June 1, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53
In Luke's Ascension story, Jesus opens the disciples' minds to the scriptures and sends them out. Rev. Derek van Gulden remembers a doctor in El Salvador, calm through earthquakes and war, reading the passage to a boy in a wheelchair: Jesus ascended with wounds of his own. We find hope in our calling, and in knowing others share it.
Transcript
Gracious and holy God, I ask this morning that you move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your love, and help me this day not to be the instrument of my own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every step and every breath, in every moment of every day. Amen.
Today I want to focus on the Gospel of Luke that Conan just finished reading. There are many things going on. I think I say that often, so many things in a paragraph. But when I'm reading during the week and I'm praying and I'm meditating with scripture, I look for a word or two that jumps out at me. Two of them did in this passage. When Jesus opens them up to the Scripture. And then tells them from the Hebrew Bible what he has done, how he has fulfilled that, and then gives them a commission and tells them to go out to all the world that they know of and share these words to free the oppressed, to get people to repent, which, if you remember, means turn around, turn back to God.
I don't know about you, but there are some times when. I wake up or sometime during the day go. I'm not sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to. God. Well, I know I have a vocation you called me to. And I know that I've walked the path you set before me. But am I truly doing what we each should be doing?
I go to this piece of scripture, the ascension of Jesus in Luke, because there, as I said, I hear those words, those words that Jesus gives us, that opens us up, opens everything up for us to do that work. If we choose to listen, if we choose to take a step, maybe two. And what I find in that is great hope. I don't know if you like me, but I look for hope everywhere I can these days because it feels like it's fleeting. Getting smaller, going away. And the hope I find is not. The work I'm called to do that we all are, which is great, but knowing everybody else has been called to do the same thing. Meaning people benefit from what we do to help them and we benefit from what they do. Hearing those same words.
Now, throughout many Christian churches in the world, most of the time we're hearing the same scripture because it comes from the Common Lectionary. A number of scholars around Christianity got together and decided they would do things on a three year rotation. This is your sea. This is the year of Luke. Next year will be a Matthew B, Mark and John jumps in there all over the place. But what it means.
Sometimes on our live streaming. As a friend of mine from Kenya, Judith, I met Judith when I was in Kenya. Oh my God, it was quite a while ago in oh five. Her and her sister Maureen. And we have kept in touch and Judith comes on when she can. And there are times that afterwards I'll get a really exciting WhatsApp. Call from her or text message and she said, Papa, we heard the words you guys heard and we heard a sermon that parallels What you said. Isn't that cool? It is cool.
I have a friend in, El Salvador who I met when I was down there doing some medical relief. And I remember when he met him. This was back in two thousand and two after a lot of earthquakes. And he was had a group of medical students with him, and they invited me to come along. And we were seeing people underneath the trees on the side of an inactive volcano. And all of a sudden the ground just shook. Aftershocks can be as scary, sometimes more so because they come so often and everybody scattered. And I stood there and he stood there and he goes, I go, should we go somewhere? He goes, no, any place is as good as another. And we're sitting here comfortably. And then he said in his lifetime he lived through two major earthquakes, three hurricanes, a war in El Salvador that raged for twenty one years and was brutal. And now, he said, the worst thing is the dollarization of their country replacing their money with the US dollar, which is another way of colonizing people.
And I said, so how have you done this? Maintain this calmness that you have? And he says, because my father and I read Scripture every morning. His father was a Pentecostal pastor. And he said, the words that we heard two days ago was the Ascension story in Luke. And he says, I know that I am called, even though I feel like I'm in a place that no one can imagine. I am still called to go out and do the work, which is what he was doing.
And I said, is there anything else? I'm taking notes because I hadn't figured any of this out yet. And he said, yes, my father and I celebrate communion every single day, whether other people are with us or if it's just the two of us. And sometimes when I'm away, he does it with himself. He said those moments, those moments where they sit down and they break bread in the presence of God and of Christ. And when they invite others in, they share that they share that beautiful meal of hope and of love. Later.
I think a couple of weeks later, I was back working with him again and watched the most remarkable thing I think I've seen and heard. I was out with them again and he was seeing people diagnosing them. The medical students were kind of doing the preliminary stuff under trees, whatever. And a young boy was wheeled up in a standard wheelchair from the US. That would be like going on our front lawn. And one they're not made for that. And he was crippled. Wasn't hard to tell. And he came up. To see Oscar and Oscar say, what can I do for you, young man? He goes, doctor, I'm crippled and I, I feel lost. I feel like I've been pushed aside by society. I feel that I don't know. I know my disease won't go away, but I just I'm not sure where I fit in.
And Oscar sat down and he read this piece of scripture. This is a time in my life where I kept a journal of everything that went on every day. And he listened. The boy to Jesus ascending into heaven. He goes, how can I be like Jesus when I'm disabled? And Oscar looked at him and said, do you know the story of Jesus resurrection? And the boy said, yes. And he said, so you know that Jesus was disabled too. He had holes in his hands. He had massive wounds in his feet. He had a big gash in his side. There were things that he couldn't do physically. We assume. And when he ascended, he ascended in a human body has Jesus. Who had disabilities?
This is just another way that I reflect on things I have witnessed and how it is inspired by Scripture. Jesus tells the disciples what he wants them to do. It's not new for them. They have heard it. Free the oppressed. Get people to repent and forgive. And he ascends into heaven, and the disciples pass that out. And years later, here we are. The message is still the same.
We can bring hope to anybody by sharing these words, by sharing the love of who Jesus was. We can do it by reading. And we also do it by the way we live our lives, how we move through each day. Both are important. Doing those, you bring hope to those around you. And if they're doing those things too, we get hope from them.
Nothing is ever hopeless. Will I say that? Ask me tomorrow. But I believe that there are ways that we can walk together and lift each other up. And the words are right here. They're all throughout the Bible. But today's story of the Ascension for me is one that's a definitive. This is what we're called to do together with others and with the world. May you find hope in the work you are called to do, and may you get hope from others as well. Amen.