Thoughts for Ascension Day: CPH Chapel Homily from June 1st, 2011 by Rev. Baker

Ascension 2011

Year A, Luke 24:36-53 (expanded)
Rev. Robert C. Baker
Concordia Publishing House Chapel, June 1, 2011

In a remarkable display of divine forbearance, the rapture came and went May 21, 2011, and you were left behind.

Thank God, because in Scripture those who are swept away—think of everyone in the Flood besides Noah and his family, or Pharaoh’s huge army in the midst of the Red Sea—those who are swept away are those who are damned.

But being caught up bodily to meet the Lord in the air—which is a Scriptural promise, let’s not mock that—will occur, on the Last Day, when the trump will sound (1 Cor. 15:52), when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will appear (1 Tim. 6:14-16; Rev. 17:14; 19:16), returning in the same manner as His apostles and disciples saw Him depart this very earth (Acts 1:11).

And here we come to the Ascension.

St. Luke is a good and careful author, and where others of lesser skill might have run-on sentences, Luke has chunks of run-on history, detailing the life of our Lord in rapid pace, particularly at the end of his Gospel. It’s almost as if he’s excited to tell you about a lot of things that are very important.

And he does. In his twenty-fourth chapter, Luke has Jesus rising, walking, questioning, chiding, and explaining; then sitting, breaking, revealing and disappearing; then appearing, then peace-ing, then eating, then opening, then teaching, then leading, then blessing, then ascending. All in 50 verses.

Perhaps Luke can’t wait to get to Acts chapter 1!

But notice how Luke describes Jesus’ body. Jesus’ crucified and resurrected body does things bodies normally do but, then again, Jesus’ body does things bodies don’t normally do. Topping it all off, Jesus ascends bodily into heaven. A real human body, Jesus’ crucified and resurrected body, really rising—not just rising above the clouds, but above all things.

Wrap your noodle around that.

Jesus—crucified, risen and ascended—ruling and reigning—sitting “at the right hand of the Father… will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end” (Nicene Creed).

Until that day, the day when the Lord returns, ponder the real Great Commission of St. Luke, not the one in St. Matthew (28:18-20), which pertains to Baptism and the Holy Office, but the Great Commission of St. Luke, in which Jesus says: “The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47).

Damned are they who reject this Messiah and who refuse to repent of their sins. Blessed are you who repent, trusting in the forgiveness this Messiah brings through the shedding of His blood. Happy are you, on that day known by no man (Matt. 24:26), when your risen and ascended Lord returns, when you shall rise bodily from the earth to meet Him and all the departed saints in the air, and “so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17).

Think about these things October 21, 2011.