✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
Acts 1,3-11 2916
Exaudi (Christi Himmelfahrt transferred) 042
Victor the Moor, Martyr at Milan, Italy 303
8. Mai 2016
1. O Jesus Christ, Thou Almighty Son of God, who is no longer in humiliation here on earth, but is seated at the right hand of Your Father, Lord over all things: We beseech You, send us Your Holy Spirit; give Your Church pious pastors, preserve Your Word, control and restrain the devil and all who would oppress us; mightily uphold Your reign, until all Your enemies shall have been put under Your feet, so that we may hold the victory over sin, death and the devil, through You, who lives and reigns with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for Christi Himmelfahrt).
2. To the apostles Jesus presented Himself alive after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the reign of God. And while staying with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said: „You heard from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.“ 6So when they had come together, they asked Him: „Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?“ 7He said to them: „It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has descended upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.“ 9And when He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. 10And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11and said: „Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will return in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.“
3. This morning we celebrate Christ’s ascension, which is a transition from the forty days of resurrection appearances and teachings to the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Christ’s ascension is the culminating fulfillment of His Heavenly Father’s will as found in the Holy Scriptures, namely that the Christ must suffer and rise again. The Law, the Prophets and the Psalms all speak of this ministry that Christ undertook, for Jesus arrived upon this earth to redeem us back to God the Father. With the actual redemptive act completed, He then returned to heaven.
4. So important is His ascension, that our church prominently portrays this event in a large stained glass window above the narthex doors. In this stained glass window, Christ’s ascension is majestically portrayed as Jesus ascends into heaven to be seated at His Heavenly Father’s right hand, which is the place of Divine power and authority. Every earthly and spiritual power must yield to Christ. The wealthiest people on earth and the most majestic angels must kneel at His feet. Christ has no creaturely equal or superior; He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
5. St. Luke the Evangelist tells us that two angels appeared to the apostles and told them: »This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will return in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.« Jesus’ ascension happened at the town of Bethany, which is 1.5 miles east of Jerusalem. This was the hometown of Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha.
6. But what is the importance of Christ’s ascension 40 days after Easter Sunday? We confess in the Apostles’ Creed:
I. He ascended into heaven
II. and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
III. From thence He will return to judge the living and the dead.
The Psalmist reminds us in today’s Introit: »God reigns over the nations; God is seated on His holy throne« (Psalm 47,8). And again the Psalmist: »The Lord says to my Lord: Be seated at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool« (Psalm 110,1). And also the Apostle Paul proclaims in his epistle: »Therefore God has highly exalted Jesus and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father« (Philippians 2,9-11).
7. The Apostle Paul furthermore told the Corinthian Christians in his epistle: »For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what he has done in the body, whether good or evil« (2. Corinthians 5,9). This is the final judgment where all the world stands before Christ on His throne: the Christian believers are separated from the wicked; the faithful enter into eternal life, and the unbelievers enter into eternal separation from God. But this judgment is not one of condemnation for Christians. St. Paul continues: »Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has arrived. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. For our sake God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God« (2. Corinthians 5,17-19.21). »Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus« (Romans 8,1).
8. Yes, Jesus rides forth to conquer sin, death and hades like a victorious warlord, but He rules His creation as a kindly prince. As Jesus ascended into heaven, so will He descend to earth on the last day to gather His Christian people into everlasting fellowship with Him. God the Father has made this crucified and risen Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2,36).
9. „The ascension does not mean that Jesus has gone away. Quite the opposite. He is with us now even more powerfully than when men saw Him. We live, then, in the presence of our ascended, ever-present Lord. Because He is with us, we cannot be destroyed. Jesus has made the way to victory for us. He leads us that way, gives us strength and courage for it, and finally brings us to the bright cloud of heaven. We go on, then, from the ascension as did the first disciples “with great joy” (Luke 24:52)“ (Nagel 146 ¶ 8). For we have His promise: I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28,20); I go and prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14,3). Amen.
10. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, You are exalted at the right hand of Your Father as the Lord: valiantly extend Your right hand so that we are preserved in the true Christian faith unto eternal life. 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, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
All quotations from the Book of Concord are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 12. Edition © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Nagel, Norman. Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel: From Valparaiso to St. Louis. Frederick W. Baue, Ed. Copyright © 2004 Concordia Publishing House.
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