The end and the beginning of an age

Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension

Acts 1:1-11  +  Mark 16:14-20

It’s impossible to overemphasize the importance of Christ’s Ascension. It was the end and the beginning of an age. All of history can be divided into just three ages: The first age was before Christ came into the world. The second age was the time when Christ was physically present in the world, when the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, when Christ was made our Brother, when Christ our Brother died for us, when Christ our Brother was raised from the dead and commissioned His apostles and instituted the ministry of Word and Sacrament. That age came to an end when Jesus ascended, ushering in the third and final age of the world, when Christ reigns over the world from the right hand of God. He is the man who went away on a journey in so many of Jesus’ parables, but who will eventually return from His journey at the end of the age, as the angels promised the disciples: This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.

Let’s consider, first, how the second age of the world wrapped up. As Luke tells us in Acts, Jesus showed Himself alive to His disciples after His suffering with many infallible proofs. He ate with them several times. He appeared to them and walked and talked with them several times during the 40 days between Easter Sunday and Ascension Thursday. And He gave them some final instructions.

The first instruction had to do with the coming of the Holy Spirit. He told them to wait in Jerusalem for “the promise of the Father” which He had told them about. We’ve spent a couple of Sundays now hearing Jesus talk about the Holy Spirit in John 14-16, and we’ll hear it again this Sunday and the following. John baptized with water; but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. We’ll talk about that more in ten days, on the Day of Pentecost, when the promise was fulfilled and that special baptism with the Holy Spirit was fulfilled.

The second instruction had to do with the disciples’ witness throughout the world during the third age of the world. We’ll also talk more about that this Sunday and on the Day of Pentecost. But there are some things we should mention yet this evening.

First, Jesus told His disciples where they were to be His witnesses: in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Or as Mark records in his Gospel, Go into all the world. Or as Matthew records in his Gospel, Go and make disciples of all nations. No longer would the message of the true God be concentrated in Israel. It was to go out to every place and to every people on earth. No one is excluded from hearing the witnesses.

Then Jesus revealed the content of their witness: preach the gospel to every creature. What is the gospel? A fine summary is given in Mark 16: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned. What a beautiful summary of the gospel. Whoever believes—that is, whoever believes in Me—in Jesus—as their crucified and risen Savior from sin, death, and eternal condemnation. Whoever believes in Me as the one Mediator between God and man, as the one Reconciler of God and man. Whoever believes in Me in order to be forgiven and justified before God. Whoever believes and is baptized. See how Christ holds up baptism as a tool and instrument of salvation, as His Sacrament of bringing a sinner into Himself, into His body, into His righteousness. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

But whoever does not believe will be condemned. That’s part of the gospel, too, part of the message that’s to be preached in the world. God wants all men to be saved—to be saved by believing in Christ and being baptized. That’s His invitation to everyone. But those who don’t believe also have to hear what the result will be: condemnation. The fact is, as Jesus says in John 3, those who don’t believe in Jesus are “condemned already,” because all are born in sin and born under God’s wrath. But Christ has provided the atoning sacrifice that every sinner is now authorized to use before God as an answer for his or her sins. “Yes, Father, I know I deserve only punishment from You. But here is Jesus, who made atonement for all sins. By the gracious working of Your Holy Spirit, I now believe in Him and have been baptized into Him! Accept me for His sake!” And He does.

The third instruction Jesus gave His disciples at the end of the second age had to do with the signs that would follow the apostles’ preaching. And these signs will follow those who believe: In my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and the sick will recover. We see almost all of those miraculous signs mentioned in the book of Acts, from the speaking in tongues on Pentecost to the healing of the sick that took place here and there, not as a permanent gift given to all believers, but as signs, given by the Holy Spirit where and when it pleased Him, for the purpose of confirming the apostles’ testimony.

And so, after 40 days of appearing to His disciples and instructing His disciples, Jesus had them gather one last time on the Mount of Olives, and with His hands raised in blessing, He visibly rose up into the sky until a cloud took Him from their sight. So ended the second age of the earth, the time of Christ’s physical presence on earth. It ended with this final, visual lesson that from that moment on, no one should look for Jesus anywhere on earth anymore, or expect that He will make random appearances on earth ever again, until the very end of the third age.

Let’s take a moment yet and consider how this third age began—the age in which we all were born and still live.

Mark writes that Jesus was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. What does that mean?

First, as Paul writes in Eph. 4. He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. In the second age of the earth, Jesus restricted Himself to flesh and bones, in one place at one time, according to His human nature. In this third age, He fills all things. He is present everywhere, but in a different way, so that we can’t see Him, touch Him, or interact with Him as His disciples could. But He could still truly promise at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.

Second, as Mark writes at the end of today’s Gospel, the eleven apostles went forth and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them, confirming the word with the accompanying signs. So sitting at the right hand of God means that Jesus is working with the preachers whom He has sent out into the world. In fact, it says in Ephesians 4 that Christ is still the one actually sending out pastors and ministers from the right hand of God. He already confirmed the apostles’ testimony with all the promised signs during the first century. But He still continues to work with all preachers, sending His Spirit through their words, working on hearts to convince people that He is real, that He is good, that He is trustworthy.

Third, as Paul writes to the Romans in chapter 8, Christ is at the right hand of God, and He makes intercession for us. When the devil hurls his accusations against us, there is Christ pleading for us, praying for us, our Mediator and Advocate before the Father at all times, making us pleasing in God’s sight.

Finally, as Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter 1, God 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. Since the beginning of this age, Christ our Brother has been reigning as King, ruling over all things as the Head of the Church, which is His body.

Now, you look at history, and at any given time or place, you may say, “It doesn’t look like Christ was ruling there. Look at how Christians were treated! It doesn’t look like Christ was ruling there. Look at that tragedy that that Christian family experienced!” Not to mention the catastrophes and wars and, dare I say, pandemics that have wreaked havoc on believers and unbelievers alike.

Of course, the same Jesus told His followers ahead of time that all these things would happen, that they were part of His plan all along. He hasn’t lost control of the universe. People just don’t like the way He runs it.

At the same time, look back through history. Was the Church ever crushed out of existence? On the contrary, it now gathers and confesses Christ’s name in every nation. Look back at your own history. Were you ever really abandoned by God and left to perish? Look back at our own congregation’s history. Even when divisions arose, even though not many remain, was the Gospel ever silenced here? Did the mortgage payments ever not get made? Did the pastor’s family go hungry? No, we can see signs throughout history and in our own experience that Christ was still ruling from the right hand of God.

He rules now, too, even in the midst of the pandemic, even in the midst of death. Science doesn’t sit at the right hand of God. Jesus does. Science doesn’t determine how the virus spreads. Jesus does. Science may be able to identify how things happen according to the natural order that God has established, but science doesn’t control how things happen and it has nothing at all to say about how Christ works supernaturally to carry out His purposes from the right hand of God, to govern the spread of disease so that unbelievers are called to repentance while His people are called to flee to Him for refuge and to yearn for the end of this age, for the return of our Brother, the Man who went away on a journey, but who won’t stay away forever.

So let us worship Christ, our Brother, who reigns as King throughout this age. Let us trust in Him, serve and obey Him, and pray for all the help He has promised, until He returns to put an end to this age and to begin the blessed age that never ends. Amen.