God at Work in Change

Gospel Reading: Luke 24:44-53

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

The season when change is in the air is fully upon us. It’s graduation season and we have at least 6 high school graduates in our congregation this year!  It’s a season when many people choose to retire and some of you in the congregation are among this group. I’ve also seen lots of for-sale signs in front of homes along my drive to church. I often call the Spring season at church the season of “Plaques and Claps” because we mark so many milestones at church, giving out lots of certificates and then we clap to celebrate! Transitions. They can leave us feeling joy, anticipation, excitement and they can leave us feeling uncertain, disoriented, and wondering what comes next.

Well, our encounter with today’s readings from Luke and Acts bring us alongside the disciples who stand at the edge of a tremendous transition. Jesus, their teacher, their Lord, the one who called them, walked with them, died for them, and rose again for them, is now leaving them. Luke tells us that Jesus led them toward Bethany, lifted up his hands, blessed them, and then “was carried up into heaven.”

And, as it’s recounted in Acts this morning, it says the disciples simply stand there staring upward into the sky. They are probably uncertain, disoriented and wondering what comes next… another surprise brought to you by Jesus.

Everything changes again for the disciples in that moment. Jesus, who departed them in death but came back, is now departing again. With the resurrection, the disciples may have thought that Jesus was permanently back - their companionship could continue. What they thought they had back disappearing. The future is again unclear.

And yet, in the midst of this transition into an unclear future, I think Ascension Day also offers the disciples a promise, and a calling.

Because, Jesus doesn’t abandon the disciples. Instead, he commissions them telling them: “You are witnesses of these things” as part of his blessing. In other words: the story is not over. In fact, it is just beginning. Jesus is not ‘leaving’ the world, he is ascending to the Father to sit at the right hand of God – being an authority over the mission of these Spirit-filled people that he commissioned to be his body in the world. On Ascension Day, The Church is created and next week on Pentecost The Church is energized by the coming of the Holy Spirit. And The Church becomes God’s instrument of continued action on earth.

One of my favorite poets, The Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite, wrote a sonnet called Ascension Day in his book “Sounding the Seasons.” The entirety of the poem is a beautiful 14-line summary of Ascension Day, and I encourage you to look it up. The first half of the sonnet resonated particularly for me this week. It reads:

We saw his light break through the cloud of glory

Whilst we were rooted still in time and place,

As earth became a part of heaven’s storyAnd heaven opened to his human face.

We saw him go and yet we were not parted,

He took us with him to the heart of things, […][1]

I love how Malcolm sums up the promise of Ascension Day: “As earth became a part of heaven’s story/ We saw him go and yet we were not parted, / He took us with him to the heart of things…”

The Ascension means heaven and earth are no longer separated by any distance. In Christ, heaven has entered human life, and humanity has been drawn into the life of God. Jesus ascends not to leave the world behind but to fill all things with his presence.

And there begins the story of The Church. Because Christ transitioned his disciples from listeners and learners to witnesses and evangelists on Ascension Day.

The church is not simply a building, though Church often happens in buildings. The church is the people of God, disciples through the ages; people who have been taken with Christ “to the heart of things.”

In the coming months, our congregation will experience a major transition. We are leaving this sanctuary after today while renovations take place. Over the next months, we will worship in a different space. Things may feel unfamiliar. Some routines will change. There may be moments when we feel a little like the disciples staring upwards, wondering what comes next.

Well, let Ascension Day remind us that God works through seasons of transition.

For a season, our worship space will change. But our calling as Christ’s disciples will not. We are commissioned, just like the original disciples in our Gospel lesson today, by Christ to proclaim the Gospel and to serve our community. That’s exactly why we are taking on this renovation project! Because we are preparing this place to continue serving as a homebase for generations of disciples to come.

And, while work commences in the sanctuary, will still gather around Scripture, we will still pray, we will still sing, we will still share Christ’s peace, we will still baptize, forgive, feed, and serve. And we will still be God’s people proclaiming that “earth becomes a part of heaven’s story” through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

That Christian calling is speaking powerfully today through the three young people being confirmed.

Confirmation is not graduation from church. It is not the end of faith formation. It is a public affirmation that Christ has claimed you in your Baptism and continues to call you into his mission alongside the rest of these disciples gathered here today. In your confirmation, you are reminded that you are a witness to Jesus’s resurrection and are called to participate in God’s work in the world through prayer and worship, acts of mercy, feeding and serving those in need, being there for a hurting friend and extending forgiveness.

The ascension teaches us that as Christ goes to heaven, he commissions us - his disciples on earth - to go and build The Church over which Christ reigns now in heaven at the right hand of God.

Change can unsettle us. But the disciples discovered that the ascension was not the end of Christ being with them — it was the beginning of The Church’s mission in Christ’s very presence seated at the right hand of God.

As we prepare for changes in our worship space, as confirmands affirm their faith, as this congregation steps into a new season together, we do so trusting that Christ has taken us, as Guite says, “to the heart of things” making heaven and earth a single piece.

We go into ventures as yet unknown to us. Let us go with courage and with faith together with Christ.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Rev. Ryan | May 17, 2026 | Ascension of Our Lord

[1] Guite, Malcolm. Sounding The Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year. “Ascension Day.” Page. 45. Used with permission from Canterbury Press, Norwich, UK.