[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD 21 May 2009 "The Coronation of Our King" Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

In an article written for Christianity Today in 1982, Dr. David Scaer of our Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, lamented:

Coming as it does 40 days after Easter, Ascension has never had the good fortune to fall on a Sunday. It is forever doomed to Thursday. [In Christ. The Collected Works of David P. Scaer Lutheran Confessor. Vol. II, p. 12. Concordia Catechetical Academy 2008].

Indeed! Because it always falls on the 40th day after the Resurrection of Our Lord, it will always be on Thursday, and that means that many Christians never celebrate this important event in our Lord's life. What is more, many Christians have no clue as to why this event is so comforting because they are not only uninformed about it, they don't have the right doctrine about the Person of Christ. Thus, they forfeit the wonderful comfort and joy that the Ascension brings. Each of the three ecumenical creeds of the Church confesses his Ascension, so it must be significant. But what does it mean when we confess, "He ascended into heaven"?

In many ways the Ascension is like Epiphany. There is lots of splendor, glory, and wonder. Like Epiphany, heaven is opened, except the actions is upward instead of downward, as Jesus ascends to heaven from the earth. The Ascension is like a coronation, the coronation of a king. The word "coronation" comes from the Latin "corona," the word for "crown." So, "coronation" has to do with the crowing of a king. It means that he ascends to his throne to rule.

So, the Ascension of Our Lord is not really a farewell, a good-bye, like those who will not see each other for a long, long time, but it is far different. Unfortunately, those who have followed Zwingli and Calvin see it as just that. Jesus is separated from his disciples until the last day. He is gone, contained in heaven, and no longer present among his people according to his flesh. For them, the Ascension explains why Jesus is no longer with his people, nothing more. His parting brings sadness.

Understanding this as a coronation brings a far different understanding. Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the Father to assume his kingdom, a kingdom won by his innocent life, suffering, and death on the cross. What the Ascension underscores is the fact that Jesus' work of suffering and dying for the sins of the world has a real effect. It goes beyond his resurrection from the dead and tells us that this is everything that God had planned for him and for us. Jesus would take up his eternal power and glory once his work of redemption was completed, and he would use this power and majesty on behalf of his Church. Listen again as the Apostle Paul describes it in the Epistle. Paul tells us what Jesus is doing as our "coronated" king-he is ruling all things for his Church, his Bride, the Bride for which he gave his life.

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." (Ephesians 1:16-23, ESV)

"In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" (John 14:2, ESV)

In the very next chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, a few verses after our Epistle ends, Paul goes on to say this:

"even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . ." (Ephesians 2:5-6, ESV)

These are the "places" that Jesus has been preparing for us! He has prepared a seat next to himself on the throne. Perhaps you have read C. S. Lewis' series The Chronicles of Narnia. In them the ascension of Christians to the throne of Christ is presented. The children are shown wearing crowns and reigning as kings and queens, monarchs.

This is a metaphor pretty much lost on Americans and probably most of the world because we have very few kings and queens left, and the ones we have are usually ceremonial in nature; they don't really reign. They have been kept as a way of honoring the past when monarchs really did reign.

Jesus rules on behalf of his Church. This comforts us when we see the Church assaulted and persecuted in many places in our world today. It comforts us to know that while our reigning King allows seeming evil to overtake his Christians, he does not allow it to destroy his Church. Rather, he rules with a wisdom that far surpasses our human understanding. When Paul says that he put all things under his feet it means that virtually all things are under his control. In the ancient world, when a king conquered another people, he would have carved images of his enemies placed on his footstool, that piece of furniture where he rested his feet while sitting on his throne ruling. Anyone who approached the king would see those images carved into his footstool as testimony that he had won the victory.

And what he does for his Church he also does for you individually, on a personal level. What can man do to you? He has already conquered Satan, sin, and death-what more can hurt you? He is ruling for you! When the world assails you for belonging to Christ, he comforts you with the knowledge that you belong to the King of kings and Lord of lords. You are precious to him because he has bought you with his blood and he has promised to keep you until he returns in glory. Without the Ascension, there is no return on the last day and no heaven and no glory.

The comfort continues as you hear that Christ has not laid aside his humanity at his Ascension. If he has ascended as the God-Man, the Reformed confess, then he cannot be present as the God-Man for you here on earth. In other words, his is really absent from you. The Reformed and those who agree with them say that Christ can be present at only one place at a time, and that place is heaven. So you must ascend into heaven to find him because he isn't here with you in your time of need.

But praise God, that confession is not true! Christ is not present locally now as he was with his disciples. With his Ascension, Christ became present for all Christians all over the world simultaneously. When Jesus ascended, he was no longer living in Jerusalem or any other earthly place, but he had passed into the glory of his Father, sitting at his right hand, ruling with all power, majesty, and glory. Because he is true God he promises to be present everywhere at the same time, according to his flesh. It is the same kind of presence that Jesus showed when he passed through locked and bolted doors and the one who removed himself instantly from their view. It is exactly what Jesus promised as he ascended:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20, ESV)

⁸⁰ On the basis of this solid foundation, Dr. Luther, of blessed memory, has written about the majesty of Christ according to the human nature. ⁸¹ In the Great Confession concerning the Holy Supper he writes about the person of Christ: "Since he is a man like this - and apart from this man there is no God - it must follow that according to the third supernatural manner, he is and can be everywhere that God is and that everything is full of Christ through and through, also according to the humanity - not, of course, according to the first, corporeal, comprehensible manner, but according to the supernatural, divine manner. ⁸² Here you must take your stand and say that wherever Christ is according to his deity, he is there as a natural divine person and is also naturally and personally there, as his conception in his mother's womb proves conclusively. For if he was the Son of God, he had to be in his mother's womb naturally and personally and become man. But if he is present naturally and personally wherever he is, then he must be man there, too, since he is not two separate persons but a single person. Wherever this person is, it is the single, indivisible person, and if you can say, 'Here is God,' then you must also say, 'Christ the man is present too.' And if you could show me one place where God is and not the man, then the person is already divided and I could at once say truthfully, 'Here is God who is not man and has never become man.' ⁸³ But no God like that for me! For it would follow from this that space and place had separated the two natures from one another and thus had divided the person, even though death and all the devils had been unable to separate and tear them apart. ⁸⁴ And he would remain a poor Christ for me if he were present only at one single place as a divine and human person, and if at all other places he would have to be nothing more than a mere isolated God and a divine person without the humanity. No, comrade, wherever you put God down for me, you must also put the humanity down for me. They simply will not let themselves be separated and divided from each other. He has become one person and never separates the assumed humanity from himself."¹

This ever-present Christ is here right now, especially in this Sacrament of his body and blood. It is not a mere figure that we confess, but that Christ is truly present according to his flesh for you, to forgive you, to restore you, to sustain and strengthen you.

This is the Ascended King that we confess! He is the one who continues to be with us and in us through Word and Sacrament and who stays with you in a way that defies human logic. Yet, that is his promise. You already have begun sharing his glory and his rule through Holy Baptism. Through his body and blood he continues to be with you to assure you that he has forgiven your sins and that he will bring you to his glory as the reigning King of all. This is the abiding comfort of his Ascension.

¹Theodore G. Tappert, The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 607 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2000, c1959).