Dock
Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 17 May 2026
Summary
This week Brigid talked to us about the Ascension of Jesus and why it matters for the life of the church today. Ascension is not Jesus disappearing into space or abandoning his followers, but Jesus taking his rightful place as King over heaven and earth. Through his death, resurrection and ascension, Christ opens the way for humanity to share once again in the life of God. The Ascension is both a coronation and a commissioning: Jesus reigns at the Father’s right hand, and his followers are sent out in the power of the Holy Spirit to witness to his kingdom here and now. Rather than standing still “looking up into the sky,” Christians are called to participate in bringing “pockets of heaven on earth” through prayer, worship, mission, justice, love and faithful witness in everyday life. The Ascension gives hope for the future reunion of heaven and earth, while also empowering us to live differently in the present because Jesus reigns now and continually intercedes for us.
Key Points & Takeways
1. The Ascension completes the story of Jesus’ victory - The Ascension is not an afterthought but a foundational Christian belief. Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension belong together. The Ascension reveals Jesus as the enthroned King and Son of Man from Daniel 7.
2. Heaven and earth are being reunited in Jesus - Heaven is God’s space; earth is humanity’s space. In Jesus, heaven and earth overlap perfectly. The resurrection begins God’s new creation and the Ascension confirms Christ’s reign over it.
3. Jesus is not absent, he is present in a new way - Through the Ascension and the coming of the Spirit, Jesus becomes universally accessible. Jesus continues to intercede for humanity before the Father. Because there is a human being in heaven, heaven and earth can never again be fully separated.
4. The church is called to participate in God’s kingdom - The disciples are told not to stand still looking upward, but to go and witness. Christians are called to announce that Jesus is already Lord. Mission is not escaping earth, but participating in God’s renewal of it.
5. Living in the reality of the Ascension changes everyday life - Prayer, worship and mission become participation in heaven’s reality now. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring “pockets of heaven on earth.” Hope for the future gives courage and purpose in the present.
Dock Discussion Questions
What stood out to you most from the sermon or passage this week? Why?
How does understanding heaven and earth as overlapping realities change the way you think about the Ascension?
The angels ask the disciples, “Why do you stand looking into the sky?” What might that challenge look like for Christians today?
Where do you see opportunities to bring “pockets of heaven on earth” into your everyday life, relationships or community?
What practical step could you take this week to participate more intentionally in God’s kingdom, through prayer, worship, service or witness?
Long-form, edited transcript
HEAVEN COME DOWN.
Our King Ascends.
Acts 1:1-11
Today we start a new series called ‘Heaven Come Down’. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, after all of the resurrection appearances, the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life finish and we start to read the Acts of the Apostles - what happened next?
Over the next couple of weeks we are going to look at the foundations of the early church, celebrating with Christians across the world with Pentecost Sunday next week and Trinity Sunday the week after.
Let’s read Acts 1:1-11
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
So Luke is writing here to his friend Theophilus, a second installment of what happened after Jesus’ time on earth. He reminds us that after his death and resurrection, over 40 days he meets with lots of people, proving he is alive again. And he instructed the disciples to wait on the gift from the Father, the Holy Spirit.
And then Jesus ascends into heaven. Before their very eyes, he is taken up into the clouds and like that is gone.
So what’s going on here? Why does Jesus ascend and where’s he gone? Why does this matter? What difference does the ascension actually make to our lives?
As a child whenever I heard this story, I had a couple of different images in my head. I adored the Mary Poppins movie as a little girl, so I sort of imagined Jesus with a Mary Poppins umbrella, turning his feet out and taking off with that big carpet bag that miraculously fits everything into it.
So either that, or Jesus is a bit like a spaceman, heading off to far flung galaxies and solar systems to tell them about God’s love too. The ascension is a bit strange, it could be hard to understand but Luke, the author of Acts treats it as foundational.
In fact an account of the ascension appears at the end of Luke’s gospel, the eyewitness account of Jesus’ life and again at the start of his next installment here in Acts. It seems that Luke thinks the ascension is both the best way to end the account of Jesus’ life, and death, and resurrection but also the best way to start the account of the creation of the church. That means it’s worth our attention.
So, first question:
Where has Jesus gone?
The Luke account of the ascension tells us Jesus was taken into heaven. It’s easy to imagine heaven as a place above the cosmos where God exists, probably sitting on a cloud with a huge beard. But that’s not how the Bible imagines heaven at all.
In biblical thought, heaven and earth are not two different locations somewhere within the same universe. They are two different dimensions of God’s good creation. Heaven is God’s space; earth is our space.
