1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly
Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen. It should be a celebration!
The house is full of kids. You’re the guest of honor, and you’ve got six
candles on your cake to blow out. So what’s wrong? Maybe your brother or sister
is playing with one of your gifts. Maybe Johnny swiped a finger across the
frosting of your cake before you got to blow. Whatever it is, it’s suddenly all
coming apart. The bigger picture of fun, games, and friends has been lost. Because Jesus ascended into heaven, He’s now
exalted over all things. He rules all things in heaven & on earth on behalf
of His Church. This should bring us as Christians great hope and joy. But, too
often we become discouraged by worldly cares. We become like the unhappy
birthday child. Our sinful nature shuts our eyes to what God has done through
our risen and ascended Lord Jesus. We see only with our physical eyes, focusing
on the discouragements around us in this sinful world. In the life of our congregation,
we may worry about financial challenges or the number of inactive members. We
may become discouraged as we struggle to accomplish the things we feel are
important or overcome the challenges we face. We may find ourselves in a state
of despair because of our own sins or the sins of others. And as a result, we
reel in self-pity brought on by our own disappointment and disillusionment. But,
our Lord has ascended on high and rules over all things on our behalf. Let’s
not lose sight of this wonderful truth and all that it means for us. The message this Ascension Day is taken from
Acts 1:1-11, and is entitled, “We Find
Courage in Our Lord’s Ascension,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Ascension
Day is important for us in our lives as Christians, but unfortunately many
Christians on this day will miss it. In
between Wednesday and the middle of a busy work week and Friday’s promise of
the weekend, Thursday hardly seems like a day to celebrate and have a festival
when there’s still work to be done. So even though today is just as holy as
Easter Sunday, most of the world will move through it unconsciously. Even those who have confessed the lines of
the Apostles’ Creed: “On the third day he
rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand
of God the Father almighty.” Our
Gospel lesson from Luke 24 for today records, “Then [Jesus] said to his disciples….’See, I am sending upon you what
my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with
power from on high.’ Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting
up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew
from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and
returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple
blessing God.” (Luke 24:49-53)
3.
The ascension of
our Lord Jesus after His death on the cross and resurrection might seem somewhat
anti-climatic. Maybe this is the reason that the resurrection and ascension
statements of the Apostles’ Creed are essentially treated as one in the same: On the third day he rose again
from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the
Father almighty. One
might think that the one miraculous act flowed immediately into the other: that
the death of the body of Jesus was answered in the resurrection of Christ, a
presence who then floated spiritually into heaven. Unfortunately, the result of
this impression is that many think that the ascension points to the casting off of Jesus’ human nature, as if Jesus is
now a presence that only used to be
human.
4.
But, this is far
from the experience of the disciples, as we see here in Acts 1, to whom Jesus
appeared many times in the days following His resurrection. To them it was
clear that Jesus wasn’t any sort of ghost or phantasm. He ate with them. Jesus
talked with them. He instructed them as to the ministries they would lead and
the deaths they would face because of their belief in Him as their Savior. Jesus
was more fully human
than they had ever realized, and it was this holy body, this divine person that
they held near as they lived and died to proclaim His kingdom.
5.
As the disciples were
watching and Jesus was taken up before their own eyes, a cloud hid Him from
their sight. Our text in Acts 1:9-11 refers to them, “looking intently up 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 here 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.’” In
this resurrected body, Christ ascended to heaven, fully human, fully divine, and
entirely glorified.
6.
On the day Jesus
ascended into heaven, the work God sent Him to accomplish was finally
completed. The ascension was a public declaration of Jesus’ dying words on the
Cross: It is finished. Ascending
to heaven, Jesus continued the victory of Easter—the victory of a physical body
in whom God had conquered death. Because of the ascension, the incarnation of
our Lord isn’t a past event. Because of the ascension, we know that the
incarnate Christ who was raised from the dead is sharing in our humanity even now. And just
as the angels informed the disciples, so we carry in our own bodies a guarantee
that Christ will one day bring us to Himself. It’s for these reasons that
the Christian scholar N.T. Wright affirms, “To
embrace the Ascension is to heave a sigh of relief, to give up the struggle to
be God (and with it the inevitable despair at our constant failure), and to
enjoy our status as creatures:
image-bearing creatures, but creatures nonetheless.” (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the
Mission of the Church (New
York: Harper Collins, 2008), 114).
7.
WE DO FIND
COURAGE IN OUR LORD’S ASCENSION. Jesus
lived. Jesus died. Jesus rose. Jesus left for heaven. There are six reasons we can find courage in
Jesus’ Ascension. First, Jesus’ ascension assures us that we can go home, too. Jesus tells His disciples a little later that
he’s going to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house (John 14). Because
Jesus returned to the Father, I can say with Paul that, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” when I die, I will be with
Jesus.
8.
Second,
Jesus’ ascension assures us that He
intercedes for us to God. Jesus,
the God-man, speaks on our behalf to God our Heavenly Father. He knows what
it’s like to be human (Hebrews 4:14–16), but He’s not just asking God to give
me a break. Jesus Himself was broken for my sin, and because of His perfect
sacrifice on the cross, He sustains our right relationship with God (Hebrews
9:15).
9.
Third, Jesus says we should rejoice in His
ascension. Jesus says, “If
you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father.” This
alone is reason to be glad.
10. Fourth, Christ’s
ascension has given us the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us that He must
leave in order to send the Holy Spirit (John 16:7). The Spirit teaches,
convicts, and comforts us while we’re here on earth.
11. Fifth, we have the
inspired Gospels. Jesus promises His disciples that the Holy Spirit
will teach them and remind them of all that He said (John 14:25–26). And that’s
good for us, because the disciples were able to give accurate accounts of
events they didn’t understand while they were happening (Matthew 15:15–17;
16:9; Mark 6:52; 9:32; John 12:16).
12. Sixth, my king is
where He belongs. Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, has
taken His seat in glory at the Father’s right hand (Hebrews 1:3). He obeyed,
and at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that He
is Lord (Philippians 2:9–11).
13. Jesus lived. Jesus died. Jesus rose. Jesus reigns
forevermore. We find courage in our
Lord’s ascension into heaven. On this
Ascension Day we remember that our Lord Jesus hasn’t left us as orphans. In the
same post-resurrection body He invited Doubting Thomas to touch, Jesus invites
us to full humanity today. He ascended with a body, he shares in our humanity,
and He’s coming back for our bodies. Christ is preparing a room for us in
heaven, and we know it’s real because He Himself is real. Amen.
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