Sunday, May 12, 2024, The Ascension of Our Lord

“Looking at the Sky”

Ps. 47:1-9; Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

Hymns: #822 “Alleluia! Let Praises Ring”; #810 “O God of God, O Light of Light”;

#491 “Up Through Endless Ranks of Angels”; #493 “A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing”

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

    Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.

    Jesus ascended into heaven and left His disciples staring up into the sky with their jaws hanging open, awestruck and dumfounded and amazed. The angels, if you can picture this, sort of snuck up behind them, tapped them on the shoulder, and told them, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." A wonderful sight that must have been, Jesus taken from them until the clouds hid Him from their sight. But now He was gone, and they were left standing on the ground. Jesus didn’t give them wings to follow after Him. He could fly, but they couldn’t – at least, not yet.

    What He did give them, though, instead of wings, was beautiful feet. He promised them He’d come again, one day very soon. But until then, they and all those who came after them had really good news about what they’d seen to carry into the world. “You’ll follow later,” Jesus told them, “but until then you have work to do.” That’s where we are today, Church – keeping our eyes on the sky as we wait and hope and pray for Jesus to come again, but knowing we have work to do for Him until that day should come. May we keep our longing eyes on the sky, and our beautiful feet moving for Him.

    The Ascension of Jesus is one of the most mind-blowing, unlikely, faith-stretching events in our Bible. Jesus had told His disciples that He had to leave them, and that all the things that had yet to happen in the world couldn’t happen unless He did. They knew He was going to leave them, but they couldn’t have had any idea He was going to do it this way; that He’d leave them staring at the soles of His feet as He disappeared into the sky. That kind of thing doesn’t happen every day.

    Just before Jesus left His disciples, He said to them: "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." Understand that God has a plan. There are prophecies from Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms that have already come true, and prophecies about Jesus that have come to pass – “all the things that Jesus began to do and teach,” St. Luke says – and there are things that have yet to happen, but they surely will.

    “Then He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures,” our Gospel says. Jesus opened the minds of the first disciples and apostles to understand these things; and He’ll open our minds as well, if we’ll pick up His Word and read it and pay attention to what it says. Nothing that’s happening in this world should take us by surprise, if we have our minds and eyes and hearts open to what the Lord says. God had a plan from the beginning of the world, a “glorious inheritance for His saints,” St. Paul says; and God by His power is working it out, even to this day. His plan was to send Jesus, His only Son, to suffer and die on a cross for the sake of bringing forgiveness for all human sin, and for Jesus to be raised to life on the third day, to give us all a chance to see and know and believe and live. That part of the plan has come to pass, just as God had promised.

    Then Jesus ascended into heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to His disciples and to His Church, just as He had promised. (We’ll talk about the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost next week). And where did that leave them? With one eye on the sky, but with their feet still on the ground, faced with the work the Lord Jesus had left for them to do. And what is that work? This is so important for us to know and understand, because the work He gave them is the work they passed down to all those who followed them, and to the Church in all ages, and that good work has now come down to us.

    Times change, and cultures change, and nations and kingdoms come and go, but the mission of God’s Church on earth doesn’t change at all. The mission, as Jesus Himself defines it, is “to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name to all nations.” That mission began in Jerusalem all those years ago, and the Church spread out into the world from there; mostly because those first Christians were harassed and persecuted and hounded from city to city, and carried the Gospel with them wherever they went.

    The first part of our mission is to preach and teach repentance. Not to be wimps and ignore sin and never talk about it, because we’re afraid it will make people mad; but to call people to recognize and confess and be sorry for their sins and turn their hearts back to God. Nowhere in God’s Word will you find forgiveness offered apart from repentance. One is predicated on the other; one follows the other; the two ideas can’t be separated. We can’t take that call to confession and ignore it or put it aside, because confession and repentance is the preparation, the blessed lead-in, to the second part of our mission, which is to let the people know that their sins can be forgiven. There’s a cross where all your sins were paid for, and there’s an empty tomb, because “Christ has risen, He has risen indeed.” And because of that, there’s hope to be had, and hope to be found. Confess your sins and turn your heart back to God, and you’ll find forgiveness and peace in the blood that Jesus shed on the cross.

