This sermon was preached on Ascension Day, 29th May 2025 at St Peter and St Andrew Church, Corby.

Have you ever been caught daydreaming, staring vacantly into the distance? My wife tells me that I do it fairly often. I’m sure I’m not the only one. You are off in another world, in your own thoughts. 

People have different ways of daydreaming. Some people awkwardly smile with their eyes wobbling gently as they look off to the side. Some people, like me, do a weird, contorted face. When I am doing this, I have to deal with the embarrassment of people going, ‘do I have something on my face?’ and I have to respond, ‘No, I was actually off in my own world, not paying attention to the slightest thing you said. Sorry.’ Some people live up to the phrase staring out into the distance by, you guessed it, staring out into the distance.  

I like the third kind of daydreaming because it has multiple purposes. It can be used for daydreaming, but it can also be used as a final look to see a job well done or see a destination reached. I imagine that is the kind of looking out God did when he had finished creating the world on the sixth day. Or it’s that final shot in the movie when the hero looks up into the heavens because now the battle has been won, and the story comes to an end. 

On Ascension Day, when Jesus ascended into heaven, his disciples were left staring into the heavens as Jesus’ time on earth came to an end. To any onlooker, the disciples were daydreaming as they stared off into the sky. But unlike a hero in a movie, this was not the final scene, and it was not the end of the story. In fact, Jesus’s ascension was only the beginning of the story for the disciples. 

When Jesus ascends into heaven, two men in white robes, who are probably angels, come and stand next to the disciples and ask them, ‘Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?’ To me, it feels like the angels are asking the disciples, ‘Why are you staring off into the distance like it’s the end of the story? Don’t you know that it’s only the beginning?’

You could forgive the disciples if they felt like the story had come to an end. Jesus, their Lord and teacher, the Son of God, had lived among them, died and then came back to life. How incredible is that? He was gone, and now he is back. Sin and death are defeated, and now there is eternal life in Jesus. How could you have anything better than to have Jesus, the Son of God, with you? So, if this Jesus is now going, I can understand why they could feel like the story is over, like the high point has come and gone. 

But the story is only just beginning. The best is yet to come. Jesus had given the disciples a mission. He told them to stay in Jerusalem and ‘wait there for the promise of the Father.’ He said to the disciples, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ Jesus’ Ascension was not the end of his story; rather, it was the beginning, where the good news of Jesus would be shared until it spread to every corner of the world. The disciples couldn’t stay looking at the heavens for Jesus, because there was his work to be done on earth. 

I sometimes wonder if we ended up doing the same thing as the disciples. We have all our Easter celebrations where we rejoice that Jesus is alive, but then once the Easter season has come to an end, it sort of feels a bit ‘So, what do we do now (at least until Christmas)?’ Sometimes we stand in church feeling a bit dazed as to what is going on. Maybe some of you are doing that right now. But remember, Jesus has given us a mission to go out to the world as his witnesses. As Jesus’ followers, we continue his story so that all the world may know that he is God our Lord and Saviour. 

What does today mean to you? What does Ascension Day mean for you? Is this the end of Jesus’ story, or is it the beginning of his work through you and all his followers since the first disciples? As we remember Jesus’ ascension, let us not look at the heavens, but let us go out in the power of the Holy Spirit to tell the world about Jesus, our Lord, our God, our Saviour. 

Amen.