Ascension sermon. . . one of them

I had forgotten to post the Ascension Sermon (this one from the morning service) and was reminded.  Here is the earlier sermon (different from the evening one).  I pray it will be a blessing to you.

Sermon for the Ascension of Our Lord, preached on Thursday, May 9, 2024, at the morning service. 

God is gone up with a shout!  The Lord with the sound of the trumpet!  God IS the king of all the earth and sits upon His throne of holiness.  So says Psalm 47.  Far be it from an escape, the Ascension of our Lord is a sort of enthronement.  No, the Lord does not need us to make Him king.  We do not make Him Lord nor do we establish His reign in us or in the world.  God does all these things without our help but we pray that we may behold this wonder and believe it.  So the Holy Spirit establishes Christ to reign over our hearts and minds and we acknowledge this with the “amen” of faith.  

We are not give the command to tame the nations and turn them into God’s Kingdom.  God reigns over unbelievers as well as believers but those without faith neither know that reign nor enjoy its blessing.  For Islam the job of the faithful is to be warriors on earth and command the infidel upon the pain of death to confess Allah as god.  It was and always will be a militant faith with an agenda for earthly rule and rulers to compel the reign of Christ.

That is not the way of Christ, the only legitimate and authentic God.  He comes not by might or force but as the incarnate God in our own flesh and blood.  He comes not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him.  His kingdom is in the world but not of it.  It is where Christ is in the Word and the Holy Sacraments so His kingdom is not strictly spiritual but as concrete as the splash of water, the voice of His Word, the taste of bread and wine.  But His kingdom is not OF nor is it FROM the world.  He does not win the kingdom as a monarch who marshals his forces to battle but as the lonely soldier who gives Himself to death that we might have life.

Ascension Day is a liturgical day, a day in which the reign of Christ as King and Lord is acknowledged by His disciples then and now.  The Ascension of our Lord is the triumph of the humility which laid aside what was His right in order to take up the burden of our sin.  The Ascension of our Lord is the triumph of death that pays once for all the cost of sin.  The Ascension of our Lord is the triumph of life that the grave cannot contain.  Jesus ascends as King but He is not a different person than He is as Savior.  And that is why we are here.  We are participate as the people for whom He is crowned King and among whom He reigns through His Word and Sacraments.

Ascension Day is the triumph of the humanity of Christ in accomplishing all that the Father gave Him to do and with His humanity all of us are raised up to be with Him.  For us, it is now by faith.  For Dave Williams it is in His nearer presence on high.  For all who believe in Christ and who have loved His appearing, it will be face to face, on the holy ground of God’s presence, forevermore.

He goes to prepare a place for us.  He does not ascend to bask in the glory of His accomplishment for His work continues in us and through us until that day when time itself will end.  He goes to prepare a place for us so that we may be eternally with Him and He with us.  In that sense, the means of grace are transitional.  But that is exactly how the Scriptures describe them.  The Word of the Lord is forever but it is mediated to us through preaching and teaching only until we stand before the Word made flesh to hear from His own lips His voice.  What the water of baptism accomplishes is eternal but here it is mediated through water, received by faith, and lived out within the tension of sins confessed, absolution granted, and the baptized sinner restored.  The Table of the Lord is without end yet here it is known not in its fullness but in the foretaste – the taste of bread which is His flesh and the cup which is His blood – until He comes to usher in the full meal.  This is Jesus preparing us a place.

It is not about cleaning rooms or dusting off furniture or make beds with fresh linens.  It is about His work not up there but down here – through Word and Sacrament.  Here Jesus is doing His preparation for us, in us, and through us.  That is why we gather today.  It is not to remember an absent Jesus who has gone onto to bigger and better things but to celebrate the Lord who remains with His people, bringing forth in them the fruits of His atoning work, through the Word, the water of Holy Baptism, the voice of absolution, and the Holy Communion of His body and blood.

We call Jesus King not by shouting it out to the world or among ourselves but by kneeling to confess our sins, by remembering the gift of baptismal new life, by listening to His Word preached and taught, and by eating and drinking His flesh and blood.  Every Sunday and Thursday we gather to meet the King where He has promised to be, not the Savior who dies over and over again, but the dead whose death is our forgiveness and whose life is our hope.  We meet the King with heads bowed in prayer, confident that our merciful High Priest hears and answers those prayers.  We meet the King in grace and mercy, restored and kept to His coming.