Ascension Day, May 16, 1999Isaiah 57:15; Acts
1:1-11; Mark 16:14-20 Where do you go to find God? The Christian knows. You
go to Jesus. Last week we saw how
it is only through Jesus that God is our Father and that we may pray to him with
the confidence of children with their loving Father. We find God when we find Jesus.
So we ask, Where do you go to find Jesus? Now we are immediately faced with a
mystery. It appears as if Jesus is
gone from us. He went up into the
sky until a cloud hid him from sight. He
talked about going away and then he went away, promising to return. He said that if he didn’t go away, the Comforter would not
come. So it appears as if Jesus is
gone from us, that he is absent, somewhere else. On the other hand, Jesus promised his
disciples that he would never leave them. He
said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew
28:20) He said, “For where two or
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
(Matthew 18:20) Jesus is present
with his church, not absent from his church. How can this be?
How can he leave and yet not leave?
How can he talk about being present with his church while at the same
time he talks about leaving and coming back?
St. Paul explained it this way in his Epistle to the Ephesians.
In discussing how God the Father raised His Son from the dead he wrote: He raised Him
from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far We should not expect to see Jesus
walking the streets of Palestine as he did nearly two thousand years ago. Still, he is present with us.
He did not ascend into heaven to be absent from his church.
He ascended in order to fill all things so that he could be present with
his church everywhere at all times. Now
this is a wonderful mystery. Jesus
is not limited by space and time as we are.
He can be and is present in various different places at the same time.
He ascended into heaven and is even now at the right hand of the Father.
The “right hand of God” is not a geographical location millions of
miles away from us. It is not as if
Jesus is stuck somewhere else, absent from his church, where he sits on a throne
thinking about us. Or that he
watches us from afar maybe on a giant television screen that shows him what’s
going on here on earth. No, Jesus
is here. The “right hand of God” is a figure of speech that means
Jesus has equal power and authority to God the Father. It means that he who was humbled is humbled no more.
He lives to rule over his church and he does. When we call Christ’s ascension into
heaven and his session at the right hand of God a mystery we are using a
biblical term. St. Paul wrote about
the mysteries of the faith. In 1
Timothy 3:16 he wrote, Great is the
mystery of godliness: It is called a mystery because no human
mind can fully understand it. We
simply believe it because God himself reveals it.
In 1 Corinthians 4:1, St. Paul refers to pastors as “stewards of the
mysteries of God.” Our job is not
to figure out these mysteries but to teach them, to place them before God’s
people as clearly as we can. How the mysteries of God can be true
only God knows. How can Jesus be
present with us here at (First American Lutheran Church in Mayville) River
Heights Lutheran Church in East Grand Forks and at the same time be present with
Christians on the other side of the world?
I don’t know. John Calvin,
the famous Swiss theologian and the father of the Reformed churches, figured out
that Jesus wasn’t really present with his church.
Calvin was quite bright. He
was familiar with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks.
Aristotle had shown that the finite could not contain the infinite.
That’s the kind of thing people think about when they don’t have
enough work to do. At any rate,
John Calvin agreed that the finite could not contain the infinite, so he
concluded that since man is finite and only God is infinite, that Jesus was
present with his church only according to his divine nature.
Christ’s human nature, according to Calvin, was finite.
He could not be in more than one place at one time. So he insisted that the “right hand of God” was a place
far away from us. Jesus in his
human nature was absent from his church, according to Calvin.
Calvin’s teaching is very reasonable.
Calvin’s teaching is also very wrong.
Reasonableness might be a good way to judge politics, law, or even
ethics. It is a very poor way to
judge theology. We Christians must
daily confess that our own human reason is completely corrupted and stained by
sin. We need to submit humbly to
the word of God even when it teaches us things that are completely unreasonable.
Calvin’s highly educated human reason led him to deny that the bread of
the Lord’s Supper really is Christ’s body.
After all, a human body is finite and cannot be at more than one place at
the same time. So says Aristotle. So says human reason. So
says John Calvin and his disciples. So
say most Protestants who follow the same reasoning as John Calvin did.
But God says something quite different.
God promises that Jesus – true God and true man – remains present
with his church as he promised. Jesus is not absent. Jesus
is present. The whole Jesus, in
both his divine and his human natures, is present wherever his gospel is
proclaimed and whether his sacraments are administered.
Let human reason whine and complain about how it cannot understand this.
Faith believes this because God says it.
It was surely against the error of John Calvin that the hymnist wrote
this wonderful stanza about the Lord’s Supper:
Though reason cannot understand yet faith this truth embraces; This
truth is important. It is not a
mere theological detail. Jesus, our
God and our brother, is here with us right now.
