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. 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. 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
coming Thursday 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 Ascension Day 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. But, 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. 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. 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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