Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Christ is ascended!
He is ascended, indeed! Alleluia!
This past Thursday, the Church
celebrated the ascension of Jesus. If you missed it or forgot, don’t feel bad.
It’s
easy to miss. After all, it lands on a Thursday. We didn’t gather here for
worship. Ascension doesn’t have the romance of Christmas or the punch of
Easter. Yet and still, as an historical event, it happened. Biblically, Luke
recorded it twice, in Luke 24 and Acts 1. The early church agreed, making sure
that it was confessed in not only the Apostle’s Creed, but the Nicene and
Athanasian Creeds as well. So, hear again the Ascension Gospel from Luke 24:
“Then Jesus said to them, “These
are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything
written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to
them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day
rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for[a] the forgiveness of sins
should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48
You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of
my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from
on high.” 50 And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he
blessed them. 51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up
into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great
joy, 53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.” (Luke 24: 44-53)
You’ve probably seen the various
artwork of Jesus’ ascension, whether it is one of the classic works by Dali,
Rembrandt, or Tissot, or a simpler picture on the front of your Sunday school
lesson. Universally, the painting shows Him with His hands raised in blessing.
That’s all we need on this commemoration of the ascension is to look at the
hands of Jesus, raised in blessing, and we can read in them the meaning and
blessing of Jesus.
These are the hands, born in
infant frailty, that held close to His mother, Mary, while He nursed. These
hands learned to hold a pencil and write the words of Scripture that He knew by
heart when He challenged the teachers of the Law as a 12 year old. These hands
held a hammer or saw or chisel while he worked with Joseph. These are hands
that touched the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf, and the tongue of the
mute. These warm hands took hold of the pale, cold, dead hands of a little girl
and restored life to the girl and then restored the girl to her parents waiting
outside. Read through the Gospels and pay attention to what Jesus hands did –
stretching out, touching, grasping – always with personal love, personal
contact, and personal attention to the person standing, sitting, lying in front
of him. Those hands weren’t afraid to get dirty, to be contaminated, or to touch
the unclean. The Savior of the World came to be with sinners, to rescue
sinners, and to destroy sin. One by one, Jesus reached into the world of death
and destruction, chaos and darkness; one by one, Jesus touched sinners; one by
one, Jesus healed – never en masse, in bulk, or by volume.
These are hands that gathered the
little children unto himself, holding, hugging and kissing them. These are
hands that reached out, just in time, to snag a doubting and sinking Simon
Peter. With these hands, he broke bread and raised the cup and said, “take and
eat; take and drink.” These hands were held out for Thomas to see, to touch,
and to believe.
Greatest of all, these hands were
pinned to the cross by nails. The hands that had done so much for others did
nothing to save Himself. Instead, those nails assured Jesus did everything to
save others. Those scars, presented to Thomas the week after Easter, those
hands, raised in blessing, those hands tell us what we need to know of the
blessing of Jesus on Ascension day.
What does that mean for us this
day? Those scars tell us that Jesus took your sins, your punishment upon
Himself and went to the cross for you. That Jesus was forsaken – alone and
abandoned by His disciples, His friends, and His Father in heaven – so you would
not be forsaken by God but be forgiven. That because Jesus died for you and
rose for you, and because you are baptized into His death and resurrection, you
will be made alive as children of God. Because Jesus hands were once stretched
out on the cross, they are today stretched out in blessing upon His disciples.
The one who ascends and blesses carries the marks of the cross on his hands. No
cross, no blessing. Cross, blessing. That is why when I speak the blessing to
you, it is done so with the sign of the cross, whether it’s on your forehead or
in the air. That is what Jesus means to you at the Ascension this day: life and
blessing won and given.
Now… do not ever think that Jesus
ascension means He has gone away. Do not think of the cloud that hid Jesus’
departure as an escalator that took Jesus “into heaven,” as if it is a location
far, far away. Before Jesus ascended, He promised that He is with us wherever
we might be. Could you imagine the chaos had He not ascended; had He remained
physically located only in one place at one time? You can hear it, can’t you: “I’ve
got Jesus, yes I do. I’ve got Jesus. Why not you?” No…because Jesus has
ascended, He is able to be all places at all times. He is with us, here, right
now…and with the saints of God in Walburg…and in Indiana…and Boston…and
Taiwan…and Pakistan…and St. Petersburg…and anywhere else on earth (or outer
space, for that matter) His children gather. He promised it. How He does it, we
cannot fully fathom. And we don’t need to. He promised it, and that is enough.
With His hands held high, Jesus
ascends into the cloud. This was a special cloud, I think – one which had
appeared before in Scripture. We saw the cloud at the Transfiguration. We saw
it in the Old Testament when the cloud was above the two angels on the ark of
the covenant and when the people of God journeyed by day through the wilderness
to the promised land. The cloud was the guarantee of the presence of God. So,
at the Ascension, the cloud marks Jesus physically leaving behind the world of
man and returning to the realm of God. Jesus is no longer with us in our
ordinary way of thinking. Jesus is now present and does things in God’s way,
also no longer constrained to earthly ways of doing things. He is still a man,
but a resurrected, glorified and ascended man who is also fully God.
Earlier, I said that most
paintings of the ascension show Jesus rising above the disciples, rising into
the air. There is a Lutheran artist in Michigan by the name of Edward Riojas
who has a different take on the Ascension. In his painting, at the top of the
painting, all you see of Jesus is His nail-marked feet. Behind the feet is a
bright orb, as if it is the sun. Along the bottom are dozens of small people,
the saints who worship the risen and ascended Jesus. Behind the orb is the
green, leafy top of a tree whose trunk is made out of the cross of Christ,
clearly marked with Pilate’s inscription, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
Jews.” The base of the tree is firmly planted into a lush, beautiful hillside
with trees in the background and a church off on the horizon. What is
interesting for me, though, is sitting with his back to the tree trunk is a
pastor, writing away at his sermon as pages and pages of the manuscript lay
around him. It’s a powerful reminder to me that Jesus, ascended into heaven, is
yet present both in the words the pastor preaches but also in the ministry the
pastor provides. Through the pastor, in Word and Sacrament, Christ is present.
Jesus has not gone away. He is
with us now, more powerfully than ever before. He is with us more powerfully
than when the disciples saw him. He is among us. And we live, then, in the
presence of our ascended and ever-present Lord. He is with us. We cannot be
destroyed. Easter lives in us. Christ is risen! We are risen! He paves the way
to victory for us. He leads us, giving us strength and courage for each day –
whatever it might bring us – and leaving us the promise of His bodily return,
soon, as well.
We are here today as the
disciples were – with great joy. We’re not wringing our hands in fear – Christ
is with us. We’re not tapping our fingers in worry or hurry – Christ is here.
We are here with hands that make the sign of the cross, reminding us that we
are baptized into Christ. We are here with that are open, ready to receive the
gifts of God in His Supper. Our hands are so full of the blessings of God, if we
stopped to ponder them all – if we used our hands to write them all down – we
would be stunned at the good and gracious gifts God gives to us. Our hands pick
up the food God gives to nourish us. Our hands open the door to our homes that
give us shelter. Our hands button shirts, zip up pants, and tie shoes to clothe
us. Our hands put on glasses so we can see, insert hearing aids so we can hear,
open medication bottles to keep our bodies healthy and strong. Our hands are
sore from working outside yesterday in the yard, our hands still sting from
applauding a grandson who hit his first little-league home run. Our hands…gifts
from God.
And, our Ascended Lord uses your
hands, filled with His blessings, to leave this Holy House and share those
blessings with others. You serve others as the hands of Christ. That means that
when you reach out to shake a hurting hand, you show them Christs hands of
compassion. When you change a stinky diaper, you do it with the servant-hands
of Christ. When you call your parents or your kids, you dial with the hands of
Christ who spoke to his mother with love.
When you buy a bottle of water from the little league team, you pay for
it with the hands of Christ that summoned children to come to him. When you buy
a sandwich for a man on the street-corner, your hands echo Jesus’ hands as He
once fed 5000. When you fold your hands and pray with your neighbor who struggles
from depression, your hands imitate Jesus’ hands who prayed for the women of
Jerusalem. When you reach out and touch the sick or the dying, you share the
touch of Jesus who once raised the dead. When you hold the hand of a child who
has been bullied, you share the gentle touch of the Shepherd. When you touch
your spouse’s cheek, you touch with the hands of the One who is Love. In those moments, the love of Christ is
present in you and through you. He has ascended, but He is still very much
here.
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