He is here in this room. But
how often do we talk as if this just isn’t so?
We talk about Jesus in the past tense, as if he isn’t here anymore, as
if Jesus’ ascension into heaven was his way of avoiding us for a couple of
thousand years. But nothing could
be further from the truth! It is
the ascended Jesus who rules over his church on earth through his holy gospel.
You hear a minister talk, but it is Jesus who gives the gospel to you and
assures you that he loves you, has suffered for you, and lives to intercede for
you. You listen to a man’s words,
but it is Jesus who baptizes the baby, and it is Jesus who gives his people to
eat and to drink of his body and blood for the full and free forgiveness of all
their sins. When you pray in Jesus’ name, when you
suffer losses nobody can understand, you need to remember this precious mystery:
Jesus is present with you. As both
true God and true man, Jesus is present with you.
As your God who can do anything you ask, Jesus is present with you.
As your brother who has felt all of your pain, Jesus is present with you.
With so much talk these days about compassion and true empathy, that is,
the ability to feel the suffering of another, only Jesus who truly knows what
you suffer. Do you face temptation?
He faced the same temptation. Do
you suffer from guilt? He who bore
the sins of all people felt the guilt of all those sins.
Do you wonder if anybody in this world can understand specifically what
troubles you? He can and he does.
He can as the all-knowing God who made you.
He can as your dear brother who took your place and suffered everything
you have ever suffered and more. This is the Jesus who is here with us
whenever we gather in his name. St.
Paul said it so plainly in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save
sinners, of whom I am chief.” Yes,
and he still does it. He still
saves sinners right here in this world. And
this is how he rules over us. He
dies for us and rises again. He
assumes his full authority as the Son of God and Savior of the world.
Jesus reigns. Jesus is Lord.
Jesus governs his church. But
pay close attention. Watch how he
does it. He serves us. He speaks kindly to us.
He continually takes off of our burdened souls the sin that would drive
us away in despair. He is present
in his gospel to do that. He
continually washes our guilty conscience clean.
He is present in our baptism to do that.
He continually feeds us with his precious body and blood.
He is present in his Holy Supper to do that.
He never stops interceding for us before the throne of God’s grace.
This is what Jesus does, and this is what his ascension means.
This is what the Bible teaches us when it speaks of Christ sitting at the
right hand of God the Father. Calvin’s baleful influence is surely
felt here in America. From the
early Puritans to the Moral Majority to the more recent non-denominational
independent churches, Jesus the Savior is portrayed primarily as Jesus the
example to follow. The children wear the bracelet with the letters, WWJD,
“What would Jesus do?” This fad
had even found its way into conservative Lutheran circles.
I found various WWJD novelties for sale in the on-line catalog for
Northwestern Publishing House. Well,
Pastor, what’s wrong with that? Shouldn’t
we ask ourselves what would Jesus do? Shouldn’t
Jesus serve as that model of behavior for our children?
Who better than Jesus lived a life worth emulating?
Who more than Jesus ought our children imitate? I agree.
No one is more worthy of imitation, and surely every Christian should
follow the example of Christ’s deep love and humility. But I ask, how do we
think of Jesus? I mean, what do we
think about when we think about Jesus? Is
he the one who came into our world to set us the example and now has left us to
watch from afar as we try to follow it? Is
he the greatest moralist of all time whose principles for living will yield
success in our personal lives and businesses and relationships? Or do we think of Jesus as the one in whom we may take refuge
when our conscience is afraid, as the one who has never left us and never will
leave us, but welcomes us again and again as he speaks gently to our sinful and
broken hearts and by that speaking gives us that love which knows no bounds,
that love which swallowed up our sin and death, and even now rules our hearts.
We needed more than an example. There
were plenty of them in the Old Testament. We
needed more than a teacher. God has
been teaching his people for thousands of years.
We needed a Savior. And we
still need him. This is why Jesus
invites us to church and this is why Jesus, our ascended King and Lord will
never ever leave his church. We
don’t need to ask, “What would Jesus
do?” We know what he did. He did what we
couldn’t do. He saved us from
sin, death, and the devil. And we
know what he is doing.
He is ruling over his church through the proclamation of his gospel and
the administration of his sacraments. So
we seek him where he may be found, and we always find the one who receives us
and makes us fit to enter heaven. We
stay with this Jesus who shows us the Father.
I walk with Jesus all the way, Rolf D. Preus Back to Sermons Page Back to Christ for Us Home Page
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