[Hello everyone! I feel honored to be standing here before you. You have welcomed us to your church and received us with open arms in your homes. Thank you so very much! I speak a little Swedish, but I want you to be able to understand me, so now I will switch to speaking in English.]

In our American Congregational tradition, the Ascension, the story of Jesus rising up to heaven as the disciples watched, often seems to get lost in the shuffle, like an appendix in the body of Jesus' biography. But your celebration on this holy day rightly marks the importance of the event: the Ascension is a pivot point, a hinge between the events of Easter and Pentecost, and it provides an invaluable lesson about discipleship for believers everywhere.

Jesus has been appearing to his disciples on and off since the resurrection for more than a month. He can't stay with them indefinitely, but neither can he die again, and so we're told "he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight." It is a dramatic and memorable departure for the resurrected Christ. And there are two verses in particular that put that amazing event into context. The first is the question put to Jesus by the disciples: "Lord, is this time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" After having been with Jesus for so long, after all they had witnessed- remember, they're putting their question to one raised from the dead-the disciples still don't get it. They still think Jesus has come to be a political Messiah, to banish the Romans and restore Israel. They think the resurrection is the last piece in the arsenal Jesus will use to overthrow their oppressors. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Jesus ascends to heaven immediately after this misguided but familiar question.

The amazing visual image of Jesus rising to heaven expresses the truth that Jesus has gone to assume power with God the Creator, which means that all Jesus did and said and accomplished for the people with whom he crossed paths, in the few short years of his ministry, now applies to the entire world. Jesus did not come to save just Israel in the year 30 AD, but everyone everywhere always. The Ascension makes a local Jesus universal. Now that's not a big surprise, because we wouldn't be here following and talking about Jesus two thousand years later if that wasn't so. But it does speak to a tendency we all fall into, and that is to reduce Jesus to something far less significant than what he really is; to make him into a kind of personal trainer, a champion for the causes we happen to believe in, sometimes even a kind of Santa Claus. The 12 disciples had a limited view of Jesus that wouldn't quit, and so, at times, do we.

A few years back I visited a church in the States that had banners hanging around the sanctuary, some with words stitched on them. And one read, innocuously enough, "Improve your life through Christ." But the more I sat and looked at those words, something about them seemed askew. Of course being a disciple improves our lives, but that's really not the point. Christian discipleship is not a self-improvement regimen that is successfully finished when we feel good. It is participation in God's creation of a better world, and while we reap the benefits by participating, that's not where it ends. That's what the original disciples didn't get: Jesus is God, not just for them, not just for the church, not just within our hearts, but for the whole world. Our discipleship necessarily calls us to think about and be responsible for concerns beyond ourselves: neighbors, nations, the environment, even the cosmos. The suffering of someone on the other side of town or the other side of the world does affect us, because it holds back the coming of the kingdom. We're here, committed to Christ's church and to each other not just for our own benefit, but because we know we have been called as stewards and witnesses of good news and compassion in Rocky Hill, in Sweden, even, as Jesus said, "to the ends of the earth."

The other especially potent verse in this passage is this: "While Jesus was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?'" It's easy to imagine how the disciples must have felt to watch Jesus disappear right out of their lives: sad, abandoned, unsure how to proceed. The look on their faces must have been the same look we've seen on the faces of children left for the first time at summer camp, or on high-schoolers handed a test for which no studying has been done, or college freshmen as the family car pulls away from the dorm. For the first time, the disciples are on their own. They know Jesus has promised to be with them, and we know the Holy Spirit is coming, but that doesn't click for them yet; they're used to having Jesus by their side, able to ask him questions and hear his answers, even answers they don't understand.

Jesus could not have remained with the disciples forever, and, besides, it's time for the disciples to be on their own. Jesus has given them ample direction and inspiration and if they are to come into any kind of confident faith of their own, they need to begin to trust his teachings and prove his truths for themselves. Last spring my wife and I put our son Sam on a bus to Quebec City in Canada for a French language immersion experience. Sam was ready and we had faith in the leaders, but it was still his first time so far away from home without his parents. For Sam and every young person to develop the skills they need for life, they have to be allowed to fend for themselves. And so it is, the story suggests, with discipleship. As it was for the original 11, the Son and the Father are hidden from our eyes, too. When it comes to discipleship, don't you sometimes feel left to your own devices? It is hard to trust that God is with us, and is present and active in the world, especially when the world seems like such a godless place sometimes. It would be so much easier to follow, to do the right thing, if our eyes and ears could behold our Teacher and Savior.

As otherworldly as this Ascension story appears, it does express two very earthly, basic challenges every disciple encounters: first, that it's easy to forget that Christ is Lord of all, not merely our personal comforter and guide; and, secondly, that it's easy to feel abandoned by God, left to our own devices like the disciples looking into heaven with their mouths agape. But friends, this is what the spiritual life is all about. It is learning to trust in things unseen, to open ourselves to a world far greater and mysterious than our narrow views, to find our faithful way through trial and error. Discipleship can be hard and lonely work, and all through our lives we need to seek encouragement and examples and inspiration to keep us going.

But the question remains: when discipleship is at it's loneliest, when it is most challenging, what are we to do? When it seems a season since the Holy Spirit has blown in our lives, when doubt assaults us once more, what action can we take? Matthew's telling of the Ascension story provide our rock solid answer, and it's a simple one: "Gån fördenskull ut och gören alla folk till lärjungar, döpande dem i Faderns och Sonens och den helige Andes namn, lärande dem att hålla allt vad jag har befallt eder." Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

When the going gets tough, when faith is tested, when Christ seems distant, the last thing we as disciples should do is just sit there. Jesus' parting, final words to his disciples are a string of action verbs, imperatives: go, make, baptize, teach, remember. The greatest challenge to Christians of our time in any nation is apathy, the temptation to "wait and see," to hang back and delay until we understand or feel more confident. The Ascension signals a call to action, a command to get up and go: go to visit Rocky Hill or Sweden in the name of Christ, even though the hosts are unknown and the cultures different; go to the sick and the shut-in, even though we feel unsure and our words may fail us; go to serve, even though our skills may not seem the perfect match; go to speak the truth in love, though there may be a cost; go to the young and talk and teach, though separated by generations; go to pray, even though the conversation can feel one-sided.

Between Easter and his Ascension, Jesus again tried to make clear to his disciples that they had an identity and purpose beyond the one most obvious to them: they were not just Jews called to redeem their nation, they were saved souls called to bring good news to the whole world. And Jesus promised he would be with them, despite his physical absence from them. The disciples' struggle to live and trust those truths after Jesus left their sight is still our struggle. But for today, let our resolution be simply to go, go in Christ's name, go despite our doubt, despite our fear, despite all we cannot see. In ascending to God the Creator, Christ was glorified; on this day, Christ's earthly power is poured out upon all who believe, provided we choose to go.