Blessed Ascension Day to you in the name of the Ascended Lord, Jesus the Christ, all praise and glory unto Him forever and ever world without end. Amen.
It is on this Day of every year that Christ’s church celebrates His Ascension into heaven, which, as you may know, is no small thing, but part of our holy faith as confessed in the creed. “And Ascended into heaven where He is seated at the right hand of the Father.” And that’s an important dogma. For all Christians, truly. But all the moreso to us Lutheran Christians, as it is on this creedal confession that we stood fast against the Reformed “sacramentarians” (and all protestant “evangelicals”) who by it would so try to lock Christ in heaven, swap God the Son out with the Holy Spirit as if they are not inseparable bound in triunity together with the Father, and use it to deny the universal presence of His humanity, the inseperability of the hypostasis of divinity and humanity in His one person, His proximity to the Church, and the presence of His flesh and blood in the Eucharist. On this day every year we dispell all these errors. On this day every year we proclaim His presence. On this day every year we proclaim the two natures in the one person. The triunity of the one Godhead. The present-to-us-ness of Christ. And the flesh and blood given and shed for us on the altar. On the day when the heterodox teach the un-truth of the away-ness of Christ, we preach His here-ness. For Lo, he saith, I am with ye always.
Ascended where
First we need to state of course that if we go upward vertically (even if we assent to flat earth geology) we will not get to “heaven.” Heaven is not a place but a plane. It is a real of being. And one that intersects with our own.
But other other that, “heaven” stuff is not the point. Jesus is not going to “heaven” in the way that “aunt joan” goes to heaven when she dies. But rather, He is going to a specific place in heaven, the right hand of God. And that place is less a locality and more a place of power and authority. For WHERE might you ask, is this right hand of God (technically, specifically of the Father, who is not incarnate and has no hands, spatially bound or otherwise)? The right hand of the Father is where the Father is. Where is the Father? Wrong question. Where ISNT the Father? The right hand of God is everywhere. And so this is where Christ in both natures was raised up to. To everywhere. To, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 4:10, ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN IN ORDER TO… “FILL ALL THINGS.” So it is brother, the feast of the ascension of Our Lord, is a feast of the gospel of Christ’s presence, of His two natures in His one person, and by virtue if our repudiation of heresy, it is a feast of the Gospel of Triunity of the divine persons, and of the real-ness of the Eucharist. It therefore bears so much in common with other great feasts, such as that of Christmas. Such as that of epiphany/theophany. Such as that of the triumph of orthodoxy. Such as that of Trinity Sunday. It is the feast of Christ as God-man, Emmanuel, with us, for us, and present to us. Amen. Alleluia. He is risen. He is Ascended. He is here. He is at the altar.
And why? To reign and to rule. And this is really what the right hand of The Father is. It is the place of authority. As we see all over the Gospels, Jesus proclaims that the Father has given Him all authority, that the Father has given judgement over to Him. That the Father has given Him the authority to kill, to raise, to forgive, to judge. It is this place of power and prestige that Christ’s humanity is raised up to in the ascension. That is to say, to echo St. John Chrysostom, in Christ, HUMANITY ITSELF was raised up to heaven, to glory, to power. So that as He is raised, our very nature (in His person) is raised. So it is brothers, this a gospel of the exaltation of humanity itself in the person of Christ as well as a gospel of His present-ness with you and for you. It thereof is likewise together in spirit with the feast of Christ the king, and the season of Advent. For HE REIGNS ON HIGH. alleluia. And again, He does so in the Spirit of Christmas, both God and man. Alleluia.
That’s the message, that’s the sermon, thats the truth. Christ is both God and man, inseparably united in one person. Where Christ’s divinity is, there also is His humanity. And where isn’t He? He is here. Here is with you. He is for you. Christ has not gone away. He has not replaced Himself with another. You do not relate to Him as through a deputy. It is not as though you can only have one person of the trinity at a time. But that at all times, you are loved, seen, saved, had, known by the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And that love which has come to you in Christ is not a far away abstract, but a present tangible reality in the Holy Eucharist. And that gospel is one that comes to you. That God is one that comes to you. He is not hidden He is not locked away. He is not far. He is here. Closer than He has ever been. Alleluia. Our King is Ascended to a throne that is everywhere, that He might reign over everything, and be present to everyone. What a great gospel. And one that is most certainly true.
