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The Ascension of Our Lord, 05/10/2018
Sermon on Luke 24:44-53, by Walter W. Harms
Luke 24:44-53 New International Version (NIV)
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.
IS JESUS REALLY GONE?
I suppose that some of you have visited the Holy Land—to walk where Jesus walked and to see what he saw and the sites that were important to his life while he was visible in the world.
There seems to be a fascination with sites that seem close to God. Several years ago I visited a shrine on a weekday. There were many people there, but on weekends about 20,000 people, a million a year visit that shrine—to be close to where God seems to have given some visible signs of his closeness to that place.
Where would you go, given the time and money, to visit Jesus if he lived some place today? A million people would not even begin to measure how many would go to that site, in much less than a year.
Perhaps you are beginning to get the idea of why our Lord and Savior left his visible presence in this world. His visible presence is no longer needed. He came into this world as a human being, while at the same time the everlasting God.
He came for a specific purpose. He came to fulfill what was written about the Messiah, the Christ, about him in the OT. He came to suffer and to die for us. He came to do something you and I could not in our wildest imaginations could conceive of doing. That was to take the consequences of all the sins we have committed, whether our lives are short or long.
Sin’s alleviation requires death, a bloody sacrifice. As Holy Scripture says: “The soul [person] who sins dies.” Yes, I know all of us will receive that consequence for our sins. Jesus died as we will die, but here is the result of that death. He rose from death. He rose so that we also may rise on the last day. All because he paid the consequence of sin, your sin, my sin. Because sin ends when we die, so we shall rise as we trust him. There is no other way to know that we will have existence some day, other than trusting in what the Ascended Lord did for us while he was visibly present in the world. All other ideas about some kind of existence after death are false and misleading speculations. They are delusions fosters by the enemy of mankind, the devil.
Jesus left this world and his visible presence because what he came to do has been accomplished. His visible presence is no longer needed or necessary as we understand that kind of presence.
In fact, as we see what happened when he was present in this world physically, even after healing sickness of all kinds, ridding people of all kinds of infirmities, even bringing dead persons back to life, it did not create belief in him, but aroused hatred of him. That finally resulted in his death.
If Jesus were present physically today, would people believe and trust him? Some would, some wouldn’t, some would go about what they had been doing with no change.
As you can see from the Words of the Gospel for this day, Jesus was going to send something from his Father. That is the Holy Spirit that brings us to faith. Seeing Jesus would not in any sense create faith in him. Seeing would not be believing. In fact, you and I trust Jesus because we also have been “clothed with power from on high.” Each of us who trusts Jesus as his Savior has God’s Holy Spirit within. Scripture says that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit.
We see the presence of God as we see other fellow Christians, believers in Jesus. We do not have to see a visible Jesus. We do not have to believe because we see or touch. As Jesus said to his disciple, Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
There is no doubt the disciples left the place where Jesus ascended and with joy returned to wait the power the Father was going to send them. That is the kind of joy that needs to fiIll us each and every day
Our lives are much too gloomy with sadness, disappointment, sorrow, pain of so many kinds. We used to sing: Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.
The joy of salvation, of the mission of Jesus accomplished for real, of the hope, sure and certain of life after death is to radiate from us each and every day.
For many of us that is extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible in many of the circumstances we are living in. However, on this day it needed to be affirmed again. Jesus’ Spirit is in us and our fellow Christians, the believers in the forgiveness of sins Jesus has procured for us.
The consequences of sins of thoughts, words, and deeds done or not done hang over us like the sword of a guillotine. The good news for each of us who are here today is that the cemetery is not the final resting place for any of us. Jesus spoke of those who had died and whom he raised as sleeping. So we sleep for a while to awaken to be with this Ascended Lord Jesus forever!
You and I far off from the land where Jesus walked and talked, lived and died and rose again have had, just as he predicted have had repentance for the forgiveness of all sins preached [told] to us by many, many generations of people who did that for us.
What a cause to celebrate on this day! What a cause for daily joy and peace! Is Jesus really alive? Your life will show what you believe. As we through our attitudes and actions tell people of the forgiveness of sin and sometimes even put it into words, we proclaim that Christ is living! Alleluia!