ASCENSION DAY May 13 2021

Old Testament: II Kings 2:5-15 Epistle: :1-11 : :44-53

Standing…

Grace be unto you and peace from our Father and from our Lord and Savior, . Amen.

In the ’ Creed, we confess 11 things about Jesus. Nine of them are in the past tense, and one is future— He will come to judge the living and the dead. However, one is in the present tense, He sits at the right hand of the Father.

The Ascension of Jesus is where He takes up His present work, of reigning as King and Lord.

Let us pray. These are Your words Holy Father. Sanctify us in the truth. Your Word is truth. Amen.

Sitting…

We have followed the life of Jesus this first half of the Year from the wrinkly, red infant on the straw of the manger to the young Child receiving the homage of the Wise Men.

We have followed Jesus from the young boy in the Temple to the Man to whom pointed and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.” :29.

Then, baptized of John in the Jordan, the Spirit came down into Jesus and we heard the Father who said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Matthew 17:5.

Tempted in the wilderness, Jesus held to God’s high saving purpose.

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In Lent, we followed as Jesus moved to the fulfillment of that purpose, resulting in , Maundy , , and . All this that He might bless us.

We are not told what words Jesus spoke in His blessing. But, we don’t need them because we have only to look and we shall know. In the hands that He raised in blessing we can read the meaning and blessing of Jesus.

For you see, these are the hands that pushed at Mary’s breast in all our human littleness and frailty. These hands learn to hold a pen and write the words of Scripture that Jesus knew so well by the time he was 12. These hands worked with hammer and saw, sharing and blessing our work with us. These are the hands that touched the eyes of the blind and the tongue of the mute, and took hold of the pale, cold hand of the little girl and gave her back alive to her amazed father and mother.

We read so often of these hands that Jesus stretched out, touched, or grasped with that personal, individual compassion that marks the healings of Jesus. He did not heal people by the dozens lumped together, but was there for each one that needed Him as His hands took hold of each one.

We recall that moving scene when, after a full and busy day, Jesus went far into the night, helping and healing others. St. Luke records, “Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with diverse diseases brought them unto him; and he laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them” (4:40.)

These are the hands that gathered the little children into His arms to hug them and bless them.

These are the hands that gripped Peter when He looked away from Jesus and began to sink into the water.

These are the hands that broke the blessed bread and gave them His body to eat. These are the hands that Thomas was invited to touch, conquering all his doubt.

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All this is what the ascension hands of Jesus say, and I have not yet mentioned the biggest thing of all, for in those hands are the print of the nails. Those jagged scars that tell us the full size of the blessing and how it was won for us.

All our wrong, all our sins, Jesus took on Himself and bore the punishment for them. He was forsaken, so we might not be forsaken of God but forgiven, and because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, we are made alive again as the children of God.

Because Jesus’ hands were stretched out on the cross, they are today stretched out in blessing on His disciples. The One who ascends and blesses bears the marks of the cross in His hands. That is why the sign of the cross is made with the blessing. That is what Jesus means to us at Ascension: life and blessing won and given.

As you know, but bears repeating, Jesus’ Ascension does not mean that He has gone away. Before Jesus ascended, He promised that wherever we may be, He is with us— Hear and now in Holy Baptism, in the holy Gospel, in Holy Communion— delivering His gifts of life, salvation and the forgiveness of sins. The difference is that after the Ascension, Jesus does not show us Himself anymore, or at least not until the next time, which will be at the end of the world or when we die, whichever comes first. Which is a really good thing.

For suppose Jesus had gone on showing Himself as He did before His . Where would He be tonight? In America or in New Guinea? We would say, “If He is there, then He is not here.” But because Jesus has Ascended, His people in America and New Guinea and in this place know that He is with them. For He has promised it.

How Jesus can manage that—we can’t figure out, and what tells us that it’s silly to try is the bright cloud

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that took Jesus out of the ’s sight.

You can just barely make it out in the image above the altar, but this was no ordinary cloud. We have seen this cloud before at the Transfiguration, and in the Old Testament there was the bright cloud that remained above the two on the Ark of the Covenant. It’s the same bright cloud that led Israel on their journey to the Promised Land. That cloud was the guarantee of the presence of God.

So, at the Ascension, a cloud is used to mark Jesus' entry to the realm of God, which we can neither understand nor measure with our present little thoughts and limited experience. We can't push our measuring tapes into that cloud and say how things have to go on there. They go on as God says, and that is the way with Jesus now.

Jesus didn't travel thousands of miles up into the atmosphere. He rose up a little way—above the earth—and this cloud received Him out of their sight. All that was gone was the sight of Jesus. The cloud means that He is no longer within our ordinary limits. Jesus is now present and does things in the whole range of God’s way of being present and doing so while remaining a Man, but a Man and glorified.

We confess this when we say that, “He sits on the right the Father Almighty.” Present tense! The right hand is not some particular place as we think of, but the exercise of the whole power of God, which is now in the hands of Jesus.

Beloved, the Ascension does not mean that Jesus has gone away. Quite the opposite, He is with us now even more powerfully than when men saw Him during His first Advent. We live, then, in the presence of our ascended, ever present Lord. And because He is with us, we cannot be destroyed. Jesus has made the way to victory for us. He leads us that way, giving us strength and courage,

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and will finally bring us to the bright cloud of .

Thus, we go on, then, from the Ascension just as the first disciples, “with great joy” (Luke 24:52).1

In the Holy Name of Jesus, Amen.

Standing…

And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1 Selected sermons of Norman Nagel: from Valparaiso to Saint Louis, 143-146.