Hallmark has failed me.  Hallmark does not have a card for every occasion.  I've looked, and they don't have Ascension Day cards.  Apparently there is no market for them or Hallmark would have them. 
           
Today is Ascension Sunday, the day designated when Jesus ascended to heaven.  Luke is the only biblical writer who mentions it.  He comments on it twice, briefly at the end of his Gospel and at the beginning of Acts.  But there is a difference.  In the Gospel, Luke says Jesus ascended on Easter.  In Acts he says it was forty days after Easter.  It seems that ascension is a literary device Luke uses.  In his gospel it represents an ending-the end to post resurrection appearances of Jesus.  In the book of Acts ascension represents a beginning, the beginning of the work of the church.  Why the difference?  Can they be reconciled?  Were there two ascensions?  Maybe the when of the Ascension is not the most important question. 
           
Molly Marshall-Green tells about living on the Mount of Olives with a missionary family during the summer of 1974.  While there she stumbled onto a marker on the north end of the crest of Olivet that indicated the traditional site of the Ascension.  She was a bit surprised because only a few days earlier she has seen a similar marker a little further north on the East Side of the slope.   So which is it?  Why can't we be sure about where something happened in the Holy Land?  Maybe where the Ascension occurred is not the most important question.
           
How did the Ascension happen?  Well, we aren't sure.  In Luke's Gospel we are told, "As he was blessing them, he departed from them and was taken up into heaven" (Lk. 24:51).  In our text from Acts is this description; "After saying this, he was taken up to heaven as they watched him, and a cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1:9).  This is similar to the description of the account of the Transfiguration in Luke.  There seems to be a blurring of the heavenly and the earthly, at least momentarily.  The cloud represents the presence of God as it did in guiding the wandering Israelites through the wilderness, as it did on Mt. Sinai, as it did at the Transfiguration.
           
Somehow Jesus disappeared, but exactly how there is no way of knowing.  What is as surprising as anything is the reaction of the disciples.  Jesus had disappeared before.  John seems to make a sub theme out of Jesus disappearing in his Gospel.  He has Jesus saying to the disciples, "I shall be with you a little while longer and then I shall go away to him who sent me.  You will look for me, but you will not find me, because you cannot go where I will be" (Jn. 7:33-34).  On another occasion, when what Jesus had said and done antagonized many of the religious leaders John wrote, "Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and left the Temple" (Jn. 8:59).  And another time when the leaders became frustrated with Jesus, John noted, "Once more they tried to seize Jesus, but he slipped out of their hands" (Jn. 10:39).  The most crushing disappearance was when he was crucified.  The disciples were mortified, gathered behind locked doors, trembling in fear at every sound, real or imagined.  Then the body disappeared and Mary Magdalene was a basket case.  Later the disappearing Jesus appeared to the disciples.  When they finally recognized him, they were excited.  And then came the Ascension, Jesus' final disappearance.  Was Jesus some kind of religious Houdini, now you see him, now you don't?  Was Jesus the first astronaut as John A. T. Robertson mused in his book But That I Can't Believe?
           
I’m reminded of what happened in a preschool Sunday school class.  The class was getting ready to have snack and the teacher asked the children to wash their hands to remove the germs before they ate their snack.  One little boy said, “Jesus and germs, Jesus and germs.  That’s all I ever hear and I’ve never seen either one of them.”
           
There is a sense in which the narratives that Luke writes about the ascension are similar to the experiences we have when someone who is very intimate in our lives dies.  Immediately there is a sense of shock and disbelief followed by a heightened awareness of the person’s life, distant and recent memories of encounters with the person come flooding into our consciousness, and our emotions are all over the charts from deep sadness and sorrow to moments of great laughter and ecstatic joy.  Then, as some time passes, the memories slip more and more out of focus.  We move on in life and the person who died continues to influence us but the level of intensity gradually subsides.  This description seems to track the disciples’ response to the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection.  
           
A small group of men set out to sea.  There is nothing unusual about that, and the event would arouse only a local and passing interest.  But a particular crew kept on going and going and, without changing direction, finally came back to the place from where they started.  Hardly knowing what they were doing, they had sailed around the world.  That was an event that made people stop and think.  Obviously, it had more than a local significance.  It had worldwide implications and eventually cosmic repercussions.  From it people drew the conclusion that the earth was not a plane but a globe, not flat but round.
           
It is worthwhile to notice that the conclusion drawn from the event was more like an act of faith than anything else.  The fact that the earth, despite all appearances to the contrary, was round was not an easy thing to demonstrate in the fifteenth century.  There were only a handful of people who were actual witnesses to the fact that the ship encircled the globe.  But there were some that drew the conclusion without hesitation and dared to venture into the unknown, proceeding upon its basic assumption that the earth is round and not flat.  They discovered continents, confirmed some of the guesses of astronomers and geographers, and added their testimony to what others were discovering in different but related fields, each new fact confirming and sustaining the original conclusion.  Ultimately our knowledge of the solar system emerged. 
           
We learn from the life and ministry of Jesus essentially the same way.  Our learning begins with an event from which general conclusions are drawn and on which people, in faith, are willing to base their lives.  The Ascension of Christ is an illustration of this principle.  Rather than when or where or how did the Ascension occur of Jesus occur, the important question that is raised is, "What does the ascension mean?"  In the biblical stories the Ascension decisively marked the end of the time and opportunity to be with Jesus in face-to-face encounters.  And it marked the beginning of a new era, a time of experiencing and relating to the presence of God in the community of followers of Christ known as the Church. 
           
