shuffle.  So my faith now is why wouldn’t I believe that there is more than all this

“I find that very act of faith, that leap, that investigation into the beyond, completely transforms the today. It makes it easier to let go, it makes an aspirational kind of life easier.  It is easier to be loving in a framework where love actually matters.”

*****

Because I heard this interview on Wednesday afternoon, as I was pondering today’s sermon, my brain connected it right away with the reading we heard from Acts this morning.  Yann Martel might have been the perfect audience for the Apostle Paul as he was speaking in Athens!

Paul has been on a couple of preaching tours around the Mediterranean, finding openings to tell people about Jesus.  Usually the first place he would go in any city was the synagogue – after all, Jesus was Jewish, Paul himself was Jewish, and both of them were interpreting the Jewish scriptures.  And that is what Paul did when he arrived in Athens, just before the story that _____ read for us today.

But in Athens, after visiting the synagogue and speaking with the Jewish community there, Paul goes out into the public square and takes an opportunity to preach to the non-Jewish residents of Athens, and that is the story that we heard.

And Paul begins by commending the people of Athens for their spiritual curiosity.  He talks about all of the statues to different gods that he has seen around the city, including a statue to an unknown God.

And into this context of a pantheon of gods, Paul tells them about the God that he worships.  He never tells them that they are wrong, but is rather presenting his God as another option.

And in contrast to an unknown God, Paul tells the people that the God that he worships is a very present God.  The God that Paul worships isn’t a statue, but is present in every place and in every time.  The God that Paul worships created everything in the universe.  To borrow Yann Martel’s language, this Divine Being is who is behind the material reality that surrounds us.

But not only that, the God who created the material world chose to become part of the material world in the person of Jesus.  God didn’t just create the world and walk away – God became present in the world.  On Christmas morning, I shared the image from author C. S. Lewis that it is as if an artist paints a landscape, then finds a way to step into the painting and become part of what they created.

And even though Jesus lived 2000 years ago, and died, and was resurrected, and then ascended into heaven, God is still very present with us by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God working in every atom of creation, in every person, in every rock, in every tree, drawing us all into the dance of God.

And so today, I invite you to embrace your spiritual curiosity.  I invite you to look beyond the material world and embrace the quest for what is in and through and beyond the material world that we see around us.  For God is very present, if only our senses are tuned in to notice.

God is present in the bread and the cup that we will share in a few minutes – every crumb of the bread and every drop of the juice is God saying to us, “I love you.”

God is present in all of the love that we share with one another and with the people in our lives.

God is present when we make an offering to help another, whether we are offering our time, our talents, or our treasure.

God is present when the sunlight sparkles on the water of the river.  God is present when the bird sings on the branch of the tree.  God is present when a piece of music speaks to our heart.  God is present when space is created so that those without a voice can be heard.

We aren’t computers.  We aren’t robots.  We aren’t driven by artificial so-called-intelligence.  We are living, breathing human beings, created in the image of God and given life by the divine breath.

And so let us embrace our spiritual curiosity!  Let us keep our hearts open to perceive that which is beyond the mechanical and material, and let us keep our hearts open to love.

And may it be so.  Amen.

 

 

“Cloud of Unknowing”
Kelly Latimore
Used with Permission.

"Of White Hearts and Love" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday May 3, 2026 – Mental Health Sunday
Scripture Readings:  Lamentations 5:15-22 and John 13:31-35

So… Lamentations… probably not the most popular book in the bible.  When I was putting together today’s service, I actually had to look it up in the table of contents – I thought that it was closer to the Psalms, but it is there in the midst of the prophets, right after Jeremiah.

Though if I had thought about it a bit more, I might have been able to guess where it is found, because we looked at Lamentations in bible study a couple of months ago; and I if I had remembered the context for this book, that would have given me a hint.

Lamentations is a collection of five laments, each one presented as a different chapter, lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple after the invading Babylonian army came through.  And since Jeremiah was prophesying at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, it makes sense for Lamentations to be the next book in the Old Testament.

When we lament, we cry out to God.  We complain about the unfairness of the world.  We rage at the injustices.  We ask God, “how long?  How long until you will make the world right?  How long until you will answer our prayers?  How long will you be silent?  How long will you ignore me and my cry?  How long?”

The people of ancient Israel have every cause to lament at this point in their history.  They have been taken away from their land, from the Promised Land, from the land that Moses had led their ancestors to after escaping slavery in Egypt and wandering in the desert wilderness for 40 years.  This promised land has now been taken from them.  And the temple too – the temple where they used to offer their sacrifices to God, the center-point of their religious life, the very home, the dwelling place of God – this temple has been reduced to rubble.

