Word of Salvation – July 2025
The Hope Of The Ages
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Acts 1:9-11
Scripture Readings: Acts 1:1-14
Singing: BoW.101 I praise Your Justice, Lord
P/H.293 To God my Earnest Voice I raise
Where else have we to go
P/H.366 Alleluia! Sing to Jesus
Theme: The encouragement to live in the firm hope of the return of our ascended Lord Jesus Christ.
Introd. Over time words sometimes become devalued. Take as an example, the word ‘awesome’.
People only ever said something was awesome if it struck them with a sense of awe.
I recall video clips of the 2011 Tsunami in Japan. That was awesome. It inspired awe.
But a while back I gave someone directions to a street he was looking for.
The young man thanked me by saying, ‘Awesome!’ Wow…! Were my directions that amazing?
Another word that is often devalued in meaning is the word HOPE.
To hope for something to happen is often little more than WISHING it might happen.
I you’re in a drought and someone asks: Do you think it’ll rain today? And you reply: I hope so!
Then that’s simply a way of saying that it would sure be nice to have some rain.
But it doesn’t mean you have any real conviction that rain is actually on the way.
Hope is so often little more than just a wish.
It seems to me that today there is a crisis of hope that robs people of confidence about the future.
Most counsellors realise that hope is crucial to life. It’s when you lose hope that despair sets in.
We see that on the personal level – on the level of individual lives.
I’ve saw hopelessness in the eyes of a man who knew he was dying.
He believed that death is the absolute end of everything.
And when people like that face death then they lose all hope.
There is only hopelessness as they no longer see a future for themselves.
We often see the same hopelessness in society at large… underneath all the shallow frivolity.
We see it, for example, in health and medicine.
We get on top of one disease – like AIDS – and along came the Corona Virus.
Or there’s the problem of the environment.
The melting of the polar icecaps makes us fear the flooding of coastal cities.
Or think of the ongoing conflicts in the world and the acts of terror.
We see it in the ongoing war in Gaza and the Ukraine. It seems so hopeless.
We desperately need hope. We need to be able to see light at the end of the tunnel.
But the hope that sustains us has to be more than just some wishful thinking… like hoping for rain.
A] THE HOPE OF CHRIST’S ASCENSION.
- Today I want to point you to you a powerful hope. Hope that flows out of the Ascension of Jesus.
The words of our text are full of hope: hope for individuals… but also hope for the human race.
Let me put it even more strongly:
In those words that the angels spoke to the disciples is summed up all the hope we need.
It’s the hope of the Church and the hope of the ages. And that hope is yours for the taking.
But can you imagine that real hope was lacking in the disciples as they stood there on that mountain?
They watched intently as Jesus ascend before their eyes. That threatened their hope.
The realisation must have hit them like a ton of bricks: It’s over. Jesus is gone!
They had felt that sense of hopelessness even more acutely after the death of Jesus.
The two disciples on the way to Emmaus spoke of it: “We had hoped that He was the Messiah.”
But Jesus was dead… and now their hope was gone.
But then they had met the resurrected Jesus and they were filled with renewed hope.
And yet now as they stand on this mountain top they are separated from Him yet once again.
What now of the future? So they stand there staring at the clouds that hid Jesus from them.
That’s why these two men in white… these angels… come with a message.
And it is a message of hope. A message that has to do with the future.
“Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you
into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
They speak about Jesus… but did you notice the emphasis? They say: This same Jesus…!
And they point out that He will come back in the same way… visibly and from the clouds.
The Bible ends with that in Rev.17: Look, He is coming with the clouds and every eye will see Him.
IOW: Hey… it’s not the end folks! It’s not over yet… not by a long shot.
This same Jesus… will come back in the same way. That’s the hope-filled message of our text.
- Can you see that this is a strong and powerful hope…? It’s not just a pious wish.
This Biblical hope for the future stands in total contrast to anything else.
You can talk of health and medicine and ask: Will they find a cure for cancer? Well, I hope so!
You can talk about the environment: Will they stop so-called climate change? I hope so!
You can talk about world conflict: Will there ever be peace in the Middle East? I hope so!
But in each of those instances hope is just a wish… we want those things to happen.
But at the end of the day you’ve got no guarantees. None! No one knows.
In contrast our text holds out a sure and certain hope that gives confidence about the future.
Jesus ascended… but His departure from this world is temporary. He’s coming back.
IOW this is a reminder to us as Christians that we are living in the “between times”.
We live between the first and the second comings of Christ.
And that not only gives us a good insight into the life and work of Jesus.
It also gives us a wonderfully reassuring insight into our history.
This hope that this same Jesus will return in the same way that He went is wonderfully helpful.
It means that my life is not meaningless… nor is yours…and history is not meaningless either.
And the events of our human world are not meaningless and hopeless.
