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The Ascension of our Lord, 06/02/2011
Sermon on Luke 24:44-53, by Walter W. Harms
44 He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." 45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, "This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." 50 When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. 52 Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. 53 And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Are You a "Rejoicing" Person? Recently I took a "test" online to determine my real age according to a lot of facts and data that I was to give them. You know whether I had smoked and how long. What my HDL, LDL, and blood pressure was. Cancer in the family, and among the many other pieces of information I was to reveal in order to determine my "real" age was this. Do I think good things are going to happen to me in the future, is my attitude one of believing my future will be bright, and do I look on the bright side of things or think things will turn out unhappily for me.
I won't tell you what my results turned out to be. That's because I didn't finish the test, refusing to give them information about another person I thought might want to take the quiz. That quiz got me thinking: just what kind of a person am I-a happy one with an optimistic attitude or a gloomy one thinking always "if things can go bad for me, they will."
Without asking you to reveal all your inner thoughts and attitudes about now and the future, I want to ask: are you a person who rejoices every day? I am asking that question as I see what the followers of Jesus did after he left them and returned to his Father in heaven.
This day we are commemorating the Ascension of our Lord Jesus to heaven. He returns to his Father in heaven. He returns after completing the mission for which he was sent into this world. He came to "save people from their sin." And he did that.
Jesus, God's beloved and only Son was sent into this world of ours precisely to end all that causes men and women, boys and girls to be sad, unhappy, miserable, and worse.
When Jesus was about to leave the upper room and heaven for the Garden of Gethsemane and all that followed, he told the twelve men around him that they should rejoice at his "going where they could not go." When we look at these men a few hours later, what do we see?
First, sleepy in the garden, probably from too much wine at the Seder meal. One kissing Jesus to reveal that he was The Man. Then belligerent-whacking off a high priest's servant's ear. Then running away. Then swearing he didn't know Jesus when he had promised he would die rather than deny him. A couple of days later hiding behind locked doors out of fear. Then having nothing better to do than fishing.
Finally, in today's narrative by Luke, we have a whole new picture of these men. They see Jesus leave, they worship him, they return to the city "with great joy!" Then they stayed continually in the temple there in Jerusalem, praising God!
What had gotten into these men? Why this 180 degree change in attitude?
Are you rejoicing yet on this 40th day after Easter? Or, are you gloomy about the present, apprehensive about the future, unable to move with any kind of hope or joy, perhaps even depressed about life in general?
We might well have good reason to be less than bubbling over with enthusiasm about the present and future. I myself am close to 78 years old. Every month aches and pains increase on a continuum that is on the rise. Memory is not so sharp anymore. The hearing aids are aiding less it seems. I have to go to the eye doctor and he'll probably tell me about my enlarging cataracts. My physical strength is not increasing despite workouts at the local fitness center. Other activities have vanished. What's left?
I talked to a person this morning about her mother-in-law who should not longer live by herself. That's where I'm headed? That, the nursing home, maybe hospice, then well, I don't want a big funeral. And as my son says: "what different will all of this make in 100 years?" Yah, he's right, you know.
Your story going to be any different than mine, perhaps worse, perhaps only marginally better? And you and I are to be "rejoicing" persons?
Well, most of us are not as familiar with the Old Testament as these 12 or more were, but then they only had the Old Testament. There's that stuff about the lion laying down with the lamb and not for lunch. The child putting his hand in the asp's hole in the ground and not being bitten. Where there are deserts, oases; where the terrain is rough and rugged, smooth highways. Where sins are as red as crimson, now the whiteness of snow. Where the shroud is every person's future, it will have become more obsolete, more outdated than the buggy whip in our day.
These promises and so many more in the OT, Jesus tells these followers of his that all those must be fulfilled and that they were fulfilled in him. He tells his one-time wimpy men that he had to suffer and then had to rise from the dead. He told them that a change of their hearts, (we call it repentance) and forgiveness of sins was going to be spoken in his name to all nations. He told them they were witnesses to all of that.
He promises that the Father, his righteous father has a gift for them. They would get this gift in a few days. Then he blesses them with uplifted hands and he leaves them, and was taken up into heaven.
It was at that point that they left that place and went back rejoicing! What in the world is going on? More importantly is that going on with you? Do you find all of what these men experienced more than adequate cause for rejoicing? I mean, today, every day, even when the Lord God sends calamity to you and yours?
First, these men had seen Jesus do many, many miracles. Not very convincing, and they had hoped that he would control the whole world and put them in charge. It didn't happen. He went to the cross. Now these ordinary, lay persons just like you and I got it.
Jesus came not to smooth out their or our world so we would not have to experience and think about "bad" things. He came to destroy the big bad once and for all. He took our place so that all the times we go our own way, forget about God, participate physically, mentally or emotionally in activities which are just plainly self-serving or worse would not be on our record with God. Wiped out, obliterated forever through the cross. There is no condemnation to those who trust in Jesus as the One who had made it all right with God. The disciples got it; they rejoiced. We get it; we rejoice!
Second, they experienced a person who was as dead as any cadaver they had ever seen, come alive again! If not totally mind blowing by itself, was the statement by this dead but now alive Jesus that because he lives we shall live forever. Jesus came so that whoever trusts him would have never ending life. That means while we physically die we are not going out of existence. There is life after this short time in this world.
These men got it; they would live forever; they rejoiced. If we have gotten it that we will live forever, what can we do but rejoice in the face of all that makes life miserable, and seems to shorten it, but rejoice! Are you rejoicing?
Third, these disciples were promised a gift. That gift is the ever presence of God in our lives of the Holy Spirit. You got the Holy Spirit, too, at baptism. When you hear the Good News of Jesus for you, when you taste him in the blessed Sacrament, you get the Holy Spirit. If any of that has happened to you, you, your body is the receptacle, the temple of God the Holy Spirit. And I will remind you that we tell each other that he is the "Lord and Giver of life."
They were going to receive this gift. They rejoiced. You have received this powerful life changing gift. Are you rejoicing? Or still looking for something more?
Fourth, there is something more. There is purpose in life. Whatever else you do in life, God's purpose for you is to tell people about Jesus so that they can give up gloom, get connected with real life. People need this as badly as you do because the Devil, this world with its vices, and our natural inclinations tell us we have to do it, we can do it, and when we fail, the blame is ours, never to be removed.
Utter nonsense. You, as these men, have a message to deliver whether you are in elementary, middle, high school, college or university, grad school, working, unemployed, married, single, divorced, retired, and very old. Our purpose given to us from this One and Only Son of the only God is to tell the story of Jesus.
Tell how much it means to you. Tell how it takes away your gloom and sadness. Tell how there is nothing God doesn't and hasn't already forgiven. Tell it's never too late for God's love to fill your life with (catch this) everlasting joy, the kind of joy you exhibit in your life daily.
Are you rejoicing? Do you and I need to hear about what God through Jesus has done for us, weekly, daily?
Are you a rejoicing person? You should be. You're going to live forever. It's going to be even better when our connection with this Jesus is face to face. Until that time, rejoice, again, I say rejoice!