Ascension Sermon 2020
The Ascension of our Lord
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY
21 May A+D 2020
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says:
“When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men.”
(Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) ~Ephesians 4:7-10
This is a feast that we will celebrate for eternity, because in eternity we will see our Lord with our own eyes, above all that held us captive. Why do you gaze into heaven? This Jesus who ascended into heaven will come in the same way. He will come in the clouds that hid Him from the sight of the men of Galilee, but then every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. And many will hide in caves and call for the mountains to cover them, but we who believe will look up, because our redemption will have finally come.
Until that day, let us hold tightly to our confession, “He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” What does this mean that He ascended into heaven? It means that He first descended, as Paul says, to the lower parts of the earth. Paul is talking about the Son of God becoming a man on earth, and living with us, and living for us, and suffering, and dying, and suffering the lowest parts of the earth. He came from the Father, and He returned to the Father. He descended, and He ascended.
What does it mean that He ascended into heaven? It doesn’t mean that Jesus is hanging out at some planet in a galaxy far, far away. It means what St. Paul says it means, that “He fills all things.” This means that Jesus, the Son of God, who became a man like us, with flesh and blood and a soul, is not limited to some things. He fills all things. He can be anywhere that He wants. The right hand of the Father at which Jesus sits is God’s power and glory and majesty. The right hand of the Father is everywhere.
And so, even though Jesus is visibly gone from us, He is not so far from us. His ascension means that He is still here as He promised, “Surely I will be with you, even to the end of the age.” Only we cannot see Him. But we can see Him by faith when He gives gifts to men. And St. Paul tells us what these gifts are later in Ephesians 4. They are the gifts of the apostles and prophets, of pastors and teachers, for the building up of the body of Christ. The gifts then are His Holy Spirit, who separated the Apostles as Christ’s witnesses on Pentecost, and this same Spirit separates men to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments to you today, as St. Paul says to pastors,
Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. Acts 20:28
And so Jesus is everywhere now, filling all things, giving us His gifts. The first gift is the Holy Spirit, which we will celebrate on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, according to Jesus, “takes of what is Mine and declares it to you.” John 16:14 Jesus calls Him “the Comforter.” How does the Holy Spirit comfort? He comforts by taking what Jesus has and declaring it to you.
What does Jesus have? He has captivity captive, that’s what He has! What captivity has He led captive? It is the captivity of the Law, and of sin, and of death, and of the devil. When Jesus ascended into heaven He was teaching His Church that He will be with us always before He comes visibly, and He will be with us to comfort us with His Spirit that our captivity to the Law, to sin, to death, to the devil – all of this Jesus holds in prison, never to escape.
But who can believe this? If we believed this truly from the bottom of our hearts, I’m afraid we would die from the joy of it, it is so profound! Let me explain to you the enemy, so that you might know the conqueror. Let me tell you about the strong men, so that you may know who is the Stronger Man. The joy of the Gospel is hidden from hearts that are blind to their greatest enemies.
The Law of God is good, but it is properly called “captivity.” Why? Because it holds you captive in judgment. The Law of God is that you love Him above all things and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Everyone knows some semblance of this truth. Every argument people make with other people about what is right or wrong always involves appeals to this Law that you don’t act like a jerk. Currently COVID-19 is holding people in bondage, whether through fear, or through faith that it is as deadly as many say it is. And those who argue about this virus will appeal finally to the Law in either taking it very seriously or dismissing it as not so serious. Which position will hurt people more? The appeal of both sides is to love.
But the Law pierces more deeply than arguments about these kinds of things do. The Law asks whether you love God from the heart more than anything else. It demands what is good, that you love the Giver of life more than this earthly life or any pleasures it could give you. It demands what is right, that you love another human being made in God’s image as much as you love yourself. And what does the Law do when you don’t and can’t do this (because no one can with his own natural powers!)? Does the Law say, “That’s ok! You did your best.” Of course not! The Law demands the love that God made you to accomplish, and so the Law rightly throws you in prison until you pay the last penny.
It doesn’t matter whether you recognize this captivity or not. Many religions ignore the captivity and imagine that if you work harder, if you think better or more positively, if you can see that your better than some really bad people, then you have escaped any prison sentence. But that is all man’s and the devil’s delusion that we are not sinners. It is ignoring how we actually think and feel in our hearts. But the Law is not so blind as not to see every imagination of your heart, and the Law is not so deaf so as not to hear every idle word you utter.
And so you cannot escape the Law’s captivity with your own powers. It is too strong and powerful for you. Thinking you have won an argument with the Law is like thinking you have overcome death on your own.
And it is the same thing with the sin that the Law reveals. God didn’t give His Law so that we might be able to obey it and so escape its captivity. God gave the Law to show us our sin, as the Scripture says, “By the Law is the knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:20) And so the Law teaches us the captivity of sin. Jesus says, “Whoever sins is a slave to sin.” This is the most miserable captivity, because you are obeying a master who hates God and your neighbor. Sin is lawlessness, and the Law commands love, and so sin is lovelessness. Sin doesn’t deny the kind of love popular these days, which would let anyone do what is right in his own eyes. That’s precisely how sinful man defines love – whatever makes me happy. But sin vehemently denies the love that would put God above your loves and fears. Sin vigorously opposes the love that would put you below your neighbor or the one who has done you wrong.
