Easter 6
Beloved. This past Thursday we celebrated that great feast of the Church—Jesus’ ascension. It is vital for us to remember that Jesus’ ascension was not like Him being a rocket ship and blasting off from earth going higher and higher until He left earth’s atmosphere… Instead, what does Scripture say? Yes, He went up [Ac 1.9]: while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight, so it wasn’t as if they kept watching him like a child watches the lost balloon get higher until it’s a speck and then out of sight. A cloud received Him and so that marked the end of His post-resurrection appearance; the disciples should not expect to see Jesus anymore like they did during those 40 days after His resurrection.
When that cloud received Jesus, Jesus, the God-man, was in the glories of heaven. St. Mark writes that Jesus [16.19]: was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. That was a position of honor and glory and rule. And don’t think of Jesus being locked away up in heaven. Instead, precisely because Jesus ascended into heaven, He can now be with His Church wherever she may be/ with His dear Christians wherever they may be. St. Mark continues that the disciples: went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Notice--wherever they went, Jesus went. Because why? Even though they would all go their own way to the four corners of the world, Jesus was with them. Now that He ascended into heaven, He wasn’t confined to one place at one time like during His earthly ministry. St. Paul describes Jesus’ ascension this way [Eph 4.10]: that Jesus ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things. The disciples understood this. St. Luke records [Lk. 24.51-53] that Jesus was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped Him--why would they worship someone who was not there--and then he continues, that they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Why would they be happy if Jesus was gone, locked away in heaven somewhere, never to be with them again? Far from Jesus’ ascension meaning that Jesus would no longer be with His Church and His dear Christian, it means that He can be and will be with us everywhere, all the time.
Here we have great cause to rejoice! And that joy is captured in our Introit psalm about singing of the Lord’s steadfast love, serving Him with gladness, entering into His presence with thanksgiving, rejoicing that we are His. And then in today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus praying for His disciples and for all Christians down through the ages. And in the first reading we see Jesus’ guardian care of His Church as He has St. Matthias take the place of Judas. But then there is a bit of a clunker in today’s epistle from St. Peter. He talks about the suffering of the Christian, that we shouldn’t be surprised at the fiery trial, about being insulted, about judgment beginning with the Christian. Does that fit together? Absolutely and in a most wonderful way! Both things are true--we are truly blessed by the Lord and as Christians we will endure suffering. And as we examine our text, we will see that even in suffering, precisely in our sufferings we are truly blessed by the Lord.
Jesus prays in today’s Gospel: And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world. The Christian will suffer because we are in the world. This is a world of sin. We will suffer because of our own sin and the sin of others. We live in a world that is in league with the devil. We live in a world through which the devil is at work to destroy our faith in Jesus. In other words, don’t expect any favors from the world around us in living out our Christian faith. If there is something favorable, praise the Lord, take it and run.
The simple fact of the matter is, we will suffer, we will bear the cross of suffering, because we live out our faith as Christians. To illustrate this rather graphically--it has been estimated that in the 20th century twice as many people have died on account of their faith in Jesus than in all previous centuries combined. Simply think of that! To be sure there are more people, the Lord has blessed our mission work, and man has devised more efficient ways of cruelty and death. But things are not getting better; humanity is not becoming better and more enlightened and evolving better and higher.
But don’t we in the west/ US have it pretty good? After all, Christians are not getting rounded up and shot. In fact, isn’t our society and nation grounded on Christianity? Yes, we are not enduring bloody persecutions like Christians elsewhere in the world and throughout history; and yes, we really have it pretty good in comparison. But don’t think that we will not receive blowback as we simply live out our lives as Christians. In the west, don’t we live under what has been described as the “dictatorship of relativism.” --The laws of the state enforcing relativism. It is not looked kindly upon when the Christian actually takes a stand and says that there is truth, that there is a right and a wrong. The Christian view is frowned upon and ridiculed and told it is out of date and irrelevant and on par with the flat earth thinking. For example: think of how many times you “just wanted to say something” but didn’t because you felt afraid to, uncomfortable or didn’t want to offend someone. That’s one aspect of what it means to live under that dictatorship of relativism.
