A Sermon for Ascension
Text: Mark 16:14-20 (Acts 1:1-11)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Today we call to mind our Lord’s ascension into heaven. And the Ascension is more than just our Lord vanishing into the skies. This is the hasty graduation, ordination, and call service of the Eleven rolled into one. And Jesus begins by rebuking them “for their unbelief and hardness of heart.”
This may not seem like a helpful beginning to their ministries. But then again, our Lord is always rebuking them. He expects more of His ministers than He does of others. And they are all men, and they are supposed to be able to handle it. Besides, it’s not something they haven’t heard before.
In fact, it is comforting for us. Because although we are Christians, although Jesus died for us and declares us forgiven by His grace, although we are formed by the Holy Spirit working through the Word and the Sacraments, we still struggle with our Old Adam: our sinful nature that clings to us. And this was even the case with the Eleven, who witnessed three years of extraordinary miracles, who watched our Lord be crucified and rise again, and who have seen Him appear to them in His resurrected glory for 40 days now. And even given all of that, they still struggle with “unbelief.” This is a cause of hope for the rest of us, we who are not apostles, we who have not seen and yet believe.
There are no diplomas, no fancy speeches, no caps and gowns. There isn’t even a stole or a ceremony of laying on of hands. There is nothing wrong with any of these things, of course, but these first eleven ordinations were admittedly different. Jesus is in a hurry. For He has work to do, and He will be doing it through their mouths, by their hands, and using their feet. Our Lord commissions them bluntly: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” And, of course, some of their hearers will believe, and others won’t. They are to carry out a ministry of both Word and Sacrament, as our Lord elaborates: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
The work of the Eleven will be a matter not only of life and death, but of eternal life and eternal death. They will go forth as an army armed not with clubs and swords, as the men who came to arrest Jesus, but with the Word and Sacraments. They go out bearing not weapons, but the Gospel. And that is a frightful thought for the demons and for the devil himself. And in less than three centuries, the direct successors of these Eleven will conquer the Roman Empire itself, as St. Emperor Constantine will himself join the church, and his royal emblem will bear a cross, and the words “In this sign, you will conquer.”
But on this day, the disciples, who have figuratively moved their tassels and become apostles, are simply confused. They will need more instructions, and they will soon receive the power of the Holy Spirit in less than a week and a half.
St. Luke teaches us in the Book of Acts that when our Lord “was lifted up,” and as “a cloud took Him out of their sight,” they were again rebuked – this time by an angel. Yes, it wouldn’t be God speaking to them if it were any other way. We men appreciate God being blunt with us. And so the angel reminds the Eleven that the Boss has given them their jobs. Break time is over. There is a world to be converted. “Men of Galilee,” he asks, “why do you stand looking into heaven?” This is a rhetorical question. For, the angel continues, “this Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.”
Therefore, the time to work is now. The time to preach is now. The time to baptize is now. The time to call sinners to repent, and forgive them when they desire absolution is now. The time to consecrate the bread and wine that is our Lord’s most holy body and blood is now. The time to receive His Most Holy Eucharist is now. The time to pray, praise, and give thanks, is now. The time for pastors and laity to work in the kingdom as we have been called according to our vocations is now. There is an urgency, because at any moment, this Jesus will return.
Men and women and children will either be “saved” or “condemned.” They will either believe, or they will not. They will either be baptized, or they will not. The apostles – and later those whom they ordained – and later their successors, century after century, still operate based on this urgency, giving out God’s grace by means of proclaiming “the gospel to the whole creation.”
There is no time to stand around gawking into the sky. We don’t have the luxury to sit on our hands, to complain, to try to find someone else to do the work that has been given to us according to our own vocations. Jesus is coming.
And we also know what is to happen ten days after the Ascension. For on that festival of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit will descend in majesty and power, and He will ignite and inflame the apostles, turning them into a wildfire that will consume the world – preaching urgently in every language, overturning the curse of languages given to us at the Tower of Babel.
The church will grow, not because of clever marketing, not because of entrepreneurial instincts, not because they are making a better mousetrap available to buy and sell. Indeed, the church has nothing to sell, but gives away everlasting life at no cost – other than the cost of our Lord’s blood, His passion and death on the cross. And it is “this Jesus,” this “Christ and Him crucified,” whom we proclaim as the Gospel, as the Good News, to every creature in the world – both those who are with us, and those who are against us. Our confession remains the same, whether our hearers embrace this truth and join us in the kingdom, or whether they turn on us, harass us, and kill us. It doesn’t matter, because we already have the gift of everlasting life. And God will raise up more men to proclaim the Gospel.
And so here we are, dear friends. We set aside today to reflect on what our Lord has done in His Ascension, and what it means to us in our own time. We not only proclaim the Gospel, we hear it, we believe it, we rejoice in it, and we pray that our hearts would not be unbelieving and hardened.
For whether we are preachers or hearers, we are stewards of this Gospel. We take ownership of this mission that Jesus has put us into. For we are His witnesses, not only in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria – but also “to the end of the earth.”
And we, the church, will once again, next week, call to mind the extraordinary events that happened on that first Pentecost of the New Testament, when we celebrate this coming of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and to us.
Dear friends, let us rejoice, but let us get to work. Let us believe, and let us make sure we are making baptism and the Word of God available here in this place. Let us pray for our troubled world and our many unbelieving friends that they will encounter the truth of our Lord’s death and resurrection by “many proofs,” and by our witness in Word and Sacrament, until that great and glorious day when our Lord “will come in the same way” as the Eleven “saw Him go into heaven.”
Amen.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.