Sermon for the Ascension of Our Lord
Acts 1:1-11 + Mark 16:14-20
This Ascension Day couldn’t have come at a better time. As you know all too well and as I often point out, the world has gone mad. The news is one horror story after another. As of this week, there isn’t a single person of integrity and character left in the presidential race—at least, not in the two major parties—so we’re probably looking at four to eight more years of the executive branch here in America promoting even more lawlessness, even more social and moral decline, not to mention a teetering global economy and a national security in jeopardy. The prospects for our future, for our children, are dismal. The schools are a mess. The universities are a mess. Families are a mess. The churches are a mess. And truth and virtue—and facts themselves! —matter to fewer and fewer people. Not to mention your own sinful flesh, which continues to war against your spirit and drag you away from Christ.
In the midst of this mess, in the midst of this world’s death-spiral, St. Luke’s words in the Book of Acts still ring out today in churches around the world, The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up.
How is that helpful?
First, there is an account of the doing and the teaching of the Man named Jesus. That account is known as the Gospel according to St. Luke (not to exclude Matthew, Mark, and John, of course). What comfort for us is there in that account as we live in a crumbling world? You know what Luke’s Gospel proclaims. How the God who made this world sent His Son into it, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary. Why? For what purpose? To make it a nicer place to live? To set up an earthly kingdom where justice and honor prevail? Not at all. This world was doomed from the first sin of Adam and is destined for fire and destruction. The history of mankind is not one of evolution or progression upward toward a better and brighter world. On the contrary, the whole history of mankind is a history of violence and immorality, of regression and decay. Sin and death are the defining qualities of mankind, not justice and righteousness and peace.
No, Christ came into this world to reveal God to us in person. The real God. Not a God who fixes man’s sin or ignores man’s sin. But a God who suffers for it Himself, who pays for it with His own blood, who makes atonement for it by His own death and offers sinners a refuge against the judgment and condemnation that their sins have earned for them. That refuge is Christ Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, crucified, dead, buried, descended into hell, and risen again on the third day, now ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of God. Faith in Christ and the blood He shed for us reconciles sinners to God, brings us back together with Him, places us in His good graces and guarantees us a future life that is far better than this present one. That’s what St. Luke’s Gospel account was all about.
But did you hear what else St. Luke said? “Of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.” The whole earthly life of Jesus, which St. Luke chronicles for us in his Gospel, from His birth all the way up to His ascension, was just the beginning, what He began both to do and teach. The ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and to teach. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles is the record of the continued doing and teaching of Jesus after His ascension into heaven. It was Christ who sent out the apostles and has been sending out their successors ever since. It was Christ who first sent His Spirit on Pentecost and who worked through the preaching of His apostles to spread His word and to build up His Holy Church. As you heard Mark record at the end of his Gospel, they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them.
The ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and teach. Only now He does and teaches from His throne at the right hand of God from where He reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Everything that happens in the world, everything that happens in the Church is under the supervision and control of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Paul wrote this to the Ephesians, I pray that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The kingdom of God isn’t stagnant, isn’t dead, isn’t failing. It’s conquering the devil and the world, even now, with Christ as the King on His throne.
But you don’t see that, not really. The reign of Christ at God’s right hand is a matter of faith, not sight. You don’t see how Christ is governing the affairs of this world, or know the reasons behind what He does. You can’t see the Holy Spirit’s plans or predict when Christ will come back in glory on a cloud.
His disciples wanted to see, they wanted to know. “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” What did they mean by that question? If they were thinking about Jesus setting up an earthly kingdom, then it was a foolish question. If they were thinking about Jesus making the physical nation of Israel into a prominent nation, then it was a foolish question—a foolish belief that is still held by many Evangelicals today as they imagine that the physical nation of Israel has some special meaning, as they imagine that Christ will come and set up an earthly kingdom for a thousand years or rapture believers up into heaven while the earth goes on in its mess. All of that is foolish talk.
Or were Jesus’ disciples only thinking of the restoration of the kingdom to the spiritual Israel, that is, the Holy Christian Church, made up of people from every nation, tribe, language and people—all who believe and are baptized, when Christ will come and rescue His Church from this world and reign visibly over it forever in the new heavens and the new earth? If that was what they meant, then their understanding was exactly right. But their timing—their timing and their desire to know the timing was way off.
It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. God has reserved for Himself the knowledge of when He will finally come and crush the kingdoms of this earth under His feet and remove His Church from this dying world. That time was not yet at the time of the apostles—they had much to do, and much to suffer first. And it has not yet come for us, either. God knows the work He still has to do with this world. That’s the very reason Christ ascended, to do that work for as long as it takes, according to the times and seasons known to the Father, until His whole Church is completely built and the world has had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.
For now, the ascended Lord Jesus continues both to do and to teach. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Here we are, at the end of the earth, from where Jesus spoke those words, gathered together 2,000 years later in the name of Him whom we have not seen, and yet have believed, gathered together—preacher and hearers, baptized in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, hearing and honoring His Word, ready to receive His Sacrament of the New Testament, receiving the forgiveness of our sins, committed to living lives of love according to God’s commandments, committed to confessing the name of Christ Jesus in Las Cruces, in all Dona Ana county and New Mexico, and to the end of the earth, as the ascended Lord Jesus gives us strength and opportunity. Where did we Christians come from? Where did our faith and our confession of it come from? It came from Christ Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, as He has continued to send forth His Spirit in Word and Sacrament, as He has continued to give pastors and teachers to His Holy Church, as He has seen to it that the Gospel has been preached and continues to be preached among us.
No matter what the world does around us, no matter how it rages against Christ and His Church and wallows in its filth, no matter how much lawlessness abounds and the love of many grows cold, Christ Jesus has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, which is not far away from us, but very close to us, hidden, but real, where all things have been placed under His feet, where He continues both to do and teach through His Holy Spirit, in His Holy Church, preaching sin and grace, repentance and the forgiveness of sins until He comes again to judge the living and the dead.
Rejoice in the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus, all you Christians! Turn to Him, all you ends of the earth, and be saved! He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned. Amen.