It is just not true – as some people teach – that history is simply an endless chain of cycles.
We are just doomed to going round and round in circles.
No! History is moving on to that great moment when Jesus will return on the clouds.
- It is striking how this message of the angels coloured the thinking of the early church.
This hope of Christ’s return is very strong throughout the writings of the N.T.
This became a driving force that motivated Christians in their daily lives and their work.
Jesus is coming again just as He went. That produced a sense of urgency for them.
We have an example of this strong hope in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.
The Christians there were afraid they had missed the return of Jesus.
Perhaps it was already past because it had been a secret return of Christ.
What also grieved them was that those who had already died would miss that great event.
So Paul instructs the Thessalonians about this hope. He tells them that they will all see it happen.
Those who died would not miss out either… in fact they would be the first to see Jesus.
And then Paul winds it all up by telling them to comfort one another with this hope.
Surely this is a key reason for hopelessness and despair in the lives of so many people today.
The return of Jesus is just not on their agenda. Many of your neighbours are ignorant of it.
And if Christ Jesus is not coming again, we ultimately have nothing to live for.
And nothing to die for either. Nothing but the fleeting treasures and troubles of this world.
Early Christians had hope – a strong hope, because they lived and worked with one eye on the clouds.
And that’s the way you and I ought to live as we go into this new week.
Not with a feeble kind of hope… an “iffy” kind of thing, that is really just wishful thinking.
But instead to hang onto this hope that is like an anchor in the middle of life’s storms and trials.
B] THE BASIS FOR THIS ASCENSION HOPE.
- Perhaps some of you are thinking that I’ve put all this much too strongly.
How dare I say that life is ultimately meaningless apart from the ascension of Jesus?
Is it really so that everything is hopeless if this message of the angels is not true?
Let me say two things if that is your concern.
First there are certainly many non-Christians who are not wallowing in despair.
Speak to the average unbeliever and they will tell you they live in hope.
But the big question is the content of their hope. There is such a thing as false hope
Many people have the false hope that drugs will bring them happiness.
Or there’s money…! The man who lives for years with the false hope of quick riches.
He’s been involved in a process of litigation and he’s certain that he will win.
His lawyer has told him that he has a watertight case for a huge payout.
And he lives his life and makes his plans in the light of that hope.
But the case goes against him and he has to pay costs that leave him bankrupt.
False hope. And there’s false religious hope too… the hope that we can make it with God by our efforts.
Or the hope that a benevolent God will let everyone into His wonderful new creation.
The hope that was given to the disciples is not a false hope… it is a sure and certain hope.
But there is a second thing we need to realise if we want to see how strong this hope is.
To get a handle on that we need to understand what really happened at the ascension of Jesus.
Because this wasn’t just a matter of Jesus just going back home to heaven again.
Two important things stand out about the ascension.
- The first thing is something we are inclined to overlook… or even to get wrong.
Many Christians have a tendency to think of Jesus here in Acts 1 ascending as God.
Ascension Day is about the ascension of the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.
He came from heaven on that first Christmas when He laid aside His glory for a time.
He became human and then died. But now He returns as the glorious Son of God.
Okay. But please don’t overlook that on that mountaintop Jesus also stands there as the Son of Man.
His humanity stayed intact. He ascends as the one who in His humanity is totally like us.
After His death Jesus did not cease to be human. His bodily resurrection proves that.
So He is there as a human being… and it is also as a man that He ascends into heaven.
Of course we know that Jesus in His resurrected humanity was also different.
His human body was a glorified human body. But… still totally and fully human.
In fact – for the first time since Adam – someone who was human in absolute perfection.
That is one of the encouraging things about the ascension that ought to fill us with hope.
Our humanity has gone into heaven… into the very presence of God.
It’s as if heaven and earth are a little closer again. Heaven no longer so remote and formidable.
Heaven is now the place where our older Brother already is.
Do you see how that helps us to understand why these words of the angels offer so much hope?
Sure, they tell us that Jesus will return just as He went. But why will He return?
It is in order to come back and bring us to that wonderful place where He already is.
Paul says: “We who are still alive…will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
Jesus has simply gone ahead to prepare a place for us.
That’s a wonderful hope for us. Jesus’ bodily ascension is a preparation for our bodily ascension.
We live in a world where life is tough. All of us struggle with life’s issues sooner or later.
But we have this hope-giving message for the future: this same Jesus will return the same way.
But… that is also a message about your future. What happened to Jesus will happen to you.
We will ascend to be with Him. Jesus guaranteed that by His ascension.
That’s why I said that if you do not have that hope then ultimately life is meaningless.
Then when all is said and done your future is a big comfortless question mark.
You and I may and must… live with one eye on the clouds of heaven.
For Christians that’s the only way to live… and it’s the only way to die.