At the beginning of the Bible, in the Garden of Eden, heaven and earth overlap completely. Humanity lives fully with God, partnering with him in building a flourishing world.
But humanity chooses independence. Humanity wants to build a world apart from God where we are in charge - think of Genesis 3, the decision to disobey God and eat the apple, the tower of Babel where they try to reach God. And from that point on there is separation between heaven and earth.
Throughout the Old Testament, though, there are moments where those spaces overlap again. The tabernacle that God’s people carry around the wilderness and the temple that gets built in Jerusalem, both become places where heaven and earth meet. Even their designs echoed Eden, full of garden imagery. And right at the centre of the temple, the Holy of Holies is like a hotspot of God’s presence on earth.
But there’s a problem: God’s space is full of goodness, justice and beauty, while earth is full of sin, injustice and brokenness. The two are in conflict with one another. That’s why God’s people sacrificed animals at the temple: to absorb sin and brokenness and create a clean, good space where heaven and earth could overlap once more. But the hope of the Bible was never just for little pockets of overlap. The hope was a full reunion of heaven and earth.
And then Jesus comes. John writes that he ‘made his dwelling among us’. Literally, he tabernacled among us. In Jesus, heaven and earth meet perfectly in one person. He isn’t just in God’s space; he brings God’s space into ours.
Everywhere Jesus goes, he creates pockets of heaven on earth: healing, forgiveness, restoration, life. That’s why he teaches his disciples to pray, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’
Then comes the cross. It looks as though the whole plan has failed. But actually, Jesus becomes the final sacrifice that deals with sin, death, decay once and for all. Jesus, fully human and fully divine, makes a sacrifice so complete that it has the power to keep the reunion of heaven and earth together.
And that helps us understand the resurrection as well. The resurrection wasn’t just Jesus somehow coming back to ordinary life again. As N. T. Wright puts it, this was the beginning, the ‘pilot project’, of God’s new creation which is a joined-up heaven-and-earth reality. Because Jesus had dealt with sin and death, the life of the new creation could finally burst into the present world. Heaven breaks into earth.
That’s why Jesus’ risen body seems so strange in the gospels, perhaps why many of the disciples didn’t immediately recognise him. He is fully physical - eating, speaking, touchable - and yet somehow beyond ordinary limitations. The risen body of Jesus is the first thing fully at home in both heaven and earth, in both realities. A glimpse of what God intends for all creation.
That one day, a new earth will be made, where heaven and earth are fully together again. The vision that we receive in Revelation is this - death, decay, sin, these are no more. God’s presence fully with humanity and fullness of life is experienced for all. All achieved and given freely by God because God made us and loves us.
Which brings us to the Ascension. The Ascension is not Jesus disappearing into outer space. Or even some place above space. In the Bible, clouds are often a sign of God’s presence: the cloud in the wilderness during Exodus, the cloud filling the temple. So when Luke writes that Jesus is taken into the cloud, what he means is he is entering fully into God’s dimension, God’s space. Heaven.
Why did Jesus ascend?
When the disciples ask Jesus their final question before the Ascension, it reveals where their hearts and minds are still focused. They ask him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’
Even after the resurrection, they are still imagining a political victory. They are expecting that Jesus’ triumph over death will now lead to freedom from the Roman Empire. They are thinking nationally, politically, and locally. But Jesus redirects them towards something much bigger than they imagined.
And then that image of Jesus ascending on the clouds is a powerful and deliberate one from Luke for a couple of reasons. For the disciples and the early church with a Jewish worldview, this would immediately echo Daniel 7 - the Old Testament writer - who has a vision where ‘one like a son of man’ comes on the clouds into the presence of God and is given authority, glory and an everlasting kingdom. In Daniel, the beasts and monsters that this figure overthrows represent the powers of chaos and evil that dominate the world. In that vision the true human one - the Son of Man who suffered at the hands of evil and death - is vindicated and enthroned above them all. It would have felt so obvious that that’s what Luke is calling to mind. In other words, the Ascension is the evidence that Jesus is this son of man. The ascension is a coronation scene.
And there’s another layer to this as well. In the Roman world there was an idea that when an emperor died, his soul ascended to heaven and he became divine. Luke’s story quietly but brilliantly upstages that whole narrative. Not just Jesus’ soul, but Jesus himself - embodied, resurrected humanity - ascends into the presence of God. Caesar is not lord. Jesus is. The empire is the parody; Christ is the true king.
The ascension is about Jesus taking his rightful throne over heaven and earth. The New Testament repeatedly speaks about Jesus being seated at the right hand of God - the place of ultimate authority. In the ancient world, to sit at the right hand of a king was to share in royal rule and power. And yet Jesus is not simply seated beside God in some secondary chair. He shares the throne itself. The crucified and risen Jesus now reigns. But remarkably, this enthronement does not make Jesus more distant from us - it actually brings him closer.