The heart of the meaning of the Ascension is that Jesus is for us.  He was a pioneer and trailblazer of faith through his life.  And his ascension indicates that God continues preparing places for us.  These places both here and there are not so much geographical as they are states of mind.   
           
The Ascension signals a new awareness of God's presence with people and a new understanding by those early followers of Jesus of who they were and what they were to do with their lives.  Jesus had been tangible and visible.  With the disappearance of Jesus the disciples began discovering the presence of God disclosed and revealed in and through life experienced and expressed anywhere and everywhere.  The Ascension made it possible for people to grasp the insight that geography, tabernacle, temple, politics, social class, racial identity, creedal statements, or sexual identity does not confine or define God.        
           
The New Testament writers indicated that we need help, and we need to be reminded that the motivation for human goodness is pretty suspect as long as it depends upon us.  But that is the point of the gospel.  We do good or seek to do good because goodness loves us; and despite ourselves, goodness holds us accountable to God for the work that we seek to do for God's sake and in God's name.  We share in what Paul calls, "a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth . . . we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory."   The union of things in heaven and things on earth: what grander design could there possibly be? 
           
Indeed there have been those who have been so heavenly minded they were of no earthly use and those who were so earthly minded they were of no heavenly use.  The Ascension blurs such distinction and seeks to unite heaven and earth and make real that phrase we pray so often, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Those early disciples were gently or maybe not so gently, reminded that they had much work to do through their lives in the world.  The reminder is similar to the one Jesus gave to Peter, James, and John at the Mount of Transfiguration.  They wanted to build three tabernacles and remain there.  Jesus guided them down from the mountain of worship into the valley of need.  The will of God on earth as it is in heaven is to love people on earth as we expect to be loved in heaven.  Our eyes and hearts must not be carried away into heaven with Jesus because there is much work to be done on earth in Jesus' name. 
           
We know our work is not in vain because God is present in the world inviting us to do ministry like Jesus did when he was living and working in the world.  George Thompson has said, "The ascension means that when the road is as rough as sandpaper, when decisions are as complex as a Rubik's cube, when friends are few and things are caving in like a rock slide, we can lift up our heads in hope and expectation."
           
Jesus shifted the emphasis from the restoration of the past to the transformation of the present.  When times are hard, some people hark back to the "good old days."   
           
Jesus clearly implied there is no way back.  History is a stream of events and it moves forward.  Our task is to transform the present by taking the selfishness out of it.  Jesus went away and in one sense he was never more present than when he had disappeared.  Jesus said he would return.  Truth always comes back.  Truth never goes away; it is people who go away from truth. 
           
One mistake the early Christians made, and the mistake has been repeated many times through the centuries, was expecting Christ to return the same way he went.  Things seldom, maybe never, come back the way they go.  People we love return to us, but never exactly the same way they left us.  The first time Jesus came was in no way that anyone expected, but he arrived.  The first disciples watched the sky for Jesus' return.  But he hasn't come back that way and he will not. 
           
In the first chapter of Acts the Ascension is the beginning presupposition on which the church is based.  Indeed it was a commencement for the church.  The end of Jesus’ physical presence in the world became the beginning of believers embodying the spirit and power of Christ in their relationships in the world.  Christ returns daily.  Christ constantly is coming to us: in the need of a hungry child; in the face of the person searching for a home; in the beautiful smile of the strange; in the wrecked debris we make of the world; in the closed rooms of our secret lives. 
           
Peter Gomes comments on the commencement season, which will be upon us in a few weeks, as the time when people who have taught very little tell other people who have learned even less how good they are and how bad the world is.  And he adds, "Ever since I have been old enough to take some notice of the May-June rituals, it has struck me as odd that every year from time immemorial we claim to have produced a class of young men and women brighter and better than ever before; and yet, every year, the world into which they enter is described as even in a more perilous state than it was the year before.  Could there possibly be, . . . some connection?"
           
In a sense we do the same thing in the church.  We talk about how terrible the world is, how awful things are in the world, and how the world can't go on much longer before Christ returns.  We fail to realize Christ already has returned and desires to return again and again to the world through you and me, through the part of the body of Christ known as Glenview Community Church.  When things go poorly for the church, when the world falls apart, things come loose, and chaos threatens, it is good to know that the one who genuinely showed us what God is like and what we can become is here among us inviting us to do as he does, love the world for God's sake. 
           
I’ve shared the story about the man who was in prison.  The chaplain sought many times to visit him and he was rebuffed every time.  The chaplain died and a memorial service was held in the prison chapel.  The inmate who wanted nothing to do with the chaplain attended the service and one of his fellow prisoners saw a tear trickle down his face.  Afterward, the fellow prisoner said, “I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with the chaplain and yet, I saw you shed a tear in the service.”  To which the man replied, “He was the only Christ I ever knew.”
           
God is seeking to appear in the world.  God is counting on you and me to be able to appear.   God appears when we are Christ to each other and to the world.  This is how the Jesus who disappeared returns to the world.  If anybody ever designs an Ascension Day card, it should read, “The Disappearing Jesus: Whether you see him or whether you don’t, "Be Christ to each other.  Be Christ to the world.  Love the world for God's sake."