Good morning! We have some baptisms today, three little ones, Liam, Mia and Everett. Welcome to their families: the Dodges, Jenna and Melanie and their husbands Brian and Jake, and of course the larger family. Jenna and Melanie grew up here at St. James and (wonderfully) were baptised with their siblings Ryan and Chelsea in this very font.
I joke with the Dodges that they’ve set my record for sacraments administered for a single family. We’ve done several weddings and baptisms together, and of course Eucharists. One of you needs to get ordained so we’ll have that one covered. We’re working toward all seven.
Welcome also to the Clarks, who joined St. James about 4 years ago when they moved up from the city. Today we’ll be baptizing their youngest, Everett, but their two older kids, Emerson and Athena, were also baptized here, together, in June, 2023.
So, a big day for these families and for our church!
Like with last week, I’m mindful of all we have going on today--baptisms, our Annual Spring Appeal (someone will be saying a few words about that at announcements). It’s the choir’s last Sunday, and we also have a Holy Communion class for kids right after the service this morning.
But let me say a few words about this time we’re in in the church year, and our reading this morning from the book of Acts.
We’re now in the season Ascensiontide, the shortest season in the church year, the ten days between the Ascension of Jesus (as he rose up into heaven, the last earthly sighting of him by the disciples); that was last Thursday; and Pentecost, next Sunday, when the Holy Spirit comes down and the church is born. Just ten days. If you miss one Sunday, you miss the whole season, it’s that short.
The Ascension itself is a proper feast day, in fact a Holy Day of Obligation in much of the Christian world. In some European countries kids have off from school on Ascension Thursday, whereas here, even regular churchgoers barely know of it. That’s why our reading from Acts, which tells the story, is carried over into today, the Sunday after, so we don’t miss this important moment altogether.
Acts tells us that after fifty days appearing to his disciples in his resurrected body, Jesus takes them up to a mountain and leaves them, ascending up into heaven like Enoch and Elijah were said to have done before him. Before he goes he instructs them that it’s their job, now, to be his witness to all the world. After he’s gone all they can do is stand there and stare up into the sky, but two men, or angels, point them back down to earth. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven?” And so the disciples go back down, without their teacher, and learn to carry on his work as he asked them to do.
I always feel with this passage like I’m in the presence of something very deep, spiritually. Maybe it’s the mountain, that archetypal meeting place of the human and divine, earth and heaven. Another story that makes me feel this way is the Transfiguration; in fact, these are often confused. The transfiguration took place during Jesus’ earthly life. We read it every year on the last Sunday before Lent begins. Jesus and two disciples, James and John, climb a mountain. Like here, they want to stay up there; and also like here, Jesus (or the angels) want them to go back down.
Jesus goes up, but that’s not what he’s asking of them.
This story is not as much to me about the ascent or Ascension of Jesus as it is about Jesus pointing us down to earth.
There’s a tradition of footprints in a rock. If you go to the Shrine of the Ascension outside Jerusalem there’s this rock there, with Jesus’ footprints in it, marking the spot where he went up into heaven. Of course it’s some geological formation from back in deep time millions of years ago. But that doesn’t make it any less profound, in my opinion.
You find this in Buddhism, too, the tradition of the Buddha’s footprints in the rock, to show the groundedness required of the spiritual life. Paradoxically we think the spiritual life is about rising up above everything, when really it’s about planting your two feet in the ground, on this earth, where you belong right now, and making your mark, your impression, on it.
There’s another thing that Buddhism and Christianity have in common. It’s a style of meditation that the Buddhists call “dark retreat” and Christians the “apophatic” way. The idea is that you enclose yourself in dark, removing all outward distractions so that you can go inward, and down, getting out of your head, and into your heart, down to the ground you stand on, further down to the earth the holds you, down below that, all the way to where your sense of self begins to disappear, or just not really matter.
It’s the opposite of spirituality that goes up, into the air, and towards the light. There’s an equally profound and storied path of going down, deep within, coming into realization of how small we are and how little we know, and then using that awareness to engage the world in a more meaningful way.
Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
We belong right down here: caring for our neighbor, tending the earth, planting our gardens and serving one another. And nothing points us right down here quite so much as a baptism. Being dunked in water, smudged with oil, and using our voices to promise to serve Christ in all persons, right where (and wherever) we are. Amen.