While Jesus walked the earth physically, he was bound by space and time. He could only be in one village at a time, speaking to one crowd at a time. But in the Ascension, Jesus Christ becomes universally accessible. As theologian Richard Rohr puts it, the movement is from localised presence to universal presence; from seeing Jesus physically to encountering him everywhere.
That is why Jesus could say to his disciples in John’s Gospel in chapter 14, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ It sounds like a contradiction. But the Ascension is not about Jesus becoming absent. Jesus does not leave his disciples abandoned. Instead, through the Spirit, his presence is no longer confined to one place or one people.
Former Archbishop Rowan Williams writes that we often speak about heaven as ‘up there’ and earth as ‘down here’ because we instinctively imagine God as distant from us. But Jesus forces us to rethink that completely. He is both with God and with us; both there and here. And because there is now a human being in heaven, heaven and earth can never again be completely separated or as George MacLeod, founder of the monastic Iona community said: ‘There is a human being in heaven; one of us has made it.’
And this changes the role of the disciples too. The angels ask them, ‘Why do you stand looking up into the sky?’ In other words: don’t just stand there staring, wondering what’s going on. Jesus will one day come back the way he just left. In the meantime, the mission continues. Jesus tells them to stay in the city until they are clothed with power from on high. Again, notice the language: not escape from earth, but empowerment within it.
The ascended Jesus is still their advocate. The resurrected and ascended Christ now represents humanity from the throne of God itself. He brings embodied humanity into the presence of God and brings our prayers, our wounds, our lives before the Father.
The ascension could have been a moment of grief but in the Luke account, the disciples respond with joy. It’s not a funeral scene, they haven’t been abandoned. The mission continues. The Spirit is coming. History now has hope.
The Ascension is not the story of Jesus leaving. It is the story of Jesus reigning, interceding, empowering and becoming present in a new way to the whole world.
What difference does it make?
So this is good news. But what difference does it make to our actual lives? Let’s start by looking at the difference it makes the disciples’ lives. When Jesus tells the disciples that they will receive power from the Holy Spirit, the obvious question is: power to do what?
And the answer is: to be witnesses. To become heralds of good news. In the ancient world, when a new king came to power, heralds would travel throughout the empire announcing that a new reign had begun. Their job was not to make the king king. Their job was to announce that he already was.
And this is now the calling of the church, our calling too. Not to announce that Jesus might one day become Lord, but that he already reigns. All authority in heaven and on earth already belongs to him. But the power, the equipping, the resourcing, the joy of telling the world about it, that belongs to the disciples.
Jesus was truly human and the firstborn of the new reunified heaven and earth, with both the scars from the trauma he experienced and a fully resurrected body. And because of the resurrection and ascension, we are invited to participate in that way of living too. Fully human yet participating in the divine nature of God through the power from the Holy Spirit.
But what does that participation look like? Well it doesn’t look like floating off into space. But it does look like joining our human lives with God’s divine work.
In many ways, the Ascension is the moment the disciple and the church grow up. The disciples can no longer rely on physically following Jesus from town to town. From dependence on one man, one visible teacher announcing the coming of the kingdom of God, announcing that heaven will be reunited with earth to a spirit-filled participation from the whole church.
They are now entrusted with responsibility. Filled with the Spirit, they are sent to become witnesses to the ends of the earth. The church is now called to participate in God’s kingdom here and now - in that city and every city - living lives that witness to the reign of Christ.
To be the ones who bring pockets of heaven on earth. The simplest way to put it is the words we pray in the Lord’s prayer, the prayer that Jesus taught us. Your kingdom come God, on earth as it is in heaven. All authority in heaven and earth belongs to Jesus, and he has sent out his followers to announce that his indestructible, good life is available now, in the present.
This strong, ongoing life means getting to know the God of love ourselves in the deepest way, so that our imaginations and affections can be transformed as we’re liberated to love God and love our neighbor. We are invited to ascend too into this way of living.
This is why mission emerges so naturally from the Ascension. The disciples are not told to stand still staring into the sky. They are sent. And strangely, Jesus’ apparent absence is part of that calling.
Paula Gooder, a New Testament scholar based at St Paul’s Cathedral, describes the Ascension as ‘the great divine absence.’ Not because God has abandoned us, but because if Jesus were still physically walking the earth in his risen body, we would probably leave the work to him. She says we would stand at the edge making admiring noises while he did the ministry. The result of Jesus’ absence is that we step into places we never imagined we could go.
