NOW WHAT?”
The Ascension of Our Lord (transferred)
May 17, 2015
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
While [Jesus] blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up
into heaven. And they worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with
great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.
Luke 24:51-53 (ESV)
We’ve all experienced it at one time or another. A lot of preachers
usually go through it on the Sunday after Easter. Politicians often
go through this experience when they wake up on the morning after they
have won the last election in which they are eligible to run.
Students have been known to get it on the day after their graduation.
Just in case you’re wondering what it is that I’m talking about, I am
referring to that “let down” feeling that you get right after you have
lived through a “mountaintop experience” of sorts--a climactic
event--the fulfillment of some long-sought-after goal. You have
expended so much time and energy looking forward with joyful
anticipation to this glorious event and, now that it has passed,
you’re not quite sure what to look for next, since nothing could
possibly compare with what you have just experienced.
I guess it would be an understatement to say that the disciples of
Jesus must have had that same kind of feeling as they stood on the
Mount of Olives just after their Lord had been bodily taken away from
them into heaven. It is no wonder that they just stood there gazing
at the sky into which Jesus had just vanished before their very eyes!
What would you have done? Without a doubt, these disciples must have
experienced that same sinking feeling that I was just talking
about--the feeling that says: “Nothing could ever top what I’ve just
experienced.” And yet Saint Luke doesn’t even us a hint of any such
thing—neither here in his Gospel nor in the Acts of the Apostles, from
which this morning’s First Reading comes. On the contrary, we are
told here that the disciples, after they had witnessed their Savior’s
ascension into heaven, were characterized by two prevailing attitudes:
worship and joy.
One attitude toward Jesus that the disciples displayed in response to
His ascension into heaven was worship. What could have been a very
confusing sequence of events for them was instead made very clear to
them: Jesus had died, but He wasn’t dead anymore. He had departed
from them, but He wasn’t really absent from them. Even after they had
witnessed the departure of their Lord, the disciples knew that He was
still with them--and that He would continue to be with them until the
end of time. They had just heard Him make that promise Himself:
“Behold, I am with you always,” He had told them, “to the end of the
age” (Matthew 28:20). Even if they hadn’t recognized Him as being
anything more, they had certainly seen and heard enough to know that
Jesus was a Man of His Word. But they also knew more than that: They
knew that He was in fact much more than a mere man and that He was
worthy of their worship and their adoration.
Perhaps by now they were beginning to put it all together and to
understand the true significance of Jesus’ life and death. They
seemed to be somewhat confused about that throughout the three years
or so that they had followed Him--so confused, in fact, that it can
get downright frustrating just for us to read about it. They had
tried to silence Him when He prophesied His approaching death and
resurrection. They ran and his when He was arrested. They were
shocked when He appeared to them after He rose from the dead. Even as
they gathered at the Mount of Olives for the Lord’s ascension they
were questioning Him in such a manner as to indicate that they were
still looking for some kind of an earthly, material, and political
kingdom. But all of that confusion was beginning to clear up now. It
wouldn’t become completely clear to them, of course, until the Holy
Spirit was poured out on them several days later at Pentecost. But
they were now beginning to understand that Jesus is indeed the divine
Savior who laid down His life for sinners, redeeming them from sin and
death, giving them the forgiveness of their sins and the sure and
certain hope of everlasting life--thereby earning not only their
respect and gratitude, but also their worship and praise.
The disciples left the Mount of Olives that day not only with an
attitude of worship, but with an attitude of great joy as well.
Unlike so many people who often feel cheated and angry when they’ve
lost someone dear to them, the disciples of Jesus realized that in
having Jesus with them over the past few years they had had the very
Best that God had to give them--and they found the greatest joy in
that. As they looked back on their experiences with Him they were
filled with reverence and joy in the realization that God Himself had
actually walked and talked with them and that they had been blessed
with the incomprehensible privilege of knowing Him personally and even
being counted as a part of His inner circle of friends.
But their greatest joy of all was the confidence they had that,
despite everything that they had already experienced, the Best was yet
to come. He who had been with them and who had given them so much--He
who had lived among them, suffered and died for them, and risen again
to give them hope--He who had now withdrawn His visible presence from
them for a time--this same One would return to them again in glory and
the joy that they had already experienced in being with Him would be
made perfect and would be theirs once more and forever. No matter how
joyful and wonderful their past experience with Jesus may have been,
all of it took place in this fallen and broken world--a world that is
infested with sin and death and grief. The joy that awaits God’s
people in the world to come will take place in a holy and perfect
world where nothing can mar or obscure the unbridled joy of living in
fellowship with the Savior and with all His saints in glory forever.
The mood and attitude of the disciples of Jesus just after His
ascension into heaven ought to be a mood and attitude that is shared
also by you and me in these last days. Like those disciples, we stand
between the first and second comings of the incarnate Son of God.
Like them, we believe that in Christ God Himself has lived among us
and has redeemed us, and that He will come again at the end of time to
take us to Himself and to bring all things to a perfect completion.
But we have even more reason to be worshipful and joyful than did
those disciples on the Mount of Olives, because we live after
Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has enlightened us with the knowledge that
Jesus is still with us and comes to us in the means of grace that He
has appointed: the Word and the Sacraments. That Spirit-given
knowledge is our strength and our comfort as we worship and serve our
Lord in this fallen and broken world in anticipation of His return
with divine majesty to usher in the new and perfect kingdom of glory
that He prepares for us even now.
Amen.
May the God of peace, who brought again from the dead that great
Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, by the blood of the everlasting
covenant equip you thoroughly for the doing of His will. May He work
in you everything which is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, our
Lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and ever. He who calls you
is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.