After His suffering, He showed Himself to these men 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.  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.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit..."  After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid Him from their sight.  They were looking intently into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.  "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand 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."  Acts 1:3-5 and 9-11

Does anyone know what we might call a "wise" saying or, perhaps a familiar saying, something your parents or grandparents may have said to you in order to teach an important lesson?

After taking a few answers, I showed the kids what I had brought to Chapel that day:  a kite, a playground ball, and my six foot stepladder from home.

"Remembering that today is Ascension Day, what familiar saying might I have been thinking of when I prepared today's lesson?"  (Kite, ball, ladder...)

"What goes up, must come down."

I've learned about this 'what goes up, must come down' stuff several times with my ladder.  That step on the very top, the one with the label, see it there, the one that says, "This Is Not A Step" - well, that's the truth!  Believe me, you don't want to use that as a step...and it took me at least three times before I learned that lesson...the hard way.

"What goes up, must come down," isn't just a wise or familiar saying, it is also a law, if you will.  This saying demonstrates one of Sir Isaac Newton's Three Laws - The Law of Gravity.

O.K., the junior high kids know that Newton's Law of Gravity is a bit longer and more complicated than this, but 'what goes up, must come down,' is certainly a part of that law.

Now Jesus actually did the opposite of what this Law of Gravity says.  He first came down...and then He went up.

You see, Jesus wasn't bound by this law or any other law for that matter.  Jesus, because He is the perfect Son of God, didn't need the Law.  In fact, Jesus turned the Law upside down.  For one thing, as I just mentioned, He first came down...and then went up.  That's the opposite of what we would expect.

And who would ever expect God's only Son to leave His heavenly throne and come down to earth to live among us, to suffer and to die for us and our sins?  That's backwards to all our thinking, but this is exactly what Jesus did...because He loves us so very much.

Like me falling off the ladder, all of you have fallen, too.  The first sin, in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve, is called The Fall.  Just like me doing something wrong by standing on the top step of the ladder, all of us do wrong things - we all sin and have fallen short of what God commands.

But Jesus kept the Law perfectly for us - He suffered for us, died for us, rose again on Easter Sunday, and today we observe that He also ascended back into heaven where He sits at God's right hand.  Ascending back into heaven shows that Jesus successfully accomplished what He set out to do for us, to save us from our sins.

"What goes up, must come down," is still an O.K. saying to remember when we think of Jesus though because of what the angels said in today's reading: "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."

Not only do we have the assurance that Jesus defeated sin, death, and the devil and now sits at God's right hand watching over us, but we have His promise that He will one day return, come back down to earth, and take us to live with Him in heaven for all eternity.