Sermon for Ascension, preached on Thursday, May 26, 2022.
Before Christ ascended, He descended. He left behind His heavenly glory for the earthly frame of a man. He surrendered Himself to live as one of us, certainly without sin but not without the pain and sorrows of a world where death reigns and the devil rules. He was obedient unto death on a cross – a cross that was not His but ours and yet He willingly gave Himself up to its pain and death. He descended into the cold darkness of the tomb. And He descended into hell – not as one to join the devil’s torment or live under his dominion but to walk there first the victory lap of the Savior who descends to raise up His lost and condemned people.
His work of salvation is done. It is not that we need not add to what He has done – the whole point is that we cannot. There is nothing that can be added to His one all-sufficient suffering and death. It is perfect and perfectly complete. He never gave up being God but He hid His divinity in our flesh and blood. But no more. His flesh is now fully assumed into the glory of God and He sits at the right hand of the Father so that He might fill all things. The divinity He hid and did not always exercise before His death He now embraces fully in His resurrection to ascend on high.
Our Lord does not ascend to escape His flesh. No, He wears that flesh for all eternity – scars and all. But it is no longer the fragile flesh that death could threaten. It is the glorious flesh that death cannot overcome anymore. He does not leave to abandon us but to fill all things for us – especially to fill His Word that speaks salvation into our hearts and minds, His baptismal water that bestows new life to the dead, and His bread and cup that feed us on His very flesh and blood. Our Lord leaves to be here for us and in us and to work through us to finish all that He began.
In order to ascend, our Lord had to first descend. And what is true of Jesus, is also true of those whom Jesus calls His own. We descend into the baptismal water to rise up to be God’s own and to live under Him now on earth and then in heaven. We descend to the knees of our confession in order to be raised up by the voice of absolution. We descend upon our knees at this rail in order to be raised up by the only food that fills us and satisfies us for all eternity. We descend upon the bed of mortal death in order to be raised up to life that death cannot touch. Before we ascend, we must also descend. We go not on our own but where Christ has gone. Our lives are not transparent except to God. None of us has a crystal ball to see the future. None of us is superhuman and cannot be threatened by doubt and fear. Our lives are hidden in Christ with God. We see this not with eyes to behold or minds to understand but with faith that trusts. The world is filled with tribulation and trials. The devil is constantly at work to pull us down in the depths of His descent into sin and evil. Our own hearts are reluctant to give up the old ways of sin that lead to death. We are not sure what to make of death except to know that most of us would do anything to hold onto this life. We are caught between the people we were and those we will be and the tension is painful to us all.
But Christ has ascended to fill all things and to fill you and me. Christ has ascended from death and the grave to give us new and everlasting life. Christ has ascended from the altar of sin to the throne of judgment where you and I have been declared righteous. But we are still in the world though we are not of the world. God is at work in us raising us every day from sin and its death through repentance that we might endure every trial and be saved for His mercy’s sake. We are still in the world, though not of the world, and the new life Christ planted in us by baptism is being nurtured right here upon the crucified and risen body of Christ and His holy and precious blood. He has overcome the world, even if we are still fighting to hold on, struggling to endure, and battling our demons.
Christ descended before He ascended, emptied Himself in suffering to be filled in glory, and now fills the world and all of us with the fruits of His redeeming work. Trust in Him who has promised to find the way, to prepare that way that you and I may be where He is just as He came to be where we were. Hope in Him against hope the promise that nothing can separate us from His love. Meet Him where He has promised to be in the Word of Scripture and in the Sacraments He has established. Come to be where He is so that He can go with you where you must go until the ripe and fruitful moment comes and we are delivered from this struggle once for all to ascend to our final home on high.
Know this. The day is coming when your life will no longer be hidden in Christ but revealed for the whole world to see. That is no day of dread or fear but hope and triumph. What is now hidden is not the secret sins of the guilty but the holy and righteous life that is yours in Christ – a life that sometimes seems far from the daily life you live. What is waiting to be revealed is the life that is beyond your imagination, ripe with all that is better than our best and more than our little.
Rest your fears and your hopes in this promise. What now we hold by faith, then we shall see face to face. What now we see through the mirror dimly, then we shall see clearly. What now we feel so threatened by, then will be banished from our minds and our hearts so that there will be only Christ.
Christ has high ascended and so will YOU. You will ascend and leave behind all the troubles and trials of this mortal life to be swallowed up once and forever by His life-giving death and His triumphant resurrection. Every day the Spirit is turning you to the East, to the Sonrise, to the future, to eternity. Every day you are right now being reclaimed from all that own you – from sin and despair and death – to that which owns you and you it – forgiveness, hope, and life. That is why we observe Ascension. Christ’s future is ours. God grant this in the name of our Ascended Lord Jesus Christ.
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