Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our ascended Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, amen.
Today we celebrate an event that actually would have been more appropriately observed three days ago; the ascension of our Lord. This is an event that took place 40 days after His resurrection, which means that it will aways fall on a weekday. So, then, if this was an event that was supposed to be commemorated three days ago, why are we celebrating it now? Because, I believe, the ascension of our Lord is a pivotal event in the Scriptures and it is important enough for us to dedicate an entire Lord’s Day to considering. That and, I don’t think we would get many people to come to church for a service on a random Thursday.
That notwithstanding, as I said a moment ago the ascension of our Lord is an incredibly important event in the life of the Church; so important, in fact, that we have two accounts of it from the same author as part of our lessons this morning. More than that, this event is so important that we remember and commemorate it, literally, every Sunday. What do I mean by that? Consider the Creed which we all spoke together not all that long ago, and when you do you will see a glimpse of the importance of the Lord’s ascension. In that Creed we said this; “He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father…” The Creeds are expositions of the faith that we believe, teach, and confess, and each of the other two Ecumenical Creeds include verbiage similar to this when speaking of our Lord’s ascension into heaven. But, have you ever stopped to consider just why this is something important enough to be included in the confession of the Church across a multitude of generations?
Typically, I like to read through a sermon of Martin Luther’s on the text for any given Sunday, but I came across something from a few weeks back that I think bespeaks the importance of the Lord’s ascension. Luther wrote this, “[T]o ‘believe in Christ’ does not mean to believe that Christ is a person who is both God and man; that does not help any one. But that this same person is the Christ; that is, that He went forth from the Father and came into the world, and again leaves the world and goes to the Father. The words mean no less than that this is Christ, that He became man and died for us, rose again and ascended to heaven. Because of this office of His, He is called Jesus Christ, and to believe this concerning Him, that it is true, means to be and to abide in His name.” Jesus’ ascension is, according to Luther and the early Church Fathers, an incredibly important part of His role as the Christ; the Anointed One of God. Because that is His role, to come and save His people from their sins. You see, the ascension makes a nice kind of bookend to the incarnation; that God Himself descends to His creation in order to redeem it from the sin that had so thoroughly corrupted and destroyed it and, upon accomplishing His redemptive work, He returns once again to the place of glory and honor in His heavenly kingdom.
But that doesn’t seem to have very much affect or appeal to us here, now, does it? Sure, Jesus died for our sins, but we still struggle with temptation and trials of all kinds in this life, don’t we? We still have to deal with the hatred and malice, which our Lord Himself suffered, that come all because of our faith and adherence to the tenants thereof. We still fight daily against the enemies of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh and, if we are completely honest with ourselves and one another, we often come out on the losing end of those battles don’t we? How often has our tongue slipped when talking about our neighbors? Whether we have spoken ill of them, cursed them, lied about them, or spread gossip, I think all of us would agree with St. James that the tongue is an incredibly hard part of the body to tame isn’t it? And how easy is it for any one of us to misuse the Name of our dear Lord Himself? How many times has the invocation of the Name that is above all names slipped out from between our lips, and not in a good and praiseworthy manner, before we even knew what we had said? Or who among us hasn’t been treated poorly by someone else in our day-to-day life? Co-workers, bosses, friends, family, or just a random stranger on the street, we all have been accosted by others in our lives in some shape, form, or fashion. And let us not forget the devilish and fiendish things that we see taking place each and every single day around us in this world; the mutilation of children being condoned and even celebrated by those in governmental offices and, if the trend from the past year continues apace, today alone an average of over 2,800 sanctioned murders of unborn children will take place. Shouldn’t we be praying fervently for our Lord’s return to put an end to such abomination and desolation, rather than celebrating His leaving?
Yes, and we do in many ways, but the ascension is an important event for us to commemorate and celebrate because it is a reminder of an important truth. Luther, in his consideration of the ascension of our Lord, says that “Christ has taken captivity captive”, as he writes in his Ascension Day sermon; “If you believe in Christ, then the text says that you believe that He sits above, and that He has taken captive my captivity, that is, my sin. In what way? It should not terrify me before God.…I believe in Him who is above, who has captured sin.” You see, while we live in a world that still suffers the effects of sin, just as we ourselves struggle against sins which allure in our own lives, Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of the Father is proof that He is, indeed, the One who has and controls all things. Sitting at the right hand of the Father is the proof that our faith needs to be reminded of Jesus’ authority over all things; sin, death, and the power of the devil, and that they are subject to Him, and as we are in Him by faith and our baptism into His death, these enemies are subject to us as well. So we are no longer bound to them, but to Christ alone who is our great Victor over those enemies for all eternity. And because He makes us victorious over those enemies, we need not fear any of their schemes or machinations. No matter how much they threaten or abuse us in this life, we know that their plans all fall short and inevitably fail on the Last Day.
As one pastor, and a former seminary professor of mine, said on a podcast, “The Lord’s ascension is the movement from the story of Jesus to the story of the Church.” Jesus’ ascension must take place in order that the Lord can give His Holy Spirit to the Church to proclaim His saving grace into the whole world. And it is here we see our purpose; to receive that which Christ has won for us, but also to proclaim that blessing to those around us in our lives through our words and deeds. We are called to be the city on the hill that cannot be hidden, the light that no darkness can overcome, the burnished lampstand that shines the Way, the Truth, and the Life brightly into a world darkened by the corruption of sin. And we are called to do it boldly in the knowledge that our Head, Jesus Christ, has taken captive our captivity.
The enemies of this world can no longer assert their power over us, for it has been destroyed! In Christ you and I are new creations; redeemed and renewed by His precious blood, bought back with His innocent suffering and death, bathed in the precious flood that flowed from His pierced side and which covers us in His glorious robes of righteousness now and forevermore. Because our Lord has died for our sins, been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and ascended into heaven, we too have the sure and steadfast hope of great victory over those who seek our death and destruction, and the promise of an eternal place in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father forevermore. As we will sing in today’s closing hymn (TLH #216);
“On Christ’s ascension I now build
The hope of mine ascension;
This hope alone has ever stilled
All doubt and apprehension;
For where the Head is, there full well
I know His members are to dwell
When Christ shall come and call them.”
Redeemed from sin, clothed in the righteousness of God Himself, and made victors over sin, death, and the power of the devil, Christ’s ascension is the eternal and everlasting reminder that we do not fight these battles alone, and that the war has already been won for each and every one of us.
Yet our hope does not come just from the work that our Lord did in redeeming His creation, but from His promise that He will return again. For it is from His seat at the right hand of the Father that our Lord will come again to judge the living and the dead. And this is not a thing for us to fear; for we who have been branded with His symbol of life, who have been given His most precious name, will stand justified before the judgment throne on the Last Day. For His blood will cry out for our mercy, and the Father will assent. For Jesus’ blood is the only perfect, holy, and righteous blood ever to be spilled for the redemption of mankind, and we who place our hope, comfort, and joy in that blood will most certainly find our peace therein on the Last Day as well. So may this celebration of our Lord’s ascension to heaven not bring you a sense of loss, but rather may it uplift you with the great and boundless hope of eternal and everlasting victory, won for you by Him whose enemies are His footstool, who spoke the whole of creation into existence, and who keeps it in His loving hands both now and forevermore, our Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen.