“FEAST OF THE ASCENSION SERMON”
Saint Mark 16. 14-20
The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord: 2 June Anno Domini 2011
Fr Watson SSP
"Afterward[s]…He has appeared…" over and over again to the Augsburgers and upbraided them (you) with His Law for your unbelief and hardness of heart-not to mention your daily trespasses. Because your sinful self does not believe in His Ascended and Present Presence! Or perhaps you "technically" say and pronounce your believe in the Bodily Presence of the Christ (if by no other virtue than your "membership" in a "Lutheran" parish) but your actions, demeanor, motions, behavior, unguarded statements, and daily theology give forth a contrary confession.
After the Lord spoke his final audible words to the "12" and before He spoke to you through His recorded, preached, and sacramental Word, "He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God."
What does this mean?
You usually have theological and systematical catechesis at this point of the homily; to better inform your faith of the deeper meanings and true results of your Lord's vertical ascent into a distant cloud and its daily import in your life: but not tonight.
Tonight, we take a brief break from our usual, annual, discourse on dogmatics, exegesis, Franz Pieper, and your own local pastor's attempted cleverness at depicting the Ascension in "object lesson" or analogy, and let the Christ tell you what His Ascension is all about.
Jesus did not ascend by moving His Body, Blood, heart, mind, love and presence into a cirrus or stratus cloud, much less to a distant cosmological hidey-hole. Jesus ascended into the mouths of the "12" so that they were exactly what He had appointed them to be: shaliachs, apostoloi, AMBASSADORS in His stead and by His command. The Apostles took their newly ordained ministries, which was His, and went "…into all the world… preach[ing] the gospel to every creature."
"He was received up into heaven" puts Him right here, right now, in the heavenly realms of His Kingdom of Grace-the Church Catholic. Repent, Believe and be filled! The fact and reality that He has "sat on the right hand of God" allows His omnipresent Bodily Presence every time His pastors preach His Name, Person and Work! His movement (call it an ascension, call it as Saint Paul does a "filling up") into the font allows little babies to receive the same Word Made Flesh as those 12 Galileans. No, the font is not just a piece of "darn furniture" but it is the matrix, the womb of the Holy Church, another locus of the "right hand of God." Hence one who believes in the real Jesus of the Scriptures shows reverence, piety, and great respect for this humble receptacle of water…water and THE WORD!
The Ascension is why you are here this evening-because it means that Jesus is here-really here! Repent, believe and be filled.
Jesus has gone "into all the world" and been washed on/in to his brethren through Baptizing and Teaching with the Word-with Himself.
So that the early proto-Church might believe and thrive under persecution, diaspora, and martyrdom, signs were given to the "12." His first "corps of confessors" was allowed to duplicate and perform Christ's own miracles where He willed. Peter and Paul resurrected the dead while John and Peter healed a cripple.
"And these signs shall follow them that believe." Believe! Repent and believe. He ascends up so that you will stop looking and listening to your own heart and stomach and will look to His crucifix, to His cross, to His atoning blood sacrifice, and to all those things which take place in His ascended chancel, altar and sanctuary! Look up and listen; look up hear and believe. Be filled.
The signs have continued, albeit in a less outwardly dramatic and 'showy' way. To 'show' the Savior is now to preach the Savior, to Gospel the Lord, to administer the Sacraments. Daily you "take up serpents" in your own drowning of the "old Adam," for what are serpents but demonic foes and devilish temptations of the world and the flesh? To drown the ancient serpent you must pick it up with the gauntlets (part of the whole armor of God, cf: 1 Cor. 16. 13-18) of Christs + pierced hands and drown it in your regenerative New Life! And the reason the deadly poison of adders and asps harms you not; the reason even false doctrine cannot blur your vision and slow your respiration; the reason the venom of Satan's viscous vitriol against the Evangel is of no eternal damage to you; is that you have drunk, you drink and you will always be drinking the antidote to death, devils and decay: The Blood of the Lamb, the Wedding Toast and the Victory gulp. The winner of the Indianapolis 500 traditionally drinks a great draught of ice-cold milk in Victory Lane, but you my brethren sup from the Chalice of Calvary the Blood of the God/Man at His very own Victory Table-His family table and circle.
The Lord ascends from Olivet to Augsburg's Altar. The Christ moves from Palestine to the Churches of the New Covenant. Jesus' One Person in Two Natures (God and Man) remains as before: God assuming the nature of humanity when He assumed His manhood from the Blessed Virgin. But now, it's not Divinity clothed in humility-Jesus being true God but refraining from using His divine attributes-now it is Jesus being temporarily 'out-of-sight' while He clothes Himself with tap-water, spoken absolutions, sermons, and bread & wine! This is the Gospel: Christ perfectly obedient for you back then (yes), Christ the perfect atoning sacrifice on the tree for your sins back then (yes), BUT JESUS HERE NOW giving you all of Himself: Grace, Mercy, and Peace as the Apostle would say. Believe. Believe because you are sick and diseased NO MORE! He has laid His hand on your forehead and breast and marked you as His. He has touched your funeral bier and raised you like the young man from Nain. He has called you forth from your own hillside grave and like Lazarus you have exchanged your rotting, smelly burial shrouds for His own sweet-smelling (of aloe, myrrh, acacia, and lilies) robes of royal matrimony.
Come forward to the Feast and the Lord again works with you by working in you His signs and words. He toasts you this Festival Evening as you yourself ascend to the place of honor and acceptance.
In Christ, you too are seated at this table, at the right hand of God.
In the Name of The + Father and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost