The Ascension of our Lord – May 29, 2025Psalm 47; 2 Kings 2:5-15; Acts 1:1-11St. Luke 24:44-53
In the Name of the Father, and of the +
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Ascension of our Lord is one of the chief feasts of the
Christian Church and ought to be considered as standing right beside Christmas,
Good Friday, and Easter. Every time we confess the Apostles and Nicene creeds;
we confess that Christ ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the
Father. It is the capstone of Christ’s activities for your salvation. Tonight,
we seek to answer two questions regarding Christ’s ascension: 1) to where did
He ascend; and 2) why did He ascend.
The Ascension of Christ took place in an actual upward
motion, a gradual rising up of Christ, until a cloud received Him and He passed
from human sight.[1]
We can’t say much about His motions after being received into the cloud because
Scripture doesn’t reveal any details on this point. As for where Christ
ascended, we can give two answers. The first answer is to the paradise of the
redeemed, that place where those who are His dwell with Him forever. St. Paul
speaks of this place in Philippians 1 when he says, I have a “desire to depart
and be with Christ.”[2]
Christ also speaks of this place when He tells the thief on the cross, “Assuredly,
I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”[3]
This is the place we usually call “heaven,” though it is also called the
“intermediate state” since it is somewhat temporary, being replaced by the new
heavens and the new earth in the Resurrection on the Last Day.[4]
Of all that could be said about this intermediate state, the part that overlaps with the Ascension is that Christ dwells with those in glory as both God and Man. He ascends to the Father in His flesh and so dwells with His beloved in that same flesh. He still bears the marks in His hands, feet, and side as a testament to the saints in glory that their victory over sin has been won in His risen flesh. His flesh in glory is also a promise of the resurrection in that those who are His will follow in His train. “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”[5]
The second answer to the question of where Christ is going
is the right hand of the Father, but this is not so much a place as it is an
office. Christ “ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all
things.”[6]
“The right hand of the Majesty on High”[7]
is that office of Christ as Lord and Messiah over all creation. In a sense,
Christ’s ascension is His coronation into the full use of His authority over
all heaven and earth as both God and Man. Christ is King. He is the ruling
Monarch of the universe, seated on His throne of power, as He reigns over all.
On Pentecost, St. Peter preaches from Psalm 110, “the Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make
Your enemies Your footstool,” applying these words not to David but Christ,
saying “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” [8]
This leads us directly into our second question for this
evening, why did Christ ascend? In the first place, it was to assume His seat
on the throne of God’s power at the right hand of the Father, that is, to
assume His office as King of the heavens and earth.
In the second place, it was to transition from His local
presence to His illocal presence. That is, He is no longer in one place at a
time such that we can draw a line around His body, but is present in all places.
If Christ had not ascended to the Father, even if He was present in all places
at all times, which is His divine right, our human minds would find it
incomprehensible. Imagine, for a moment, that Christ was still present, in His
local body, sitting in every pew. There would still be space in between each of
these bodies and would lead our minds to wonder, ‘Is Christ in those spaces,
too?’ Or our imaginations would run wild, beginning to think that there were
multiple Christs, some better than others. And when we recede into our own
minds, because we could see Christ standing next to us, we would begin to
wonder if He could really know our hearts and minds, if He really understood
the depth of sin hiding in my heart or the pain and sorrow I feel deep in my
soul.
By removing His local presence, Christ is, in fact,
demonstrating His glorious final words of promise, “Lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the age.”[9]
As He becomes hidden to our eyes of flesh, He becomes abundantly clear to our
eyes of faith.
He is especially present for us sacramentally in His Word and Sacraments. The flesh of Christ cannot be separated from His Word and the Word cannot be separated from His flesh. He is the Word that was in the beginning, was with God, and is God.[10] So, too, are His Body and Blood given from this altar and the altars of every faithful congregation throughout the world. We needn’t be deceived by our eyes because His Body is not visibly present in other places. We can firmly believe His Words because He has said, “This is My Body,” and where His Word is, there is His flesh.
In the third place, Christ told His disciples that He would
go before them to prepare a place for them in the house of His Father.[11]
This promise is fulfilled in the Ascension. Christ ascends to the Father in His
flesh, meaning that a man sits on the right hand of the Father. He ascended in
His flesh to make way for the flesh of all His beloved in the heavenly mansions
of His Father. His flesh paved the way for your flesh to dwell eternally with
Him. Through His ascension, He is elevating the flesh of man.
Finally, Christ ascends to the Father to prepare His Church
for His return. Now ‘return’ is not the most accurate way to describe what
Christ will do on the Last Day because it implies that He has been absent throughout
the time between the Ascension and the Last Day. A better word is His
‘revealing’ or ‘revelation’ on the Last Day. I hope by now you understand that
Christ is not absent after His ascension, rather His mode of presence has
simply changed. And He has promised to reveal Himself on the Last Day just as
He was removed from the sight of the disciples at the ascension. He ascended
into a cloud and will reveal Himself descending on a cloud. By ascending in
this manner, He has given the world the very sign by which we will know His
return. He will not be born again, lowly and in a cattle stall, but will
descend on a cloud to the sound of heavenly trumpets. All eyes (those of flesh
and those of faith) will see Him descend and every knee will bow before the
King of all Creation.
In + Jesus’
name. Amen.
