The Ascension of
Our Lord
May 18, 2023
Text: Luke 24:50-51 (ESV): “Then he led
them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them
and was carried up into heaven.”
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
The
sermon series on The Romance of Pastor and Sarah continues tonight,
because it was 20 Church Years ago on this very night, the Ascension of Our
Lord (okay, May 29th, 2003, according to your pagan calendar), I
arrived at my summer vicarage congregation, Redeemer in Gresham, Oregon,
entered the sanctuary, and first laid eyes on the beautiful Sarah Rudie. There she was, sitting near the front (a
non-Lutheran habit I still can’t break her of), hair aglow by the light of the
altar candles, holding in her delicate hands a TLH… the red
hymnal! I leaned over to my friend,
Chris Raffa, also now a Lutheran pastor, and said, “Who’s that?!” The preacher that night was Daniel
Preus. Yes, THE Rev. Dr. Daniel Preus,
son of Robert Preus. And if you know
anything about the golden age of Missouri Synod celebrity, you know that a
Preus preaching is like Sinatra singing.
Very romantic. Just the right
mood.
I
don’t remember all the particulars of the sermon that night. I do remember it made a great impression on
me about the importance of observing this oft-neglected Feast, the Ascension of
Our Lord. And I also know, whether I
remember it or not, that we heard this passage: “lifting up his hands he
blessed them” (Luke 4:50). Now, “While
he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven” (v.
51). That doesn’t mean He went away and was
no longer present with them. We know
this. He promised His disciples, and us,
at the end of Matthew, that He would be with us always, to the very end of
the age (Matt. 28:20). So He isn’t
gone. Rather, as Luke tells us in our
reading from Acts, “he was lifted up, and a
cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). Present
with His disciples, but hidden now from their sight. Seated at the right hand of God the Father
Almighty, not just in His divinity, but in our human flesh. Ruling all things in heaven, and on earth,
and under the earth. For the good of His
Church, for us, in His Kingdom of Power (all things, the whole universe, even
the devil), Grace (the Church on earth), and Glory (the Church in heaven). And with the Promise that He is coming back,
visibly, in the glory of His Father, and with the holy angels, to judge the
living and the dead. To raise all the
dead, and give eternal life to all believers in Christ. In the meantime, we are not to look for Him
up there in the clouds, but where He has promised to be for us with His
forgiveness, life, and salvation… that is, in His Word and in the Holy
Sacraments.
What is this blessing
with which He ascends? Luke doesn’t
record the Words for us, nor do the other evangelists. This is probably on purpose. We wouldn’t be surprised to find out that
with uplifted hands He is speaking the Aaronic benediction, the very blessing
He speaks upon us at the end of the Divine Service: “The LORD bless you and
keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the
LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num.
6:24-26). In this way, the high priest
in the Old Testament was to put the Name of the LORD upon the people. But whatever our Lord said in the ascension
blessing, it is important to note that while He blessed them, while
He was still speaking, the cloud came and took Him out of their sight. That is, He never stopped blessing His
disciples. He’s still blessing us. That, actually, is the point of the
Ascension. He ascends so that He can
ever bless.
And this
blessing, so important to understand, is not just a sentimental wish
that things go well for us. Blessing
from God comes through Words, but it is never just Words. It is the accomplishment of the Words. God actually does and gives what is
needed for our benefit and welfare. All
that we need for this body and life.
All that we need for our salvation. And so much more on top of it. It all comes from Him. Because that is what the ascended Jesus is
doing at God’s right hand. He is blessing
us. Interceding for us. Pouring out His Spirit upon us. Bringing about God’s will for us. Directing affairs. Present and involved in all things big and
small in our lives, the grand milestones and horrific tragedies, the mundane
details and piddling defeats.
He sees it
all. He is with you in it all. He cares, because He redeemed it all. Shed His blood for it all. Died for it all. For you.
