Sermon for Ascension

Sermon for Ascension

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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Brothers and sisters, this is Ascension Day. Talking about the Ascension, please be seated. And Ascension Day is often overlooked in the church year calendar, even though it’s really one of the oldest and most recognized holy days, dating back to 68 A.D. when it was first observed. In America, Ascension Day kind of gets overlooked, but in Germany it’s a big deal. In fact, today is a national holiday and in German it’s called Himmelfahrt. Come on, that sounds funny, doesn’t it? Come on. Yeah, Himmelfahrt, which basically means a going up, a journey to heaven.

Some celebrations that they have there include processions, symbolizing Christ’s entry into heaven, and they chase around a model of the devil and they dunk it in a pond or burn it in effigy. What fun! Who said Germans don’t have fun? In America, Ascension gets overlooked probably because it’s on a Thursday. It’s always on a Thursday being 40 days after Easter, and it’s stuck between two big festivals, Easter and Pentecost. Ascension just doesn’t seem significant, but it really is. It has as much value as Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. We actually do confess the ascension in both the Nicene and the Apostles’ Creed. It’s important.

And it’s important because Jesus’ birth, His death, His resurrection, and ascension, they all have something in common, and that is a flesh and blood body. In birth, Jesus came into our world with a body, and that body died on the cross and then was resurrected three days later, and in his ascension, Jesus’s body goes up into heaven. So, Jesus had a bodily birth, death, resurrection, and ascension. And by becoming flesh and blood and taking on a human body, Jesus identifies with us. Jesus knows what it’s like to be us. Jesus identifies with us; that is, He identifies with our weakness.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “The spirit is willing but the…” right, Jesus said that actually. And it’s true, our bodies are weak. Don’t we all know that? We struggle with the weakness of our bodies, about how they look or function or don’t. More so, our bodies are sinful. Don’t we all know that, too? Our bodies are part of many sins that we commit. We can use our bodies to hurt others with physical pain or with hurtful words that come out of our body. Our bodies can be used to cheat and steal and lie, and our minds, which are part of our body, can sometimes conjure up thoughts that can only be described as evil.

Yes, God created your body, but He’s not content to leave it in its weak and sinful state. God has also redeemed your body. He’s paid for the evil that your body is responsible for. He’s paid for it in His own body. In His body, Jesus took on all the sins of the world—yours, mine, everybody’s—died with them on the cross to forgive us, to forgive the sinful weaknesses of our body. That’s how Jesus really identifies with our bodily weakness, by experiencing bodily weakness, by experiencing bodily suffering and pain and a bodily death.

Jesus knows what it’s like to be us. There’s a bodily resurrection of Jesus, but there’s teaching, heretical teaching, in some Christian churches today that teach that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead bodily. It was only a kind of spiritual resurrection. I heard a pastor give a sermon on an Easter Sunday, and they said this, “I don’t care if you believe that Jesus rose bodily or not. That doesn’t matter.” I beg to differ. Luke tells us twice in the resurrection account that the women went into the tomb that they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And that Jesus appeared bodily to the disciples, even showing his scars to them.

What was dead, His body, was alive again. And still now in the season of Easter, we continue to celebrate that bodily resurrection of Jesus. He is risen. Hallelujah. How can people that say they’re Christians, how can they overlook that He rose from the dead? Bless their hearts, that’s all I’ve got to say. In his resurrection, in his bodily resurrection, Jesus has given us new life to our soul and our body. Our bodies matter to God. And here’s where the full joy of Christ’s bodily birth and death and resurrection and ascension.

Sometimes the real joy of that gets overlooked in Christianity. Because Christians, we’re usually content with the idea of dying and going to heaven. Okay? Not a bad thing. And it’s a true thing. Our souls, when we die, our souls do go to heaven when we die, but God didn’t just create our bodies and redeem them; He’s also going to recreate them the way that they’re supposed to be—a body that doesn’t hurt others or cheat or steal or lie or worse. Because on the last day, when Jesus returns, as the angels said to the disciples when He returns, those who have died will be resurrected and recreated, bodies reunited with their souls in heaven—perfect recreated bodies that live forever.

Because not only was Christ born, died, and rose bodily to give us eternal life, but also to raise up our bodies for our resurrection. You see, we’re human beings; human beings, we’re body and soul beings. We need our bodies. Even in eternity, we’re going to have bodies like Jesus does. When He ascended, He did so bodily; He still has His body. Philippians chapter 3 says Christ will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body. That’s why it matters that Jesus rose bodily and ascended bodily, because if He didn’t do that, if He didn’t rise bodily and didn’t ascend bodily, then there’s no hope for our bodily resurrection and recreation.

God’s purpose in sending His Son wasn’t just so that we can go to heaven; it’s actually more than that. It’s better than that. Yes, when a believer dies, their soul goes to rest with Christ, but there’s more. It’s better. His purpose is more than that for us. It’s more encompassing. It’s more fulfilling because God seeks to renew and recreate all of His creation, including your body. The return of Christ in glory is the time when God’s good work that He’s begun in you, He’s going to bring it to completion. That’s the goal of the Christian—not just going to heaven. It’s a good one; it’s okay—there’s more. The goal of the Christian is being renewed and recreated, body and soul, forever.

That’s what the Ascension is for us today, that Christ had a body and He did His work here in His body, and He still has that body sitting at the right hand of God. That means we have a flesh and blood advocate for us in heaven, one who still knows what it’s like to be us. Although we’re weak and sinful, we’re redeemable and recreatable. That same fate of Jesus, rising, ascending to heaven, awaits us. We confess that in the creed, which is why I had us do the Apostles’ Creed tonight. It’s in a Nicene when it talks about the resurrection of the dead, but in the Apostles’ Creed, it’s even better.

I believe in the resurrection of the body—it ain’t talking about Jesus there; it’s talking about us. We’re looking forward to that one day. And maybe in the creed when we’re saying it, that comes near the end and maybe we’re starting to kind of, you know, kind of tune things out; we’re not really thinking about what we’re confessing. I’ll admit, as a pastor, I’m starting to think, “Okay, what do I have to do next? Where do I have to move? What chancel prancing do I have to do up here?” And we kind of don’t think about what we’re saying: “I believe in the resurrection of the body”—yours.

We’ve got that to look forward to someday. Don’t like your body now? Great! It’s going to be a lot better later. Really, I just want my hair back. When we confess the creed, and I’ll admit that I do it now too, I make it a point to think about that, and I smile a little bit because that’s coming—our resurrection, our ascension, bodily, recreated, living forever with Jesus, with His body. We may get to see the scars, and thinking a little bit weirdly, we may be able to hug Jesus physically. We have that to look forward to, brothers and sisters.

May this ascension and every ascension bring that to mind, and when we confess the creed, we believe in the resurrection of our body. Amen.