And so we are held captive by sin and its selfishness on our own. It the same kind of captivity whether it is the drunk or sex addict or inveterate gossip, or whether it is the self-righteous religious do-gooder, who thinks that he is not enslaved to sin because he has control of his outward actions that everyone sees.
But this is why people reject the Gospel, because they don’t see the captivity. They will deny the devil’s existence because it is inconvenient to their understanding that they are not slaves to anything. But no one can deny the captivity of death. Death captures us all. It lays us all low in the grave. Death is the great equalizer. Rich, poor, strong, weak, wise, fools, men, women, old, young, every tribe and language, all the accomplishments of men - Death has no regard for any of this. He simply devours us all. And so not even the most sophisticated philosopher can deny that he is captive to death.
The captivity of death comes from the captivity of the Law and sin. The Law says, “The day you eat of it, you will die. The soul that sins, it shall die. The wages of sin is death.” These are our enemies, and you must face your captors if you would see the Captor of captors; if you would see Him who led captivity captured, then you must see yourself as a captive. Otherwise you are blind to your own need, and you have will remain in the chains the Law has placed on all sinners, and you will have no strength to escape from the grave.
Because our freedom doesn’t come from our obeying the Law. Our freedom doesn’t come from our avoiding sin or making up for it. Our freedom doesn’t come from rationalizing death away. Our freedom comes from the Man who was born of a Virgin, but born before all ages, the eternal Son of the Father, and now the Son of Man, who came down from heaven for us and for our rescue, for our salvation, to redeem us, to set us free from these tyrants of the Law and sin and death, and to make us lords with Him, so that we rule with Him over all that once ruled us.
Christ, by a road before untrod,
Ascendeth to the throne of God!
I could not climb the road. It was too high for me. My reason couldn’t reach it. My works couldn’t build a tower to heaven. God was so far from me. He was angry with me, and I was angry with Him. We were not at peace. We were at war, and I had no chance to lose the war because I was allied with sin, and I relied on the Law and my own love, which was no love at all, and God lives forever, but I am mortal, bound for the dust from which I came. But the Conqueror came to conquer me. And He conquered me for Himself by fighting against my captors. He saw the Law accusing me and showing me no love in me that was not tainted with a greater love for myself than for God or anyone else. He saw the Law pushing me and prodding me, but enticing no love from my heart for God or anyone. He saw how miserable I was, and it made Him angry. His love made Him angry, and so He took my place under the Law. The fullness of time came and God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeemed me, who was under the Law, that I might be adopted as His son.
And so the Law accused Jesus, but Jesus was innocent. And when the Law had accused Him of everything evil the world has ever seen, and every shred of guilt known and unknown in the hearts of men, then the Law had nothing more to say. It was silenced. It couldn’t order me into prison anymore, because all of its orders were directed to Christ. It couldn’t judge me as worthy of death anymore, because it already condemned Christ to death.
And so also sin lost its power on me too, because “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for me.” “Christ has redeemed, rescued me from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for me.” All that lack of love was carried by love Himself. He was innocent, and so sin killed the wrong man, and for that sin was captured by Christ, as it is written, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree,” and “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world,” and “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” and “The Lord has laid on Him the guilt of us all.”
And so what captured me is led captive by Christ. And the last enemy is death, which you and I must face, but we have the assurance of the truth this day and always, that Jesus has captured that tyrant too. He let death swallow Him up. And death held Him for three days, but it was impossible for death to hold Him, because He had already captured the sting of death, which is sin. And so the Man, the Virgin’s Son, fulfilled the words of the prophet Hosea, which say,
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Pity is hidden from My eyes. Hosea 13:14
And you see Christ having no pity on your death, and you see God have pity on you. You see Christ leading captive what held you captive, and He captures your heart too. He changes your mind about Him. He is not your jailer. He has dispersed your jailers. He is not your end, He is your life. He has judged your enemies and He will not let them harm you. Only believe in Him. Trust in Him. Listen to Him, who has ascended far above the heavens so that He might fill all things and fulfill His promise to you today that He is with you always, even to the end of the age.
He is with you with the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments. That is His voice. There He gives His Spirit, who takes Christ’s victory over the Law and sin and death and declares it to you. He lead captivity captive, and by faith you join Him. He tells you, who feel captured by sins that have bound you; who feel surrounded by a prison of requirements you have failed to keep and you know you can’t keep, that He frees you from them all; that His obedience is Your ransom; that His body and blood are not confined to some place somewhere, but are where He says they are, and they are given here for you to eat and drink what conquered your captivity.
He claims the glory for you. A man claims the glory. Flesh and blood claim the throne of God. Why? For you. So claim it. It is yours. Christ is ascended and lives and pleads for you. God looks at your through His Son and He sees you free from your sins, absolved and innocent, with nothing the Law can accuse you of. He sees you alive from the dead. And if you feel your sin, remember who is captive. It is not you who cling to Christ and drink from His wounds eternal life. It is the sin that Christ has conquered that you feel in you, but soon you will feel it no more. He will come in the same way they saw Him go. Look up, and see your redemption drawing near. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Alleluia! Christ is risen!
~Pr. Mark Preus