We live in a world with an aggressive secularism. How often do you see positive portrayals of faith in the mass media, where God has an important and vital role to play? Hardly! Anything religious--and by that it’s really anything Christian--is being pushed aside. A world is trying to be formed in which there is no room or place for God--the one true God, the holy Triune God. There are other gods like “feelings” or even things like technology and science. But for something beyond ourselves, beyond what humanity is or can do, forget it. This aggressive secularism does not want to allow any room for God. It regards religious conviction as a personal lifestyle choice-- “if that’s how you want to live your life…” This aggressive secularism will be ok with Christians believing what they want and gathering together within the four walls of the church, but we dare never come out into the public square with our thoughts and convictions rooted and grounded in God’s word. We are not supposed to “impose our morality” on others while they can impose their immorality on us! That’s the world we live in today: aggressive secularism and a dictatorship of relativism.
Now let’s hear St. Peter: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. Notice, what St. Peter writes to us is not some much as an admonition but it is a comforting promise! These fiery trials have come, come and will come upon Christians as we live out our faith in a hostile world. It’s nothing strange/ peculiar to us. If we think attacks to our faith, if we think receiving blowback for living out and confessing our faith outside the four walls of the church building is something to expect, we will not be surprised and we will not be caught unawares. The thing is, these fiery trials are all attempts of the devil to lead us to unfaithfulness, to destroy faith. By them he intends great wickedness and evil to our soul. But why doesn’t God just stop the devil and his allies from doing this? Why does He just tell us to expect them and leave it at that? The short answer to that is that through these fiery trials, through the cross that we bear--that is, what we suffer on account of our faith in Jesus--God is working great spiritual good.
Earlier in this epistle the Holy Spirit says through St. Peter [1.6,7]: now for a little while...you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The fiery trial that we endure is a purifying fire. And what happens when our faith is put to the test, when we suffer or endure hardship because of our faith; when, at the very least, we are grieved when we see increasing sin and godlessness around us? We run to our Lord, to His word and promise, for His help and strength to bear the cross that we are enduring. You see, these fiery trials that we should expect, are necessary for the testing of faith; as they drive us back to our Lord and His word, all the fluff and frivolity, all the false belief that attaches itself to faith is burned off when all that we are left with is our Lord and His word. The thing is, we are still sinful flesh and blood and we need to be driven back to Christ and His word; we need to be driven back to Christ to stay close to Him. We don’t earn heaven/ salvation by what we suffer for Christ, but through what we suffer on account of Christ/ through the fiery trial we are kept on that path leading to salvation. St. Peter also then writes at the end of our text: let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. As we will suffer and know we will suffer on account of our faith in Christ, we entrust our souls to God’s safekeeping, that He will strengthen us to bear our cross, because He is faithful to His word and promise to us when He called us to Him in holy Baptism and made us His dear Christians. And so we are diligent in hearing and studying His word and receiving His body and blood in the Holy Sacrament through which He unites with us and strengthens us.
Our text: But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. Notice something wonderful here: when we suffer on account of our faith in Jesus, we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ. He was hated and persecuted; should we expect any different? No! We are united with Him in baptism. As we suffer, we are not suffering alone but are united with Christ. We share in His sufferings and He shares in ours. What happened to Jesus with His sufferings? --It led to His glory; to His resurrection and ascension. Just as baptism unites us with Jesus’ suffering and death, so it unites us to His resurrection. And that’s why we can rejoice when we suffer on account of our faith and confession--we will one day be glorified and with our Lord eternally in heaven. What we suffer on account of our faith in Jesus makes us glad so that we can even rejoice. Why? –Because it is a sign of our union with Christ. Would we suffer for faith in Christ if there were no faith in Him? Hardly! That’s why St. Peter says rejoice! Our present rejoicing is a “down payment” of our future perfect joy.
And he calls us in our sufferings on account of our faith blessed. Our text: If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. We are blessed because the Holy Spirit is resting on us, dwelling in our hearts--no one can say “Jesus is Lord”, St. Paul [1 Co 12.3] says, but by the Holy Spirit. Where the Spirit is giving us that faith and emboldening us to live out that faith, there He also is resting on us protecting us from the worst the devil and his allies can throw our way; there He is with His graces and gifts. And as our faith is tested and tried by the fiery trial of suffering on account of our faith in Jesus, the Spirit is at work in us preserving and strengthening that faith, so that it can all the more receive God’s divine and heavenly blessings--not only for this life but for the life of the world to come.
We remember that Jesus ascended into order to be with His Church and each of His dear Christians. And He is with us in our sufferings for Him, by His Holy Spirit He is working mightily to preserve, strengthen and prepare us for heaven. Rejoice! INJ