Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
Fourteenth-century Italian artist Nicolo di Giacomo da Bologna’s The Ascension of Christ in tempera, gold leaf, and ink on vellum cut from an illuminated antiphonary in the Thrivent Collection of Religious Art, reprinted in the Spring 2024 Thrivent Magazine, p.32.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed, alleluia.)
When our Circuit #14 pastors met two weeks ago here at Pilgrim, our Biblical study focused on the Gospel Reading for today, Ascension Day, and Rev. Cain from Redeemer Lutheran Church in Nacogdoches got us into the study by showing us what he considered to be an unusual artistic representation of Jesus’s Ascension as viewed from above, for which representation the nineteenth-century artist reportedly went up in a hot air balloon to help get the right perspective (Dore Ascension). Days later, I came across what I thought was an even more unusual artistic representation of Jesus’s Ascension from the medieval period, with Jesus shown horizontal over the heads of His apostles, as if He were flying to heaven like Superman. Of course, Superman himself did not soar into the heavens reportedly until a British magazine cover one year after he was created, but originally Superman was only able to leap one-eighth of a mile at a time, tall buildings in a single bound (Superman Homepage). Of course, whatever super-powers the fictional Superman is thought to have pale in comparison to the great might that our non‑fictional God worked in Christ, such as when Christ ascended into heaven and was seated at the Father’s right hand in the heavenly places. As we tonight consider primarily the Epistle Reading with its description of the immeasurable greatness of God’s power toward us who believe, we direct our thoughts to the theme, “Ascension power for you”.
Tonight’s Epistle Reading in its original Greek is one long sentence, in which one long sentence, the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul tells the Ephesians that he both gives thanks to God for their faith in the Lord Jesus and for their love toward all the saints and prays that God would give them the Holy Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. As St. Paul continues, he makes clear that the Holy Spirit would enlighten their hearts to know: the hope to which God had called them, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe. And, St. Paul essentially says, that power was demonstrated when God raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at God’s right hand in the heavenly places. St. Paul emphatically heaps up descriptions of this power demonstrated in Jesus’s Ascension and describes how Jesus was exalted in His Ascension ultimately to the benefit of His Church.
Of course, you and I needed and still need God’s great might that He worked in Christ when He seated Him at His right hand. Before God worked His immeasurably great power toward us who believe, as St. Paul goes on to say in the verses that immediately follow tonight’s Epistle Reading, the Ephesians and we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2:1-3; confer 3:10; 6:12). That St. Paul prays for the Holy Spirit to help us know the immeasurable greatness of God’s power shows we need the Holy Spirit and God’s great might in order to do what we cannot do with our own powers, namely think anything good or right in spiritual matters, understand them, begin them, will them, undertake them, do them, accomplish them, or even cooperate in them on our own (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration II:12, 15). We no more cooperate with our conversion and salvation than we cooperate with our physical birth or bodily resurrection (Pieper, II:477). But, the Holy Spirit calls and so enables us to be sorry for our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake.
As St. Paul goes on to say in the verses following today’s Epistle Reading, God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:4-6). As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading (Luke 24:44‑53), Divinely necessary for our salvation were the Christ’s suffering and dying on the cross and the third day rising from the dead and repentance for the forgiveness of sins being proclaimed in His Name to all nations. When we are sorry for our sin and trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, then God does just that: He forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin, whatever our sin might be. As St. Paul writes to the Colossians, Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them by the cross (Colossians 2:15). As we heard in today’s First Reading, for forty days Jesus presented Himself alive to His apostles by many proofs and spoke about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:1-11), before He ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, as we confess in the Creeds. Not that Jesus sits in a fixed place, though surely there is some honor for the Son of God in human flesh, and for us in human flesh, in what we consider His “session at the right hand”, but more to the point seems to be the Divine power that He exercises. Without diminishing His human nature personally united to His Divine nature, Christ Jesus is all-powerful and everywhere‑present, but He is especially present where He wishes to be found, namely, in His Word, including its sacramental forms.
Through the reading and preaching of the Lord’s Word and the handing out of His Sacraments, the Lord calls together and builds up the Body that is His Church. The Word with water in Holy Baptism is understood as an enlightenment like that for which St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading prayed. At the Baptismal Font, we are made children of God and so heirs of His riches for the saints. The Word with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution is the exercise of an authority far above those authorities in this world, for by Absolution our sins are forgiven before God in heaven. And, the Word with the bread and wine that are the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper are a part of our giving thanks to God and remembering Him in our prayers. In the Holy Supper we receive the same Body of Christ conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, resurrected on the third day, and ascended into heaven. And, especially in the Holy Supper, we partake of His Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
In this world we remain those who are both saint and sinner. We continue to be limited by the weakness of our fallen body and soul. But, our Lord Jesus Christ has conquered those things that plague us and is, as we heard in the Epistle Reading, exalted far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And, God has put all things under His feet and given Him as Head over all things to (or “for”) the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all. Our Lord Jesus is willing and able to help us in every time of our need. And, as He has been exalted, so in a similar manner one day will we be exalted. As we heard the angels say in today’s First Reading, Jesus, Who was taken up into heaven, will come in the same way that He went into heaven—certainly bodily, with the clouds of heaven (Daniel 7:13; confer, for example, Matthew 26:64; Revelation 1:7), if not flying like Superman.
You may or may not know that there is a new Superman movie coming out next year, and this week fans were given their first look at a Superman costume that will be used in the movie, which costume has met with “mixed” reactions. No “mixed” reactions from us to our Lord’s Ascension or to His return when it comes, however. God has worked His “Ascension power for you”. Like the initially gazing apostles, we worship the Lord with great joy and are continually in His house praising God.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed, alleluia.)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +