I preached this sermon on May 17, 2026, at Christ Presbyterian Church in Milford, Ohio.
The lectionary text is Acts 1:3-5, 6-14.
I grew up in Holmes County, Ohio. I bet this congregation knows what that area is famous for! It’s one of the largest Amish communities in the world. In my small class at Holmesville Elementary School were Levi and Mae Hostetler, Effie Troyer, and Barbara Shetler, all Amish. Daniel Miller was Mennonite. They were classmates of mine through 8th grade, when they stopped attending state-required school. Rick Stutzman and Amy Yoder, while having Amish-sounding names, were English, like my twin and me.
Amish take the Ascension Day observation, the 40th day of Easter, quite seriously. They don’t wait until the following Sunday like we do. They have a phrase, “Himmel Faw Dawk” to refer to Ascension Day. It translates to “Heaven before day” (Himmel = Heaven, Faw = Before/For, Dawk = Day). “Himmel Faw Dawk”.
My sister drove a passenger van for Amish in the area; those vans were nicknamed a “Yoder Toter.” She’d be toting Amish all around on that day, definitely farther than a Sabbath day’s journey.
Every Amish shop and store closes for Ascension Day. Amish children don’t go to school. Manufacturing plants that employee a lot of Amish close as well – it’s useless to stay open. It’s like a Sunday Sabbath; only necessary work is performed. Cows get milked, but fields don’t get plowed. It’s a day of rest or visiting. Some of the Old Order – Swatzentruber – Amish hold a morning church service and have a meal after it. Other Amish families have picnics and hikes, and the boys go fishing instead of attending school.
I wish I knew more about this tradition while growing up in little Holmesville. I just knew that that neither Dan nor Levi would be available to play baseball during recess. But the Amish church elders make sure the holiday is observed. Perhaps the Hostetlers and the Millers and the Troyers and the Rabers have it right – we *should* make this a major religious holiday, but for what purpose?
We might think that the gospels overlook the Ascension. After all, Matthew doesn’t report it, neither does John. Mark’s disputed addendum gives it mention, and Luke gives it only a few verses.
But let’s give the gospel writers a little grace though. Their books are focused on presenting the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, the salvation secured by his death and demonstrated by his resurrection. The ascension is not as instrumental in achieving the salvation of humanity as the cross is.
That said, John still wrote in his gospel about Jesus going to His Father, or going up, or going away, or just going, some 16 times in his gospel. John writes in chapter 20:17, “Jesus said to her [Mary Magdalene], “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ And as I preached last Sunday, Jesus’ leaving is directly tied to the Holy Spirit’s coming. In John 16:7, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate (the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”
So the Ascension was on John’s mind, and if you read John’s writing in Revelation, he definitely shares the end result of it. In Revelation 3:21, John’s vision has Jesus saying in a letter to the church in Laodicea, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” That’s John’s take.
The Ascension is described in only two places in scripture and by the same author, Luke: at the end of his gospel and immediately following in the beginning of Acts that we read this morning. And this is where the New Testament shifts from the age of Jesus to the age of the church. Remember that Jesus says the Holy Spirit, or the disciples’ Paraclete, can’t come until he leaves. Jesus is preparing the way for the birth of the church on Pentecost by leaving and sending the Holy Spirit.
Luke tells of the birth of the church in Acts, but he starts with a detailed accounting of the Ascension, a narrative filled with hope, rebukes, commands, and promises. Let’s look at this narrative.
First, a Command and a Promise – In verses 4 and 5 of today’s reading from Acts, Luke writes, “4 While staying with them, he ordered [command] them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” This is in anticipation of Pentecost.
Next, hope in a question – I keep saying the disciples knew their Hebrew Scriptures, they knew many related prophesies, like this one in Ezekiel 37, “Thus says the Lord God:… 22 I will make them [the people of Israel] one nation in the land, … and one king shall be king over them all.”