In fact, Paula Gooder writes that the great divine absence which is a vital ingredient in our call to mission. Jesus’ absence is part of God’s astonishing plan to show his love to the world, risky, vulnerable, apparently foolhardy - and yet God still entrusts the world and everyone in it to our care.
The disciples of Jesus do not know how they will manage without him. They do not yet know what they can do; and they do not yet realise what it will cost them to do it. But their task is not to wait for Jesus to return at the end of time before they act. It is to begin the work now of transforming the world we live in into the kingdom of heaven. It is not that God belongs there and we belong here. Quite the opposite. There is a human being in heaven: and because there is one, wherever human beings are is also, already, touched with the divine.
Jesus tells them to wait in the city til they are clothed with power than to go out to Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.
In other words, it is here in the city- this city and every city, the here and now where we live, work, study and rest, among other human beings like ourselves- that we are to work out what it means to be made in the image of God, for our humanity to be transformed by sharing in divinity. It is here, and now, that we are to build the Kingdom and live out the truth of God, until we discover for ourselves what is beyond this life, beyond our current capacity to imagine or comprehend.
We don’t need to just stand and look up, waiting for Jesus to come back. Or waiting for Jesus to bring heaven to us. It is all around us. There is a human being in heaven. The whole world belongs to God, across every boundary of time or space: and it is here in the city that we are to find him.
N. T. Wright says this is why prayer and worship matter so deeply. In worship, ordinary human beings are caught up into the life of heaven. In Acts, the disciples discover that their lives are now taking place in both dimensions at once. They live on earth while participating in the life and power of heaven. The church becomes living evidence that heaven and earth are being drawn together in Jesus.
In Hebrews 4:14-16
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
This passage emphasises both Jesus’ priestly role and his humanity. He is the only one who can stand in front of God and advocate on behalf of humanity, like the priests in the OT, and yet he also understands our weaknesses and sympathises with our struggles.
In Jesus ascending, humankind is brought right before God by one who can understand what it is to be human.
This is a bit like having a best friend who works for the prime minister or King Charles. Someone who loves you dearly who could get you an audience with the most powerful person in the country anytime you like. Politics aside, you would be daft not to take advantage of that opportunity.
That is the access that we have to God now because Jesus is ascended. We must make use of it! Make the most of our permanent welcome before the throne of God in prayer.
Later on in Hebrews we are told in chapter 12 to run with perseverance the race marked out for us, by fixing our eyes on Jesus. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
This is our encouragement to keep going. To keep praying, to keep hopeful, to run the unique race that God has set before each of us. To remember and acknowledge in our hearts where Jesus is now and what he has asked us to do.
All else will fade but Jesus will return. Heaven and earth will be united because Jesus has done everything needed to make that happen. We will live in a new heaven and new earth. Fully in the presence of God.
There is hope for the future. But we aren’t to stand looking up and just waiting. We are invited to participate in the coming of heaven in earth now. What will that look like for you this week?
Does it look like praying the Lord's prayers, that line especially about God’s kingdom coming on earth, as you walk along your road? Does it look like finding a group of people to run the race with you in a dock perhaps? Does it look like taking some action - giving financially, giving your time or energy to someone or something that God has been gently promoting you about for a while? Does it look like telling that colleague or friend about alpha? Inviting someone to church?
Or perhaps it’s worshipping in the face of something really difficult. Not in denial or ignoring what is hard, but boldly approaching God’s throne with all that is on your mind, and worshipping because despite all we are facing Jesus is reigning at the right hand of God. Advocating for you because he loves you. For no bigger reason, no smaller reason. Not by your own merit. Simply by his kindness.
On the days when this is hard…
Augustine:
The Resurrection of our Lord is our hope; the Ascension of our Lord is our glorification. Let us ascend with Him and “lift up our hearts.” But let us not while ascending be lifted up, nor presume upon our good deeds as if they were our own. For we ought to “lift up our hearts,” but “unto the Lord.” To lift up the heart, not unto the Lord, is called pride; to lift up the heart unto the Lord is called taking refuge. For it is to Him that ascended that we say, “Lord, Thou hast been our refuge.”
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ,
Thank you that you are risen, ascended and reigning over heaven and earth.
Thank you that you have not abandoned us, but through your Spirit you are present with us even now.
Help us not to stand still in fear or passivity, but to live as your witnesses in the places you have called us to be.
Teach us to pray, worship and serve in ways that bring glimpses of your kingdom into the world around us.
Strengthen us to keep running the race set before us, fixing our eyes on you, our risen and ascended King.
May your kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen.