Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Revelation 1,4-8. Christ's Ascension

Friday, June 1, 2012

Revelation 1,4-8. Christ's Ascension

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

Revelation 1,4-8 3112

Christi Himmelfahrt 041 weiß

Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, France † 1115

20. May 2012

1. Grant we beseech You, Almighty God, that like as we do believe Your only-begotten Son our Lord to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwell. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer). Amen.

2. John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ the Faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of kings on earth. To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Even so. Amen. „I am the Alpha and the Omega,“ says the Lord God: „who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.“

3. „We have followed the life of Jesus this first half of the Church Year from the ... infant on the straw in the stable to the baby receiving the homage of the Wise Men. We have followed Him from the boy in the temple to the man to whom John the Baptizer pointed: „Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!“ (John 1,29). Then, baptized of John in the Jordan, the Spirit came down on Jesus and we heard the Father’s voice: „This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him“ (Matthew 17,5). Tempted in the wilderness, Jesus held to God’s high-saving purpose: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. All this so that He might bless us“ (Nagel 143-44).

4. Forty days after His Easter resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven from Bethany. John the Apostle describes the ascended Jesus as one who has »glory and dominion forever and ever«. In the Creeds, we confess that Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of His Father. The 110. Psalm declares: »Yahweh says to my Lord: „Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.“ Yahweh sends forth from Zion Your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of Your enemies!« „Though it is not explicitly affirmed, the Ascension and the Session, as the words of the psalm indicate, meant much more than might seem apparent on the surface. The first- and second-century Christian who expressed his faith in them understood them as implying that Christ had beaten down the hostile powers opposed to Him, and consequently to His Church“ (Kelly 151).

5. With His ascension, Jesus’ ministry has now transcended the confines of temporal life on earth. Jesus no longer confines Himself in His body to one location in time. When Jesus ascended to the right hand of His Father, He takes up again the full exercise of His omnipresence, Allgegenwart, now as both God and man, for the property of the Divine and human nature is preserved in one Person (The Chalcedonian Creed of 451).

6. To be at the right hand of God does not limit or confine Jesus to a particular place in heaven. „The “right hand of God“ at which Christ sat down by His ascension is not a mere „seat of honor“ or a „seat of rest“, … but the heavenly throne of Christ’s exalted humanity“ (Pieper 325). The Apostle Peter’s Pentecost sermon proclaims that, by His ascension, Jesus did not enter into a „rest,“ or into an „inactive state or condition,“ but into an active Divine reign (Pieper 325). Thus Christ’s ascension to His Father’s right hand is glorious.

7. The right hand of God is about rulership and authority rather than a literal place where Jesus abides from His ascension until His return on the last day. The right hand of God attributes the Divine, universal dominion of God the Father, which is now given to Jesus to exercise as His Son and our Savior. To be at God’s right hand, the place of honor and rule, implies that Jesus wields the unlimited power and omnipotence (Allmacht) that is His and this rule is exercised according to both His Divine and human natures (SD VIII.27). This right hand of God is no mere fixed location in heaven.

8. Jesus’ dominion has specific benefits for us. Jesus ascended to prepare our eternal dwelling place (John 14,2-3). Jesus ascended to send the Holy Spirit to His Church and to send apostles, pastors and others to proclaim the gospel (John 16,6-8; Ephesians 4,10-12). Jesus now intercedes for us before His Father (Romans 8,34-35). Jesus now rules over His Church and all creation (Ephesians 1,20-23), which means that sin, death and the devil must be subject to Christ. All this says that the ascended Jesus is a Jesus who blesses.

9. When last we saw Christ Jesus in the Gospel according to Luke, He was ascending to heaven with His hands raised in blessing (Luke 24,50-51). These are the hands that lovingly held Mary’s hand. „These are the hands that ... learned to write the words of Scripture that Jesus knew so well by the time He was twelve years old. These hands worked with hammer and saw, sharing and blessing our work with us. These are the hands that touched the eyes of the blind and the tongue of the dumb, the hands that had taken hold of the pale cold hand of the little girl and given her back alive to her wondering father and mother. We read so often of these hands that Jesus stretched them out, touched or grasped with that personal, individual love and help that marks the healings of Jesus. He did not heal people by the dozens lumped together, but was there for each one that needed Him as His hands took hold of each one“ (Nagel 144).

10. „These are the hands that gathered the little children into His arms to hug them and bless them. These are the hands that gripped Peter when he looked away from Jesus and began to sink. These are the hands that broke the blessed bread and gave them His body to eat. These are the hands that Thomas held and conquered all his unbelief. All this the ascension hands of Jesus say, and we have not yet mentioned the biggest thing of all, for in those hands we see the print of the nails. That jagged scar tells us the full size of blessing and how it was won for us“ (Nagel 144).

11. Jesus’ ascension does not mean that He has gone away. Before He ascended, Jesus promised His Christians: »Behold, I am with you, even unto the end of the age.« „The difference is that after the ascension, Jesus does not show us Himself anymore, or at least not until the next time, which will be the end of the world or when we die, whichever comes first.... But because Jesus ascended, His people ... know that He is with them. He has promised it“ (Nagel 145).

12. Jesus’ dominion is now manifested in his Church and in our midst. Where two or three are gathered in His Name, Jesus is among them (Matthew 18,20). Where Jesus’ body and blood is given and received in the Holy Sacrament, Jesus is really present with those who partake of His Supper.

13, O Lord Jesus Christ, Your right hand exalts and does valiantly, pour out upon us the Holy Spirit so that in the days ahead when we struggle as Your Church militant we may be comforted with Your promise that we will inherit Your heavenly reign on account of Your righteous merit. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4^th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27^th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Friday, June 1, 2012

Revelation 1,4-8. Christ's Ascension

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