That’s the hope the disciples had when they asked Jesus in verse 6, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” This echoes the two travelers on the Road to Emmaus in Luke 24:21, where they sadly told the unrecognized Jesus, “But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”
So this question, this expectation, this hope was for Jesus to liberate Israel from Rome’s brutal military occupation, from Rome’s domination, exploitation, taxation. From Rome’s crucifixion of dissidents.
The disciples thought they were on the front line of these prophesies coming true. Israel was going to be restored. Jesus conquered death; surely he could conquer the political power that was Rome. They weren’t expecting Jesus’ response.
It came in a rebuke, a promise, and a command – Instead of confirming the disciples’ hopes, Jesus corrected them. He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” But as each of us would do with a misbehaving toddler, we redirect them. Jesus doesn’t dwell on his admon’ishment, but redirects with a promise, “8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; – then the command – and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
This command was bigger than the disciples had imagined. They were asking about Israel being restored. Jesus side-stepped their question and instead redirected the disciples to a much larger purpose. The empowerment from the Holy Spirit would enable them to engage in a world-wide mission, “to the ends of the earth.” The disciples were looking locally; Jesus was gazing globally. This is a repeat of the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”
Then another rebuke and a promise, from an unexpected source – 9When [Jesus] had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. Here’s the Rebuke – 11They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
“Men of Galilee” – It sounds innocuous, doesn’t it? But what a reminder by these two presumably angels that these disciples were just men from Galilee, outsiders to Jerusalem. They weren’t called Jews, or Judeans, or Israelites. Just men from an insignificant place with their necks stuck in an awkward position, mouth hanging open, staring up to the sky, perhaps daydreaming at this point.
Now the promise, another redirect from the angels – “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” What a promise! Jesus will come back the same way you saw him go!
So why do the Amish, a people so deeply tied to the soil and physical labor, stop everything for the Ascension?
Ascension Day falls right in the thick of the hectic spring planting season. The soil has been tilled, the seeds are being sowed, and the clock is ticking. You get a spell of rain and the wet fields can back up planting well into June. The corn won’t be knee-high by the Fourth of July. To stop working for a full day during the busiest farming window of the year makes zero agricultural sense. Yet, that is exactly the point.
By closing their shops and stepping away from the fields, the Amish declare this truth: Production is not the purpose of existence.// Taking a day of rest in the middle of planting season is a radical act of surrender. It acknowledges that while man can prepare the dirt and plant the seed, the ultimate power of growth, life, and the future belongs entirely to the Creator. The Amish are a humble and modest people, and this is another way to show their humility.
Taking a break is what the disciples did. After they lowered their eyes from the skies, they headed for Jerusalem to the upper room – perhaps where the Last Supper was held? – and they surrendered. Their future belonged to God. They waited and “were constantly devoting themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14), so that they could be Jesus’ witnesses in the world, as He had commanded.
The Ascension means that Jesus’s time on earth has concluded. He has ascended into a time and space where time and space don’t matter.
What’s left in the wake of his departure are two promises: (1) the promise of his return—its time, place, and manner are up to God; and (2) the promise that the same Holy Spirit that descended on Jesus at his baptism will descend on his believers and equip them, will equip us, for ministry in Jesus’s name.
The departure of Jesus sets the stage for the beginning of the church — the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It’s not for the redemption of Israel, but rather the beginning of a much larger, worldwide mission.
As we wrap up the season of Easter, maybe we borrow a page from Amish wisdom and celebrate Ascension Day like the holiest of holidays. Go hiking with the Hostetlers, rest and reflect with the Rabers, fellowship with the Millers and Swartzentrubers. Buy cinnamon rolls at Troyer’s Bakery – ahead of time, not on Ascension Day, of course. Look up Troyer’s Bakery in Apple Creek – you’ll thank me. They’re huge! With a thick maple glaze!
The important thing for us is to take a breath after this busy Easter season, pray ourselves through Pentecost, then get back to sowing seeds, being witnesses to the ends of the earth.
In Jesus’ name.
