"There'll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover tomorrow when the world is free." 60 years ago this wartime song came to fulfillment. 60 years ago the guns were silent, death no longer rained from the sky, the evil dictator was dead by his own hand. Two soldiers, an American and a Russian climbed across the girders of a blasted bridge over the Elbe River near the city of Torgau and joined hands. A pall of smoke and dust hung over the cities of Europe as well as Britain. London, Manchester, Coventry were shattered. Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, and Cologne lay in ruins. Out of the rubble crawled a people desperate to live. Prison doors were opened but in many cases the prisoners were too weak to do anything but give a smile to the liberators. Japan still awaited its incineration.

Henry Stinson, the secretary of war in the Roosevelt administration wrote these words:

"As I look back over five years of my service as secretary of state of war, I see too many stern and heart rending decisions to be willing to pretend that war is anything else than what it is. The face of war is the face of death, death is an inevitable part of every order that a wartime leader gives."

As you walk down the aisles of the new Museum of War here in Ottawa and view the tanks and guns on display, remember Stinson's words, "The face of war is the face of death". All veterans will understand that as they remember those times. Whether the fighting is to liberate or protect, the tools of war are nevertheless the tools of death. War may seem at times unavoidable and inevitable but it is always about death dealing.

Anyone who believes that Jesus will return to earth with an army of angels to wreak vengeance on the unrepentant, the unsaved, while the "saved" are raptured to heaven from where they may view and savour the divine carnage, they have not read, let alone studied the gospels. They obviously do not know Christ the Prince of Peace.

Today is Ascension Sunday, that time in the Christian year when we remember Jesus final departure from the world. For 40 days after his resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples in various forms, entering a room where the doors were closed, offering the wounds on his hands and his side the disciples' touch, or forbidding them to touch him. He meets them on the road and isn't recognized until later in the breaking of bread. He visited them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and prepared a meal of fish. And then finally he invites his friends to go with him to a hill near Bethany west of Jerusalem. After bidding them farewell he is taken up into the clouds and disappears. While the disciples stand there in amazement looking up into the clouds they hear a voice, turning they see two men in while. Are they the angels that stood by the open tomb and had asked " Why do you seek the living among the dead?".

The angel asks them why they are standing there looking up into the clouds for he who they saw depart will return again the same way as they have seen him leave. No return with death dealing power is here mentioned. The disciples leave with joy and anticipation for Jerusalem to await their empowerment.

Thus begins the Book of Acts, the story of the early church, the account of Stephen the first martyr, of Peter and predominantly the mission of Paul out in the Roman empire.

You may remember that on Passion Sunday when we recalled Jesus arrest, crucifixion, his trial and torture , his crucifixion and death, I suggested that we can see the presence of Jesus in the victims of our time, in the poor , the sick, the disadvantaged. Today I want to suggest that we can also see some evidence of the return of the Christ in power. No, not the usual forms of power such as military weapons, weapons of mass destruction, dynamite strapped to ones body or nuclear weapons. Jesus offers us other forms of power. Let me illustrate.

In 1955 Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery Alabama usually took the bus to work. She boarded the bus, paid her fare and then moved to the back of the bus, the area that was set aside of the blacks. On this day, however, Rosa paid but remained in the front, the area set aside of whites. Her action let to an uproar, a bus boycott by the blacks. Her simple act triggered the beginning of the civil rights movement throughout the American South. Pete Seeger sang " If you don't see me in the back of the bus, if you don't find me nowhere, come up to the front of the bus, I'll be riding right there."

Martin Luther King gave powerful leadership to that movement. He had a dream that someday the sons of former slave owners and the sons of former slaves will sit down together in peace. It was a peaceful movement though opposed by force. King himself was assassinated. I believe that I can see something, a glimpse of the power of the returning Jesus in that movement.

In 1980 Oscar Romero the archbishop of San Salvador was assassinated. He had been a rather conservative churchman until one of his priests who had been working with the peasants was killed. Romero changed and became a supporter of the poor. The church hierarchy in Rome and particularly he who is now the pope gave him no support, in fact they vigorously inveigled against Liberation Theology, which was developing in Latin America. I can see something of the power of the returning Christ in that movement.

And there are many others. Some years ago I had lunch with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Toronto. He is a diminutive figure with a funny voice, but eyes that probe deeply into one. I felt that I was in the presence of a powerful force. His leadership in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has made a great impact on South Africa after the apartheid era. Here too was the sense of the presence of the returning Jesus.

Stephen Lewis, a Canadian, like Jesus a Jew, he has been working his heart out to alleviate the AIDS pandemic of Africa with little help from the powerful, the wealthy countries. One can see the presence of the power of the returning Christ in him.

Last week marked the death of Bob Hunter. Back in the seventies he was a hippy journalist in Vancouver. He heard about the US intention to test a nuclear weapon on the Island of Amchitka near Alaska. He set out with some friends in a boat in order to get in the way of that test. They were prevented by the navy from getting there and their efforts were a failure but out of that failure there developed Greenpeace which is well known throughout the world for its efforts to protect the environment. Not everybody likes Greenpeace, many its antics seem too far out, stunts, I suppose. However I feel that in the organization, in their dedication to make a difference, I can see something of the presence of the returning Christ in power.

Undoubtedly you, as I, have watched the pictures of the death and "resurrection" of the pope. We have seen the ornate Sistine Chapel where the papal conclave met to chose a new pope. We have seen the opulent St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. As I watched I was confronted a by a question: is this what Jesus had in mind? And as I look around here, a much humbler place of worship I wonder the same question, is this what Jesus had in mind? And I look at myself and my career in ministry and I ask myself, is this what Jesus had in mind? Did I have my eyes too much into the sky and not nearly enough laterally out into the world to see what needs to be done there?

Last week I participated in the final service of the church in Toronto where I had ministered for 16 years. Because of demographic changes the churches decided to amalgamate with another congregation in order to have a more powerful ministry in North Toronto. The church is a very beautiful building and it was a sad event. In speaking to the congregation I reminded them of some of the highlights during my time there such as the sponsorship of a family of 12 from Laos. It was a fantastic experience. At the close I reminded them of the words of commissioning that I used each Sunday at the close of the service: Go into the world with a daring and a tender love. the world is waiting for you, go in peace and may all that you do be done because of love. And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you always." I encouraged them to go into their new mission.

Those words remind me of what those angels might have said to the disciples: Go into the world. But this is a very dangerous world, we need to be well armed but the arms which the spirit gives are a daring and a tender love.

At the end of my ministry in 1993 I was invited to participate in the biennial German Kirchentag, Church Day, a weeklong gathering of German Christians and many from other parts of the world. The theme of the Kirchen Tag was Peace. In the closing service which was held at the Olympic Stadium with 145,000 people in attendance which more than doubled all the people that I had preached to throughout my ministry Sunday by Sunday, I spoke the word "peace" in as many languages as I could muster; Frieden (German), Paix (French), Mir ( Russian), Shalom (Hebrew), Salam (Arabic). I said them slowly and listened to them coming back over speaker system. The word "peace" is a beautiful word in every language, and so is the concept. Therefore, "Go in peace and may all that you do be done because of love"

Jesus said:

"Peace I give to you,
not as the world give I unto you,
let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid."

Amen