    That’s been the message of the Christian Church from the very beginning, the message that comes from the mouth of Jesus Himself. Any Church that preaches otherwise, any Church that offers forgiveness for free, without any call on the sinner’s part to repent or confess or change, just isn’t a Christian Church. That certainly isn’t any way to win a popularity contest, or to win the love and admiration of a sinful world; but it’s God Way, and it’s the only way we’ve been given to be saved. Those first disciples were persecuted and beaten and thrown in jail, and finally murdered, because of the witness they bore, and because they were bold enough and crazy enough to stand before governors and kings and tell the world the truth. Jesus warned them beforehand that’s what would happen to them, and that the world would treat them like they treated Him. That they were faithful through it all is why you and I are here, with one eye on the sky, praying “Come, Lord Jesus!”, and our feet on the ground, always willing to walk to where mercy and love is needed, and to go where the good work needs to be done.

    “You are witnesses of these things,” Jesus tells them. Those first disciples were direct witnesses, the ones who saw Jesus with their own eyes, and wrote down what they’d hear and seen, and passed the Good Word down to us. We’re witnesses ourselves, by way of the Good Word God has put in our heads and in our hearts, and by the Good News God has put on our lips about everything He’s done for us.

    This country of ours may not last forever; nations and kingdoms generally don’t. The first disciples couldn’t even have conceived of a world without a Roman Empire in it, any more than we could conceive of a world without the USA. We’re here on the ground to bear witness to Christ here in America on this day; and thank God we’ve still got a measure of freedom to do it. (“Work while the sun is shining,” Jesus said). Our children and grandchildren may have to bear their own witness in a very different world, or in another kind of nation altogether, if one should rise up in this place after America is gone. (God forbid that should happen, but one never knows). But whatever happens, God’s Church will go on, and God’s plan for the world will proceed as He’s always intended it to, and to the end He has in mind, may His will be done. “But what is that to you?” says Jesus; “You go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

    Then Jesus, before He left His disciples on the mountain alone, made them a promise that would make their seemingly impossible mission doable, a promise that would bless and sustain them through everything they were about to go through. And this is a big promise, because it’s our help and hope and consolation as well, as we face whatever this sinful world wants to throw at us. “I am going to send you what my Father has promised,” Jesus told them, “but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." What the Father promised was the everlasting presence of His good Holy Spirit, to be with us and in us and beside us, to be our advocate and our helper, our protection and our guide, as we walk the broken world, through the valley of the shadows, carrying the light of Jesus and the gift of Good News with us.

    “Power from on high,” Jesus calls the Holy Spirit. From that source of power, from heaven, as a gift from God, comes all the power, strength, and courage we’ll ever need to be “His witnesses to the ends of the earth.” The Holy Spirit speaks through the Word; faith comes by hearing; and the power of the Spirit is there in the words we speak about Jesus into the ears of the people around us. God has all the power, and the Spirit will give you the words. All you need is the courage to open your mouth and say them. Our job is to get the Word from our mouths to someone’s else’s ear; the Spirit will take it from there to the heart. Those first disciples started in Jerusalem. Our own place to start is right here in our own neighborhood, right where we are.

    So Jesus lifted up His hands and blessed them, and He left them and was taken up into heaven. And their response, from the very start, was to give their joyful, spirit-filled hearts to worship and praise. They went from praising Jesus on the mountain, to praising Him in the temple – to praising Him in Church! That’s where we need to be, on all these blessed Sundays God has given us. We have this one blessed day to fill our hearts and souls with worship and praise and the Holy Spirit, and six days in the week to come to take Jesus with us out into the world. (Thank God we’re still free to meet legally and openly and in peace; many of our fellow Christians in this world don’t have that blessing; please don’t forget to pray for them).

    Do keep your eyes on the sky, where all God’s blessings come from, and where Jesus is watching over us all. And since you can’t fly yet, and your feet are still here on the ground, do try your best to be a blessing to the people around you. “Love one another as I have love you,” Jesus says, “and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

    Let me take that blessing St. Paul gave to the Ephesian Church, and apply it to you:

“I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

    May the good Lord bless and keep us until Jesus comes again. Amen, come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly, and come soon. Amen.