The Lord commissions His Apostles before returning to heaven: “Preach the gospel to all creation.” Next, He adds the promise of Baptism. Left out of our Lord’s final words are commands to clothe, shelter, or mend broken marriages. Though noble, helpful, and part of what we should be doing, such work is always secondary.
For Jesus tells His Church to focus on baptizing with water, preaching the Gospel, feeding His Flock with His Supper, and forgiving as He forgives. Such is our charter and purpose. Nothing else underpins us or rises to the top, but only Jesus, who makes us His people when we receive the salvation He gives us.
In the time of Pontius Pilate, we fallen creatures colluded to assemble a cruel scaffold: beams of wood, crossed in hate. From the earth, we hoisted the Man we rejected, whom the Father anointed for the world’s salvation. In His life’s blood poured out the foundation of salvation, the dust of the earth becoming thick with tears and sweat.
Red and slick became the ground beneath the beam of death. Nearby, the Temple veil ripped in two, revealing the Lord’s mercy to all the world. Fallen men raised Him up on a mad design of human form, but the Almighty spoke the final Word and built, instead, a Place for His people.
Still, the disciples do not realize what unfolds before them. With constricted throats and swollen eyes, they weep. The wind and sky cover them with darkness for the shame. The hills quake with rage and frustration, letting go of the dead. All creation mourns the price God pays on the dark Friday of long ago.
What men meant for evil, our loving Father worked for our well-being. From eternity’s perspective, life did not die. No, death did, meeting its end at last. The Divine Shepherd laid down His life and breathed out His final breath. Through such, the end of death arrives, with life now beginning for the Creator’s creatures.
So, if Death is now dead, so is the place of death, Hell. The Law is defanged, with no more power to curse or accuse. No more is creation subject to the sting of mortality and its unrelenting dominion. No one needs to experience such an eternity unless he enters with his righteousness as the gateway.
The future now begins, for the heavenly Father’s will is done. The cruel scaffold, beams nailed and crossed with hate, turn into the emblem of love and grace, of God’s true glory. For in the water and blood dripping from the body nailed to the wood, His forgiveness and mercy pour forth. The place of the skull now becomes the burial ground of death and Hell’s defeat.
The long-expected and promised Messiah rests in the tomb. Now is the reward for His faithfulness, for the pattern of the first creation is also the same for the second. The Lord finished His recreation on the 6th day, on the cross, on a dark Friday long ago. On the 7th day, the Sabbath, He rests—but rising to life on the eighth!
For 40 days, He walks among His people. The Creator with His creatures, the Redeemer and redeemed, the Savior with His believers. With them, preaching, teaching, and eating, He opens the Scriptures and sets their hearts afire with His love. In His scars, He comforts them, speaking peace to them and delivering the keys to the Father’s kingdom.
From the earth again, their Savior rises, returning to the eternal realms from which He came. Some 30 odd years before, He descended to earth to put on our flesh. Now, He leaves the earth as both God and Man.
So, Christ’s ascension is also a Feast of the Incarnation. This day, we celebrate the Second Person of the Trinity, God of God, Light of Light, being Man. Through our distant kinswoman, He became incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary, a descendant of David. The Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Divine and beyond all time, the Child born of Mary becomes the Father’s only Son, born in time to save us.
All this is to make Himself into an offering, which will atone for the sins of all people of every time and place. For the Righteous One from above comes to be the Lamb of sacrifice, severing the cords binding us to Hell’s altar. By being a Man, He also fulfills the Law in His dying, rising, and, in His ascending.
The Priest and Sacrifice, the Law-Giver and Law-fulfiller, is forever God and Man. The Divine Man, who causes death to pass over you, is ascended. Washed in His blood-purified waters of Baptism, we do not die but live. Robed in human flesh is the One who came to Moses in the burning bush, Yahweh, without beginning, who joined with us in Mary’s womb.
From Satan’s grasp, this Kinsman rescues you, redeeming you from death. To the right hand of the Father, He goes, of flesh and form like us, our Advocate. Now, He intercedes, pleading your case in the scars at the right hand of His Father.
In heaven, His Body is exalted and glorified. For this Man, the flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, the ransom for sin, is also eternal and never-ending. Without beginning or end, He can be everywhere, at every time. For He is omnipresent, without limit, except for those, which He places on Himself. So, when the Savior who ascends in glory promises His disciples, “I am with you always,” He is.
Though His Body rules in eternity, the One born of Mary is not gone. Yes, He is with us, but not only in our hearts and minds. Oh, much more, for He is present with us in Word and Sacrament. In His Body, in His sacred communion, He is with us still. Why?
The One who died is alive, but He presents us a better and stronger reason, which only faith will believe and hold. In His last testament, which He makes into His New Covenant, He tells us. “This is my Body given for you. Take, eat; take, drink.”
In His death, the world’s Ransom for sin offered His body, a payment to the Law for our guilt. Now, He comes with the benefit of His saving death, removing our sin, joining Himself to us in His Supper. The Body crucified, risen, and ascended is for you, not in theory, but for real. For a theoretical salvation does not save, only a real one does. The Scripture calls our Lord’s meal a Communion, because He is with us, as He says.
So, His body becomes Jacob’s ladder, opening the way to paradise. The saving Son returns to the Father, but He is also here, joining us to eternity, with the saints and angels around His throne. Though we are here, in Him, we are also with them. For when Christ is in us, as we are in Him, He makes us into one people. By Divine grace, our sins are removed, forgiven in the foretaste of the eternal feast.
So, this is Ascension. For we do not celebrate our Lord leaving us, for He is not gone. No, this day is all about our Lord preceding us. For He goes to prepare a place for us while He is still with us, for us, and in us.
The One who crashed the gates of Hell, which locked us in, also unbarred the gates of Heaven, which kept us out. For His holy and precious Blood and His innocent suffering and death unbar the gate and shatter the door. The only Son of the Father is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Now, no one can accuse you. Gone are the guilt, the shame, and regret, for the Father remembers your sins no more.
Of course, to our human reason, this is a myth of utter foolishness. The Gospel always is. The toughest to grasp, the hardest part to take in, is God gives you such life. Such is Salvation’s way, a stumbling block to our fallen flesh. Can this be true? Yes! So, we preach Christ crucified, risen, and ascended to every creature. Confess the faith, live the faith, and speak Jesus into another’s ear.
Don’t try to make the Gospel vigorous and mighty, for we don’t hold such strength within us. Do not persuade through fancy words or try to appeal to someone’s imagined needs. Preach the Gospel to all creation, in the vocations where God places you to serve. Proclaim the death Your Redeemer died—and the life He lives for you and them.
Don’t let the Church become a business or measure our success like those in the commercial world. Such acts only take our eyes off our Savior to focus on some human-made idol of our devising.
The hardest of all is this—be willing to die for another, not only for a friend but an enemy. Let the other strike your cheek. Take up your cross and follow Christ.
Though ascended, He is not gone. For He lives, still delivering His life to and for you. For in His Church, we don’t only eat bread and wine, but receive our Lord Himself, in His Body and Blood. Today, Jesus is with us, giving us the fruits of His Cross.
The crucified Lord, now risen and ascended, joins Himself to you. In a perfect communion, in a feast of forgiveness, we receive a sampling of grace beyond all human thought, tongue, or telling. The miracle of the cross comes to us at our Lord’s Table. So, in giving Himself to you, He cleanses you from the inside out, fitting you for everlasting life, feeding you all the way into His eternal realms.
All praise to God because Death is now dead and life now lives. Open is heaven’s door, for Christ, our Brother and our Savior, ascended. Into eternal glory, He went up with a shout. So, let our mouths also rejoice: Alleluia! Amen.
