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Before Christ descended into hell, He descended to dwell upon the earth in flesh and blood as one of us. In the Creed it is explicit. Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, came down from heaven. He did not cease to be God or the only begotten Son of the Father but He did also take on flesh and blood to become man, like us in every way except sin. He was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin. He set aside His divine power and glory in order to live as one of us, under the law and under the reign of death. He was without sin but could not escape the limits that sin placed upon all of creation. In catechism class we call this His humiliation.
To be sure, there were glimpses of His divine power and glory. From water jugs that turned to wine to fish and bread that served thousands to the sick healed to the dead raised. And not to forget the voice that called out at His baptism and the glory on His face upon the Mount of Transfiguration. But He walked and talked as one of us and most of the time He did not reveal His divine power and glory but kept it hidden. He fulfilled all righteousness for us, the perfect man for the fallen humanity.
And forty days after Easter, Jesus gathered His disciples to Himself and walked out to Bethany and there ascended. His glory was hidden no longer. He did not cease to be man but now, as man born of woman, He ascended to the right hand of the Father on high. The power and glory He once set aside to fulfill His saving purpose upon the cross now He owns fully. So that humanity which once limited the omnipresent God to one place cannot limit Him any longer. Jesus does not leave or disappear but ascends so that He might now fill all things.
As St. Paul reminds us, For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. It might have been hard to imagine those words applying to Jesus as His arms were outstretched in suffering on the cross. But Easter began the vision of what His triumph over sin and death means – for Him and for us. He has ascended to the Father not as a move from one place to another but in order to fill all things. He comes before the Father to receive all that the Father has promised to Him. All things are now under His feet and there is no enemy He has not vanquished. Even though we may not see it with eyes, we behold His victory by faith and receive the fruits of that victory in Word and Sacrament.
Now Christ, having fulfilled all that the Father charged Him to do, has not entered into His rest but, by God’s grace, has filled all things. Specifically, He has filled His Word with the Spirit of His resurrection and baptismal water with the power of His death and resurrection, and absolution with the grace of His forgiveness, and Eucharistic bread and wine with His flesh and blood. That means that the Word is not simply the record of what He did, but His life-giving voice still speaking. That means that baptism is not the recollection of what He accomplished but the place where the fruits of His saving work live on and live in us by the power of the Spirit. That means that this Holy Communion is not a mere commemoration of what happened in the Upper Room but impartation of the risen and crucified flesh and blood of Christ into us.
Without Christ’s ascension, the Word would be like an encyclopedia – a record of what happened but without the power to do what it promised and deliver to us the crucified, risen, and now ascended Christ. Without His ascension, the water of baptism would be a mere sign or symbol but now it is the place and the means where the Ascended Lord works to mark us as His own, give us His new life, and forgive us of our sins. Without His ascension, absolution would be conditional upon something we did to believe it or live in its shadow but now it is the voice of the living Lord absolving through the mouth of the pastor. Without His ascension, the Lord’s Table would be a symbolic memorial by which we remember but receive nothing. Now it is our meal with Christ, upon Christ’s own flesh and blood, in which we anticipate the future He has already prepared in the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom without end.
When St. Paul tells us Your life is hidden in Christ with God, He is pointing us to Christ’s ascension. Our ascension from this valley of the shadow of death depends upon Christ’s ascension. Our life risen from death to the presence of the Father depends upon Christ’s ascension. He ascended not for Him but for us, that He might keep His promise, where I am, you shall be also. In the world we have trials and troubles and tribulation. But we do not belong to the world. We ascend beyond these things because we belong to Christ, our ascended Lord. We belong not to the world or death but to the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ. Our life is hidden with Him and is fully revealed only when we are with Him on high.
Just as Christ, for a time, hid His glory and suffered all kinds of things for us, now, for a time, our glory is hidden and we will suffer all kinds of things for Him. But just as that time came to an end and Christ ascended in power and glory over all things, filling all things, with His enemies as His footstool, so our time of suffering, sorrow, and struggle will end and we shall ascend with Christ to the place of power and glory over all things, and filled with Christ, we shall fill all things, with our enemies as our footstool. Then we will no longer live by faith but we shall see clearly and so shall all our enemies. And in that day, our joy shall be full, our lives in Christ complete, and we shall lack for nothing at all.
Until then, we do not lose heart. Christ is the first of many brothers and sisters who shall ascend in triumph according to His promise, as St. Paul wrote in Romans 8:29. But there is an order, as 1 Corinthians 15:23 says, Christ the firstfruits and then at His coming those who belong to Him. That is why we keep this ascension day. Not for Him but for us, who live in Him now but faith but soon face to face in the heavenly places, ascended far above all that afflicts us, and filled to overflowing with the grace of God and holy joy. Amen.
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