- But there is a second aspect of the ascension that we must keep in mind to understand this hope.
The ascension of Jesus was not just a “home-coming” for Jesus.
It didn’t just mark the end of His work and that He is now resting.
No! Christ ascends into heaven to begin the next phase of His great task.
That’s why in the Bible the Ascension of Jesus is sometimes spoken of as a kind of CORONATION.
Jesus Christ rises from the earth to ascend into the throne room of heaven.
We see that in Psalm 24. It’s not just a song that was used when Israel’s Kings were crowned.
It is a prophetic psalm about the Christ seated on His throne.
“Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty…!”
In Hebrews 1:3 we read: “After He had provided purification for sins
He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.” i.e. the throne of the universe.
That makes the image of Jesus ascending very meaningful. He didn’t just disappear.
He ascended… He arose… but in order to take up the most exalted position in the cosmos.
Think of what that does for understanding our Christian hope.
Imagine for a moment that you are on a world tour on a luxury ocean liner.
It would not inspire you with confidence and hope for your journey
if you knew that there was no one at the helm of the ship…
or if there was an incompetent person at the controls of that ocean liner.
Neither would it inspire us with hope if there was is no one at the helm of the universe.
If life and history is only the product of blind chance then hope disappears.
Or at least… hope is then reduced to just a pious wish. “I hope there is meaning in life…!”
But we now know Jesus ascended to reign as Lord of lords and King of kings.
As One who said: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
So His ascension means that He left so as to guide history to that great climax of His return.
That means that when I can’t fit together the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle of my life
then I can still hope because Christ is on the throne and He is in control and no one else.
C] YET NOT A “WORLD ESCAPING” KIND OF HOPE.
- That leads us to yet one other important concept: this hope is not an escape from reality.
There are many forms of hope that are not grounded in reality.
The hope of happiness from drugs… the hope of a big win in a lottery.
Those kinds of hope can leave people living in an unreal world with unreal expectations.
Those kinds of hope are escapist forms of hope.
In the light of what we have been saying it is obvious that Jesus did not desert the world.
He didn’t leave the world to give up on the world.
As though having tried to save it He gave up and went back to heaven. Not at all!
In fact the very last words He spoke before His departure showed His concern for the world.
Our Lord’s final words to His disciples before He ascended have a world-embracing dimension.
He says to them: You shall be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.
Jesus leaves. But His love does not leave.
He who loved the world so much – enough to die for it – again makes the world the object of His care.
And so He now actually commissions His disciples to make it also the object of their concern.
Go and make disciples of all nations.
IOW Jesus does not leave to give up on the world but to show His care and concern in a new way.
Now thru His church… through His people… through you and me.
- All this makes us realise that we can make either of two opposite mistakes.
OTOH people get so caught up with their own life here and now
that they see nothing else than just their own narrow world and just this present time.
They don’t see this hope that the ascension of Jesus brings us.
That kind of attitude is summed up well in a poem I came across:
If your nose is close to the grindstone rough, / And you hold it down there long enough,
In time you’ll say there’s no such thing / As brooks that babble and birds that sing.
These three will all your world compose: / Just you, the stone, and your old nose.
And that’s precisely the way millions of people live. And we Christians get sucked into it.
All they see is their own little world. And that’s all they want to see too.
And the problems of this world…?
Well… we look no further than just our own human solutions.
The United Nations will stop wars.
Scientists will save the environment.
Doctors will keep us fit and alive as long as possible.
Jesus gave us quite a different perspective on life.
He told His disciples to keep looking up… not just at the world around them!
But to keep an eye on the clouds and wait for His return.
Because the hope of the ages is an ascended, returning Lord.
- OTOH we mustn’t now go to the other extreme.
We must not withdraw from the world sitting around just waiting for Jesus.
Some of the Christians at Thessalonica did that. They didn’t even want to work anymore.
It is easy for us to treat our Christian hope as an escape.
As though we can shrug off this world with its misery and suffering.
Forget it…! Let the world rot! We’ll just wait for Jesus Christ to come again.
He’ll make all things new anyway. So we’ll just live in the hope of that day.
Meanwhile we withdraw from society and from the needs around us. Let the world perish…!
Jesus not only told His followers to keep an eye on the clouds.
He also gave them a gospel message of forgiveness…
a message of salvation for the lost and for the hurting.
Today Jesus calls His people to hold on to this hope that is spelled out in His ascension and return.
But at the same time He calls us to involve ourselves.
To be His witnesses in word and deed. To prepare others too for that great climax of history.
As you go out the door of the church you’re going back into world in which there is much hopelessness.
But you are going out into that world as someone who has this sure and certain hope.
Jesus is on the throne of the universe and He’s coming back for me. He’s the Hope of the ages.
May the Lord give us opportunities this week to be beacons of hope in a lost world!
Amen!