The Ascension of Our Lord
May 14, 2026
Text:
Eph. 1:15-23
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
“And he put
all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the
church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph.
1:22-23; ESV).
When our Lord Jesus ascended into
heaven, and took His place at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, this
was no minor addition to His saving work for us. No detail in the Creed can be minor. Every word is an article of faith. After fulfilling His earthly ministry, and
making atonement for our sins by His death on the cross... Forty days after His
victorious, bodily resurrection from the dead, and after a multitude of
appearances to His disciples, to teach them, and enlist them as eyewitnesses...
the Lord Jesus gathered His followers to Himself. He opened their minds to understand the Holy
Scriptures, and promised them the Holy Spirit.
And then He lifted His hands in
blessing. Who knows what He said? I have a hunch it was the same blessing we
hear at the end of the Church service, the Aaronic Benediction, “The LORD
bless you and keep you,” etc. (Num. 6:24 ff.). And while He blessed them (and don’t
miss that detail... He is still blessing, the whole time, which means He is
still blessing His disciples, us, now!)... while He blessed them, He
started going up. And up. And up.
And, eventually, a cloud hid Him from their sight (Oh, a cloud...
The Glory Cloud up on the holy mountain... The Pillar of Cloud in
the wilderness... The Cloud of the LORD’s... what? Absence?
No, presence! “I am
with you always, to the end of the age” [Matt. 28:20]. That is the Promise!). But, up He goes, and where is He going? Heaven, yes.
But in this case, that doesn’t mean the sky. It’s not that He's going up into outer
space. He is entering a different
realm. Heaven isn’t a spot in the
physical universe. We can’t really even
begin to understand what it is, except to say that it is the place of God’s
abode, His throne, and the dwelling place for the souls of the blessed dead who
live with God, and await the resurrection of their own bodies. It is not spatially removed from us,
actually. It is, rather, hidden
from our sight. “He was lifted up,
and a cloud took him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).
And then, as we confess in the
Creed, and as St. Paul preaches to us tonight in the Epistle (Eph. 1:20), the
Father seated Jesus at His right hand.
Now, understand, not just the divine nature of Jesus, which is
eternally one with the Father, and so, always with Him. But in the flesh. By the communication of attributes
(boy, we’re gonna have to review our Catechism on that one, aren’t we?!). That is, that the human nature of Jesus
receives all that belongs to the divine nature, so that the Man, Jesus
of Nazareth, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, sits at the right hand
of God the Father Almighty. And tonight,
St. Paul tells us why that’s such a big deal.
What is the right hand of God the
Father Almighty? The seat of
authority. The royal throne. When we confess that the Man, Jesus,
is sitting there, we’re saying (as Paul does in our text) that the Man, Jesus,
is the King. And He rules...
what? All things. Not just His Church, (though certainly His
Church). But all things. God “put all things under his feet and
gave him as head over all things,” Paul says (Eph. 1:22). That means earthly governments. Ours.
Theirs. All of them. That means history. It means your life, in every
circumstance. All the things you are. All the things you have. And all the things you do. That’s why you really can’t compartmentalize
your life, and say, “Okay, this is the part of my life I reserve for God, and
the things of God, but my work, or my sports, or my vacation, or... whatever...
have nothing to do with Him”... No, those things are part of the all things
under Jesus’ feet, too. It means, in
fact, that every cell of your body, and its function... every proton, electron,
or neutron that make up the atoms that make up your body, and everything else
in the whole universe... and probably parts more infinitesimal than that (we
can’t even begin to imagine, much less investigate them)... it's all under His
authority. Think how comforting this is
when you have a cancer diagnosis, or something like that. It’s not gonna be pleasant to go through
that, of course, but you can know with certainty that, even in the most
miniscule detail, there is not a thing going on in any cell in your body, but
that Jesus is intimately involved and ruling over it. Because He sits at the right hand of
God the Father Almighty. That’s what the
Ascension of Jesus means for you.
He even rules over angels. Okay, maybe that’s not so surprising, but
don’t forget what else that means. Over
demons. He rules over demons. Over Satan.
Over hell. When Paul says that
Jesus is seated “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion”
(v. 21), those categories are orders of angels, good and bad. Peter doubles down on it. He writes that Jesus “has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having
been subjected to him” (1 Peter 3:22).
So, not only do the holy angels do the bidding of our Savior and
Brother in the flesh, Jesus... but so do the demons, and the very devil
himself! This is why Dr. Luther loved
to call the evil one “Gottes Teufel” “God’s devil!” Because even the devil (and this is hell to
him) is, finally, under God’s control.
He can’t do anything beyond what God permits (think of Job). And then, God is always causing the devil’s
schemes to backfire (blow up in his face!) and actually work for God’s
purposes. For Jesus’
purposes. Which is to say, for our
good. All things, Paul says (and
there is that phrase again), work together... for what? For the good of those who love God and
are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). That’s you, isn’t it? That’s you.
Jesus rules all things for your
good. Because you are a blood-bought
citizen of His Kingdom. A member of His
family. A part of His Body. The Father gave Jesus to be Head over all
things (not just the Church, but beyond the Church) to the
Church, which is His Body (Eph. 1:22-23).
Which is to say, He rules all things for the sake of His Church. For you.
And then, through you. Through the Church. The fulness of Him who fills all in all. That phrase is worth a pause for our
meditation. Jesus didn’t ascend into
heaven to be removed from His creation.
But to fill it. Every last
nook and cranny of it. He’s in all
things. Right? The very protons, electrons, and neutrons and
beyond. Jesus rules it all, and fills it
all, and by the communication of attributes (particularly the attribute
of God’s immanence... His intimate involvement in everything), we don’t mean
just His divine nature fills all things, but the flesh and blood human
nature of Jesus fills all things.
Wow.
But, of course, we can’t apprehend
or receive His saving benefits from His being in all things. He is in the wood of this pulpit, and your
pew, and that’s great, but that doesn’t yet deliver to me His blood and death
for my sins. Turns out, He actually is
on the golf course, and by the lake, and out in nature, like you tell me when
you want to skip Church (“I’m worshiping God in nature”). But your fatal mistake (and the reason I
don’t buy it) is that He isn’t in those things to justify you before God, or
enliven you by His Spirit with His eternal resurrection life. He hasn’t promised to be in those things for
that. See, He does that as He fills all
things with His Body, the Church. His
fulness goes out and invades every corner through the ministry of the Church. The Means of Grace. The preaching of the Word. The Sacraments. Your Christian confession. The vocations of His Baptized people. He rules everything, anyway, and He’s in
everything, anyway (His immanence). That
is the Law. But by the ministry of the
Church, He fills and rules by grace. The
Gospel. His redemption. He brings people in. He brings things under His blessing. The hands upraised. The hands with the nail holes.
All things. He rules them. Now, this is not politics. And it’s not a military campaign. That’s the silly question the disciples ask
in the first reading, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to
Israel?” (Acts 1:6). The answer is “yes,”
actually, but not how you think. By the
Gospel. By preaching. By the Church in mission. The Church going out is the fulness of the
Lord Jesus filling all in all. It is the
bringing of the death and resurrection of Jesus into all things. Including you. Into you.
The Gospel was preached to you, and the Spirit therefore gave you saving
faith in Jesus, because Jesus ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand
of God the Father Almighty, and rules and fills all things. Not a minor component of your salvation. It is your salvation, as much as His
death and resurrection. It is all of a
piece. And that is why we’re here
tonight, rejoicing in it, and receiving it.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
And He lives, and He reigns. In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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