Sermon: Ascension (observed) – 2023

17 May 2023

Text: Acts 1:1-11

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

The Rev. Dr. Chad Walsh said, “Christianity is a vast process initiated by God Himself to undo what Adam and Eve accomplished for us.”  And it is the nature of a process to change over time.  This rescue operation known as “Christianity” has stages.  For although God doesn’t change, and as the author of Hebrews says, our Lord Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8), our situation changes.  Where we find ourselves in the plan changes.

Think about the apostles.  One day, they are living their lives as fishermen, merchants, at least one tax collector, a radical revolutionary, disciples of John the Baptist, or whatever else they were doing, and then they meet Jesus.  They quit their jobs, sell all of their things, and they walk with Jesus for three years as His students.  Think about what they saw, dear friends!  Miracle after miracle, preaching with the authority of God, forgiveness of sins, healings, exorcisms – even raising the dead and seeing Jesus in His full divine glory on the mountaintop.

And then, just as they expect one thing, something else changes: Jesus is arrested, put on trial, crucified, and put into a tomb.  Their lives have changed again.  And then, on the third day, the risen Jesus appears to them.  He explains the Scriptures to them.  He ordains them and sends them out to preach and administer sacraments.  And then, forty days after Easter, things change again.  He rises into the heavens as they watch – even as an angel scolds them for standing around looking up.

Their lives change again, dear friends.  They go their separate ways all over the known world: preaching and starting churches.  Other men will join them as pastors and evangelists.  In time, all of the apostles but one will be put to death for the sake of Jesus. 

Empires will rise and fall.  Nations will be born and die.  Languages will come and go.  But the Word of the Lord endures.  There are preachers and hearers.  Today’s baptized babies are tomorrow’s elderly, passing along the Good News of Jesus to younger generations in dire need of good news.

There is still yet one more major change, dear brothers and sisters.  For Jesus is coming back.  “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.”  We do not know when this will be, but Jesus has told us many times and in various ways to be ready, to be watchful, to be prepared.  Don’t let your guard down.  Stay focused on Him and on the Christian life of grace and of the Gospel.  And so we continue to preach and listen, to administer the sacraments, and be ministered to.  We continue to baptize and be baptized.  And we know the world is changing too, dear friends.  And not for the better.  Jesus has also warned us of this.

For we Christians are among the last in the world to believe in reality: that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, that a baby is a person bearing the image of God, and not just a clump of cells.  We know that there is a difference between good and evil.  We know that there is a distinction between truth and falsehood.  And we know that Jesus is with us, when and where two or three of us gather to worship Him, just as He promised.  He is present in His Word – though in a different way than He was present with the Eleven on the Mount of Olives.  He is present with us – “always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).  He is present with us in His body and blood.

So while His presence takes different forms, it is still the same Jesus.  While He “sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty,” nevertheless, He is still with us.  And while He is coming again “to judge the living and the dead,” He still remains with us, forgiving our sins, and giving us eternal life as a free gift.

He had told us that it was necessary for Him to return to the Father so that the Spirit would come to us – the same Holy Spirit that empowered the apostles to preach and build the church; the same Holy Spirit who works through us to this very day, dear friends.

And so, let us not be surprised when life presents us with changes, whether gradual or sudden.  The “vast process” of our rescue, of undoing the “accomplishment” of Adam and Eve is being carried out.  And no matter what changes in our own lives, Jesus doesn’t change.  The plan doesn’t change.  The end of the story doesn’t change.  We are headed there.  And there is no stopping it.  And this kind of change is not to be feared or dreaded.  It is to be embraced and rejoiced in.  For every passing day is a day closer to the fulfillment, to our eternal, heavenly promise of a new heaven and a new earth, of a new body, and a completely renewed mind, of a new way of living, and a new way of relating to the Jesus who never changes.

So when will this next change happen?  The Lord’s disciples wondered the same thing.  And so they asked Him.  But our Lord says simply: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority.”  No, dear friends, Jesus tells us to be about the spreading of the Gospel, starting in Jerusalem, then to Judea and Samaria, and then “to the end of the earth.”  We preachers preach, we hearers hear.  We pastors baptize, and all of us bring our children to the font to be baptized.  We gather even in twos or threes to hear the Word and to receive the Lord’s body and blood.  We confess our sins, and we confess our faith.  We remain followers of the unchanging Christ in good times, and in bad times, in wealth and prosperity, and in poverty and persecution.  We come into the faith one day or one year, and we remain until we leave this world, whether a day, or a century later. 

Our lives change, but the Jesus we confess does not.  And in the words of the unbelieving world, we “trust the process,” for we trust of the God who has initiated and is carrying out this vast process of our faith and life, of Jesus Christ our Lord.

And instead of staring up into the sky, we heed the word of the angels, not watching where He was, but fixing our eyes where He is, and being ever-watchful for His coming again in glory – busying ourselves for when He returns in His kingdom, “which will have no end.”  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.