Sermon for Ascension Sunday

preached by the Vicar, Fr Christopher Woods on Sunday 17 May 2026

Since Easter, we have heard repeatedly the beautiful, unsettling testimony that Jesus is alive.

Mary Magdalene meets him in the garden and mistakes him for the gardener. Some of his disciples meet him on the road to Emmaus, where he opens the Scriptures and is made known in the breaking of bread. He stands among frightened friends and speaks peace. He shows Thomas his hands and his side. On the shore of Galilee, he turns failure into abundance by encouraging the disciples to have faith in their skills to catch lots of fish.

These stories bear witness to the bodily resurrection of Jesus. The risen Christ is not a ghost, not a memory, not an idea kept alive by devoted followers. He is alive. He is the same Jesus who was crucified, still bearing the wounds of love; and yet he is also transformed. His humanity, which God took to himself in the Incarnation, is now filled with resurrection life.

On Thursday we celebrated the Ascension. At first, it may seem like another loss: Jesus taken from his friends just when they had begun to understand that death had not defeated him. But the Ascension is not simply a parting. At Christmas, God comes down into our humanity. At the Ascension, our humanity is taken up into God.

That is the astonishing claim of this feast. Jesus does not abandon the earth in order to return to heaven. Rather, in him, human life is brought into the very life of God. Our flesh, frailty, wounds, longings, labour, tears and hopes — all that it means to be human — are carried into the presence of the Father.

The Ascension is not about absence. It is about a deeper presence.

Jesus is no longer present in one place, at one time, in one visible body walking the roads of Galilee and Judaea. He is present now in a new and more expansive way: through the Holy Spirit, in the Sacraments, in the Church, in the poor, in the wounded, in the gathered community, and in the mission of his people. The one who ascends is also the one who promises, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is why St Paul can speak of the Church as the Body of Christ: not merely an organisation that remembers Jesus, but his living, visible, active presence in the world. That is both a comfort and a calling. It is a comfort because it tells us that we are not abandoned. Christ intercedes for us and draws us with him. Nothing truly human is alien to God’s compassion.

But it is also a calling, because if we are the Body of Christ, then we are not allowed to stand still.

In the reading from Acts, the disciples watch Jesus being lifted, and they gaze intently into the sky. It is understandable. They have loved him, lost him, received him back from the dead, and now see him taken from their sight. Of course they look upward. Of course they are bewildered.

But then two men in white robes ask, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” It is a gentle rebuke, but a real one. Do not stand there staring. Do not turn wonder into paralysis. Do not make faith into nostalgia. The Ascension is not an invitation to escape the world, but to be sent into it.

Christ ascends, and the disciples are sent. They are sent to witness, to bless, to baptise, to forgive, to teach, to heal, to serve. They are sent not because they are strong, but because Christ is their strength. They are sent not because they have understood everything, but because they have encountered the risen Lord. They are sent not because the world is ready, but because the world is loved.

The Gospel gives us the same movement. Jesus entrusts his own mission to his disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” It is an immense commission, far beyond their strength, imagination or confidence. And yet it comes with a promise: “I am with you always.”

The Ascension also gives dignity to ordinary human life. Bodies, places, work, friendship, justice, beauty, and the earth itself matter. Christ has not discarded human life like a garment he no longer needs. He has taken it into glory.

And this is where today’s reading from John’s Gospel deepens the picture. On the night before he died, Jesus prays not for escape, but for his friends. He prays that they may be one, that they may be protected from evil, that they may share his joy, and that they may be consecrated in the truth.

That should give us hope. Jesus knows his disciples will be fragile. He knows they will fail. He knows they will misunderstand. And still, he entrusts them with his mission. The Church has never been perfect. The first disciples doubted, argued, fled, misunderstood, and sometimes got almost everything wrong. Yet Christ still called them, sent them, and made them witnesses.

So we need not wait until we are flawless before we begin to live as Christ’s Body. We begin where we are: with our mixture of faith and fear, courage and hesitation, generosity and weariness. The Ascension tells us that Christ’s work continues through ordinary, imperfect people made alive by his Spirit.

Today we receive this feast not as a farewell, but as a commissioning. Christ is ascended; therefore our humanity is honoured. Christ is ascended, therefore the Church has work to do. Christ is ascended; therefore we do not stand staring at the sky.