And the people lament.  They cry out to God.  God, why have you forgotten us?  Our hearts are sick, our joy is gone, our dancing has been turned into mourning.  Why, God, have your forgotten us?  Why, God, have you forsaken us?

The purpose of lament isn’t to try and justify suffering.  There often isn’t any explanation for suffering, or way to justify it.  The sole purpose of lament is to let out the pain, to let out the rage, to let out the grief.  And sometimes, just sometimes, by letting it all out, there is some relief felt because we are no longer keeping it all bottled up inside.

And if you think about it, lament is an act of deep faith.  Because if we didn’t believe that God could hear us, then there would be no point to it.  When we are yelling at God, when we are pouring out our anger and our pain, we are trusting that somehow, somewhere, God hears us.

I am going to circle around to our theme for today, which is Mental Health Sunday.  And I chose to read a lament today because sometimes lament is the only appropriate response to things.

In our world today, mental health disorders tend to be the illnesses that come with the most stigma attached.  Our society tends to downplay the impact of mental health challenges.  We wouldn’t say to someone with cancer, “Oh, you don’t need to see an oncologist. You just need to think positive thoughts and you will get better.”  And yet people think that it is OK to say to someone with an anxiety disorder, “There’s nothing wrong with you that a little optimism won’t cure.”  Likewise, we wouldn’t say to someone with a deadly infection, “You don’t need antibiotics – prayer will cure you.”  And yet people think that it is OK to say to someone with depression, “Medication won’t help you – you just need to pray harder and you’ll feel better.”

Society tends to blame people for mental health disorders, and fear people with mental health disorders; and as a result, people who are struggling can find it difficult both to admit that they are struggling, and to seek out help.  People with severe mental health conditions, whether it be schizophrenia or an addiction, can find it difficult to access other services not related to their mental health.  And all of this can lead to isolation.

And sometimes, the only appropriate response is to lament.  We lament the stigma in our world towards mental health disorders.  We lament the underfunding of mental health treatment programs.  We lament all of the barriers to access help.

And for those of us who have struggled or continue to struggle with our mental health, the words of a biblical lament might also apply.  How long, O God?  How long am I going to have to suffer?  Why, O God?  Why do you feel so far away?  Why have you abandoned me?  Why have my friends and family and neighbours abandoned me?

But you may have noticed – and since you have been here for the past half hour or so, and, I assume, have been paying at least a little bit of attention – you probably noticed that we didn’t just hear from Lamentations.  We also heard a reading from the Gospel of John.

And the reading that we heard is probably best known as one of the readings on Maundy Thursday.  This is a section from what is often called Jesus’s Farewell Discourse, running from chapter 13 to chapter 18 of the Gospel of John.  Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples, his beloved friends, and leaving them with his final teachings.

And he says to his friends, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I, Jesus, have loved you, you also should love one another.”

This is the heart of who we are as a church.  We are a community that loves.  We love one another.  We love God.  We love our neighbours.  We love the world that God created.  We know that we are loved; and we know that we are called to love.

It was an intentional pairing today, bringing together this teaching with Lamentations on Mental Health Sunday.  I said that lament alone won’t cure anything, but it can make things easier to bear when we aren’t keeping our feelings bottled up inside us.  In the same way, a loving community won’t cure all mental health struggles, but a loving community can make those struggles easier to bear.

Because we are not alone.  We don’t need to navigate the world alone.  We know that God is with us; but even at times when it is hard to sense God’s presence, we have the love of this community, the love of this church, always surrounding us.  And that love can make it a bit easier to put one foot in front of the other as we navigate our struggles.

In a minute, Natalie is going to be talking about something that we, as a church, can do to share the love of this church with the wider community; but I hope that the ultimate take-home message from today is a message of love.  God loves you.  Even when you are struggling, God loves you.  Even when you are pouring out your lament, God loves you.  And this church loves you too.  No matter what you are going through in your life, this church loves you and will travel every step of the way with you.

For just as Jesus loves us, we are called to love one another.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

 

Operation White Heart was started by Gary Brown Sr.
in 2022 in New Brunswick after losing a friend to suicide.
Each heart gives a message of:
“You are not alone”
“We care”
“It’s OK not to be OK”
“You matter”
After today, there is now a white heart in front of both
Westfield United Church and Summerville United Church.