Acts 1:1-11 + Mark 16:14-20
Forty days ago today we gathered on Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. These forty days always seem to pass so quickly, don’t they? Imagine how quickly those forty days must have passed for Jesus’ disciples. It was such a strange, in between period of time for them between the day of Jesus’ resurrection and the day of His Ascension. He wasn’t with them all the time, but He wasn’t exactly gone, either. His earthly ministry had essentially ended, but His heavenly ministry hadn’t yet begun. We aren’t told of any sermons Jesus preached during those forty days, not a single unbeliever converted, not a single soul baptized. Just some final instructions Jesus gave to His disciples over the course of forty days.
In our Ascension Day Gospel, St. Mark zooms in on three particular days out of those forty: Resurrection Day, Great Commission Day, and Ascension Day itself. Jesus had some urgent things to teach His disciples on each of those days, and now the ascended Lord is here to teach us, too.
RESURRECTION DAY
Our text begins on the evening of Resurrection Day. But, in spite of the fact that resurrection day was about the defeat of death and the victory of life, Jesus still had some killing to do. Jesus appeared to the eleven and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. “You should have believed me. You should have believed the eyewitnesses who saw me and reported it to you. You were wrong to dismiss the Scriptures so quickly, wrong to trust in what your eyes told you rather than in what I told you.” Jesus took aim at His disciples’ unbelief with that rebuke and killed it. Because unbelief is what really kills. And if His disciples could fall into unbelief after two days of not seeing Jesus, how would they ever survive the bitter days of the cross ahead—days of persecution, days of being put to death one by one, and Jesus nowhere in sight!
And so He killed them with His rebuke in order to save them, and then brought them back to life with His words of comfort, forgiveness and peace.
That rebuke is meant for you, too, and for me—unless you think your faith is so much stronger than the faith of the apostles that you couldn’t possibly doubt Jesus? You’re wrong to disbelieve the word of His resurrection, whether you actually begin to believe that maybe Jesus and His resurrection is just a fairy tale, or, maybe you know He lives, but still fail to believe that it matters. Maybe you still think sometimes that, even though Jesus lives, you still have to fix your life, fix your sins, figure things out for yourself in this messed up world (and even this messed up church on earth). Humble yourself now. Accept Jesus’ rebuke. And believe Him when He says He loves you and forgives you and wants to strengthen your faith in Him, so that even when you’re surrounded by death and the cross, you can stand with confidence, because Jesus, your Lord, Jesus your Savior, Jesus your Life is risen from the dead. And it matters!
GREAT COMMISSION DAY
So far Resurrection Day in our Gospel. St. Mark takes us immediately to some time after Resurrection Day, to a mountain in Galilee, as Matthew tells us, to the Great Commission Day. “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” These eleven apostles of Jesus, together with those today who are called by Christ through the Church to stand in their apostolic office of the holy ministry, were given authority to speak on behalf of Christ, authority to serve as His ambassadors in the world, to announce a message in Jesus’ name, to proclaim, to preach.
To preach what? “The Gospel.” In that one word, “gospel,” you have wrapped up the whole story of Christ, the whole message of Christ revealed throughout the Holy Scriptures, from the creation of the world and of man to the suffering, death and resurrection of the Christ. The whole message of Scripture is included in the little word, “gospel.”
But Jesus himself summarizes the gospel for us in a much simpler way. What is the Gospel? It is simply this: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” That’s the Gospel that we preach. Human attempts to earn God’s favor are condemned. Human works to gain God’s favor are condemned. And faith in Christ is heralded as the only thing that saves a poor sinner. Forget about running away from God and despairing because of the wretched sinner you are. Forget about trying to stand before God because of the good person you think you are. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Thus far the Great Commission Day.
ASCENSION DAY
Finally, for our purposes this evening, St. Mark takes us to the 40th day itself, to Ascension Day, and summarizes it very briefly: So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
Why did He ascend? To finish His work.
Now, we make much of the “it is finished!” that Jesus cried out from the cross just before he died. But it was only his earthly ministry that was finished; only his work of qualifying as the sinner’s Substitute. The payment for sin was finished. The one righteous life had been lived for all men by the One Man, the God-Man. That was finished. But applying His work to the world, saving sinners from sin, death and the devil, building and preserving His Church, and finally destroying death once and for all—that’s the work of our ascended King. By ascending to His throne at the right hand of God, Jesus wants us to believe that He has taken upon his shoulders the government, the ruling over everything that is beneath Him, and that means, everything.
How comforting Jesus’ Ascension is for every believer. The Ascension enables you to stand up and say, “No matter what the devil or the world throws at me, I know that my Lord Jesus sits at God’s right hand and rules as King for me. I will suffer gladly, bear the cross willingly, face the future confidently and even die cheerfully, because my Lord Christ rules over all these things. If He permits it, it must be for my good and for the good of His Kingdom throughout the world, because no one and nothing can shake Him from His throne. So be it. So be it all. Jesus has ascended on high! Amen.