He loves you. It is not just some
arbitrary deity enthroned in heaven at the Father’s side, but one who loves
you. That is, wills the good for you,
and acts accordingly. You can trust Him
on this. When I was driving from Fort
Wayne to Oregon for summer vicarage, I thought I’d never get married, that I’d
never meet the right woman (you know, you can be a little overdramatic at that
time in life). But then, surprise! The risen and ascended Jesus, along with my
Father in heaven, and the Holy Spirit, knew just what He was going to do from
all eternity for my good. And for
Sarah’s. And for our as-yet-to-be-born
children. And, think about this… we
wouldn’t be here with you if that hadn’t happened (maybe I would… maybe…
I’m not sure I would have survived as a bachelor, as the Lord well knew). Now, very important to understand, there are
some people who long for Christian marriage, but instead are given the cross of
remaining single, whether for a time, or for life. It hurts.
But that doesn’t mean God has blessed you any less. He knows what we need, and He gives
us what we need, both crosses and comforts.
The same could be said for those who long to have children, and
can’t. Or whatever the cross may
be. What do we do as those who know we
have a Lord who loves us on the throne, but who haven’t received what we think
would be good for us? We pray. And we trust.
And we give thanks no matter the circumstances, because we know that all
things, including crosses, are a gift from His love.
And we ask
forgiveness for all the times we fail to pray, trust, and give thanks. For all our grumbling. We must confess, we do tend to concentrate on
all the places where the curse bends the blessings. The thorns and thistles. The labors and pains. The sweat of the brow. Death.
It is the curse of living in a fallen world, the curse of our fallen
flesh, the curse we bring upon ourselves in our own sin and rebellion. That curse must not be minimized. In fact, it should ever and always lead us to
repent of our sins. But it is mitigated,
this curse. And it is, finally,
defeated. For the Lord has come,
as we sing at Christmas, to make His blessing flow far as the curse is found. He does it in His earthly ministry, as He
heals creation of its brokenness. He
does it by suffering it on the cross, in payment for our sins, including our
failure to pray, trust, and give thanks.
He does it by breaking the bonds of the curse in His resurrection from
the dead. He does it in the preaching of
the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
When God
pronounces a blessing, that blessing endures. Think about it. Why does creation still exist? Because He spoke it into being in the
beginning, and the writer to the Hebrews even says that Jesus “upholds
the universe by the word of his power” (1:3). Why do all living things on earth proliferate
according to their kind? Because that
is the blessing God spoke in the beginning.
In fact, to the man and his wife, God blessed them and said, “Be
fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). That is not only why we have children, but
why we’ve been able to harness and steward the earth’s resources for the good
of humanity and all creation. If you drove
here tonight, comfortably, in a vehicle, on roads somebody built, from your
house built of trees and other earthly materials, to this building built from
trees and other earthly materials, it is all because of what God said in
Genesis Chapter 1 about subduing the earth.
If you have children, or if you have them in the future, it is because
of the blessing He gave there. If
you take any joy whatsoever in God’s creation, it is because of Genesis 1:28. And because Jesus Christ sits at God’s
right hand, sustaining Genesis 1:28 by the Word of His power.
As a matter of
fact, when Sarah and I were married, the text and refrain of Pastor Bundschuh’s
sermon was Genesis 1:28: “And God blessed them.” I never thought about this until preparing
for this service. The night we met, we
heard the blessing of the ascending Jesus, with hands upraised. And the day we were married we heard God’s
blessing over all humanity and creation, “And God blessed them.” And ever since, we’ve been sustained by God’s
Words of blessing in every Divine Service, and the prayer services of His
Church, and our own personal and family devotional reception of His Words. The same is true for you. In our case, God’s Word made our marriage,
and it is still what makes our marriage.
If you are married, or if you get married, that is how God makes and
sustains your marriage as well. By His
blessing. By His Word. In any case, married or not, God does bless
you. The Lord’s hands are still lifted
up over you. He pours out for you all
good things, seated as He is, at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Not removed from you by time or space. But right here, right now, where eternity
breaks in, and heaven comes down, at the Altar of His presence. Here God blesses you.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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