Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Ephesians 1,20b-23. Christ's Ascension, transferred

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Ephesians 1,20b-23 3114

Christi Himmelfahrt 041

Justin Martyr, Martyr 165

Pamphilus, Pastor, Martyr 309

1. Juni 2014

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. (The Book of Common Prayer 144). Amen.

2. »The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 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 He put all things under Christ’s feet and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.«

3. St. Luke the Evangelist describes Christ’s Ascension this way: »While Jesus blessed His disciples at Bethany, [1] He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.« (Luke 24,50-51). Blessed Luke’s description is brief and devoid of specific details that pique our inquiring minds to wonder about the words spoken, but „We are not told what words Jesus spoke in blessing. We do not need them because we have only to look and we shall know. In the hands that He raised in blessing we can read the meaning and blessing of Jesus. These are the hands that pushed at Mary’s breast in all our human littleness and frailty. These hands learned to hold a pen and write the words of Scripture that Jesus knew so well by the time He was 12 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 144,2).

4. In our fallen, human frailty, we are prone to ask: „Where is that hands-on Jesus now?“ Our minds cannot grasp the greatness of Jesus, and so we ponder sadly how the ascension more often than not means that Jesus has gone away and left us alone. We pine for the glory days: those years when Jesus was here on earth, in our midst, speaking, teaching, laughing and in the company of His apostles and disciples. We want that kind of present Jesus, a Jesus we can speak to face to face and grab ahold of.

5. The post-ascension life of the Church does not have that sort of Jesus in her midst anymore. Jesus does not show Himself anymore the way He did during His thirty-plus years on earth 2000 years ago. In our desire to be in Jesus’ presence, we would confine Him to our midst at a particular place and at a specific time. With our limited understanding of space and time, such a desire on our part would be to confine Jesus here with us (and no where else!) at the expense of everyone else who has need of Him and His presence. We limit Jesus with a physical body that is bound to the same laws of physics that we are bound to. We cannot occupy more than one place at one time, for this is the physical limit in which Yahweh created us to exist. We would bind Jesus to the same limitation, too.

6. The resurrected Jesus has a resurrected physical body that no longer confines itself to the physics of space and time. The Jesus who is God and man can be in multiple locations at the same time. We cannot comprehend this feat, but the fact that He can do this is born out in His ascension. The resurrected Jesus is carried up to heaven, can enter a locked room by surpassing the physical obstructions of door and walls, can be at point A one minute and appear at point B, dozens of miles away, in a mere second of time. This is the Jesus who ascended up to heaven at Bethany. „But because Jesus has ascended, His people [all around the world] and in this room know that He is with them. He has promised it. How Jesus can manage it we cannot figure out“ (Nagel 145,5).

7. Is it any wonder that His disciples worshipped Him at that moment? Here was flesh and blood defying the God-made laws of physics! The Apostle Paul describes this in his Epistle to the Ephesians: »The God of our Lord Jesus Christ worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 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. He put all things under Christ’s feet and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.«

8. If there is one thing we can say about the Apostle Paul, it is that he brings every thing back to the cross and empty tomb (1. Corinthians 2,1; 15,3-5). Even the ascension is grounded upon the crucified and risen Christ. The hands that blessed the disciples as He ascended are the same hands „that gathered the little children into His arms to hug them and bless them. They are the hands that griped Peter when he looked away from Jesus and began to sink. Here 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 doubt. 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 the blessing and how it was won for us. ... It is a big blessing indeed that cost that (Nagel 144,3).

9. Although we do not know what words Jesus said to His disciples at His ascension, we do know what the blessing imparted to them. The outstretched hands of Jesus blessed His disciples with the promise and peace of salvation. They knew that their crucified and ascended Lord had redeemed them and had paid in full the price for their sins. The ascending hands of Jesus are hands assuring them, and us, that all our sins are forgiven and that He now ascends to His throne on high to rule and intercede as the Redeemer of the world.

10. What does Jesus’ ascension at Bethany mean for us 2000 years removed from when it occurred? It means:

„There He lifted up His hands | and hallowed all of them,

and consecrated them with His words. | He then set off from there, upward,

and went to the high heavenly kingdom | and His holy throne:

He is seated there | on the right side of God,

the Almighty Father | and from there the Ruling Christ

observes everything | that happens in the whole world“ (Heliand 5973-78).

It means: Jesus has made us righteous and holy, and He is now seated in power and glory, watching over us, providing for us and in our midst. He is never far from us, for as we gather in His Name, even if it is only two or three, Jesus is there with us. And where Jesus is, there He is with His love, providence and forgiveness. Amen.

11. Let us pray. 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

Soli Deo Gloria

✠

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

Heliand. http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~bkessler/OS-Heliand/

[1] Bethany is 1.5 miles east of Jerusalem.

[2] 5973 thar hôf he is hendi up | endi hêlegoda sie alle,

5974 uuîhida sie mid is uuordun. | Giuuêt imo up thanan,

5975 sôhta imo that hôha himilo rîki | endi thena is hêlagon stôl:

5976 sitit imo thar | an thea suîðron half godes,

5977 alomahtiges fader | endi thanan all gesihit

5978 uualdandeo Crist, | sô huat sô thius uuerold behab=et.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, June 2, 2014

Ephesians 1,20b-23. Christ's Ascension, transferred

No comments:

Post a Comment