Word of Salvation – Vol.32 No.20 – May 1987
So You Do Not See Me – And So You Do
(Ascension Day)
Sermon by Rev. A. I. DeGraaf on Colossians 3:1-4
Reading: Luke 24:45-53; Acts 1:1-11
Singing: BoW.Ps.47, 369, 365, Bow.H.102:6, BoW.H.701:1,2,3
Boy! How different this Feast is from Christmas! That was when Jesus appeared! And the angels sang and the bells rang out, and the wise men carried gifts and the churches were filled and the church and the world rang with music and song and the shout of high festivity.
But who on earth wants to celebrate Ascension? Wasn’t that the day Jesus DIS-appeared? What reason is that to rejoice? Left as we are with the mess? Here it isn’t even a holiday, but where it is, the churches are empty: it used to be a day to get your Youth Conventions out of the way. Christmas… the feast Jesus appeared… Ascension… the day He dis-appeared. That’s how you look at it if you set your minds and eyes just on earthly things. If your horizon starts and ends with the scene here. If you just set your mind on earthly things, you do not even see what God has done on this earth. No, to see better things you have to die… and be raised again. You may have to look at Jesus a lot closer than you ever did before.
Point One: Jesus says: “Now you don’t see Me”.
When, really, was it that Jesus dis-appeared? In his farewell speech to his disciples, in John 13, he talks about: “going away from them” but that was when Jesus – forsaken by God Himself – died your and my eternal death on the cross, when the Lord God Himself shut the curtains and even the sun hid her face. That was The Great Absence, when Hell took Him over, and covered him with the most terrible shroud imaginable. That’s when He, our Guilt-bearer, entered into that
horrific Non-Being, away from God’s shining face. Alone with the devil. That was The Great Disappearing of history. Then He died our death and carried it away with him into hell. The believer sees in that moment only the Dis-appearance of the Son. It was then that God’s creation tottered on the brink of the abyss. If that would have been the last…! But greater than Christmas was His re-appearance out of that night. Already from His agonised body he shouted the victory: “IT IS FINISHED!” and made Easter morning the now inevitable sequel! Then, having died my death, He was raised from the grave and walked this earth in the beginnings of that joy which one day will grip the whole planet in one brilliantly radiant festival of Light. When Jesus died my death, I died. And when He was raised, I was raised. Head and body belong together. My standing with God is not made by what I did or do or ever will do, but for all eternity by what He did. I started to live forever two thousand years ago, and so did you when you believe in Jesus, even if your faith is small and at times such a tiny flickering flame. That is the gospel, there is no other and we need no other. So when Jesus then, after this completed task, to which nothing needed to be added any more, went to the power and glory and beauty of His heavenly home, to the safe place where no devil ever can reach Him any more, He took my life along with Him. And He HID a bit, but did NOT disappear. I am thinking here of what my little 18-month old granddaughter does at times: her name is Esther, and she can walk over to the curtain that hangs in front of our balcony door and say: “Where is Esther now?” And we go through a great to-do about her having disappeared because she has hidden herself in the curtain where she keeps quiet as a mouse… but of course all the time we see her little feet sticking out under the curtain and we know she is really there. And so the writer of the Hebrews, living in a troubled world – the same as we do – can say of our ascended Lord: “WE SEE JESUS!” because He has not really disappeared! Not anymore. When your eyes are not just on the earth, you see Him, too! And what is true of Jesus is also true of those who belong to Him. That is…
Point Two: The believer says also: “Now you do not see all of me yet, either”.
When Jesus went to heaven He took our real and indestructible life along with Him. It is hidden now. We could also say: it is safely tucked away with Him and in God.
Like in a safe. If that would not be so, then our eternal life here on earth would always be in mortal danger. Then we could lose it, we could sin it away, we could in a silly mood gamble it away. We still can fall into sin, in weakness, faced with temptation. Now and then we hear that it can happen even to the best of us. Paul makes good sense when he says: He who thinks he stands had better beware lest he fall. But how deep can we fall when we have put our trust in Jesus? Then the devil can try to tell us: now you have fallen out of God’s hand. “You don’t think you’re still alive, do you?” “You may as well give up,” that Liar says then, “You’ve blown it now!” But we can’t, you see, because our Life is safe, out of reach! Hidden away, stored safely with Christ WHO IS OUR LIFE, IN God. That is the gospel! CHRIST IS OUR LIFE. The devil can say: “Would you say you’re on God’s side?” But you may answer: Christ is on God’s side and He is my life! And under the curtain we see His feet: The Spirit is telling my own wavering spirit that I am a child of God! The devil can point at the church, her failings and her stumblings, the chequered career we call “church history… but then from this battlefield we look up to where Jesus is and we confess: “there is our life… hidden with Jesus… safely tucked away in God… at His heart…!” Loved with an undying love… and won by His terrible death, and we take heart: the head is through, the body cannot but follow! When you look at the sin of a believer, the failings of an elder, the trials and even at times the defeats, you do not see everything. You see my feet… and at times they are feet of clay – O God be merciful to me, a sinner! But my real life is hidden, that will become clear in God’s good time: when I repent on earth and start a new leaf, by God’s grace, and on the great Day of which we do not yet know what it will be in its fullness. That is the gospel and by what other gospel could you… (YOU..!!) and I (yes..I!!) survive? and so we get to…
Point Three: Christ says: “NOW YOU DO SEE ME!”
– and – you know – that was not to be later when He comes back! No! barely had He gone up to heaven and that cloud had been shoved between Him and us as a curtain, or there is that great joy with which His followers went to Jerusalem. Then there was – a mere ten days later – the triumphant outpouring of the Spirit! And whoever looks away from the way things seem to be on earth, has seen the constant appearing of Jesus’ feet on this earth: the sick healed in His Name, the dead raised, the persecutions suffered with song and the planting of the flag of victorious faith in nation after nation… the works of mercy to those in need and the striving for justice by those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. The fruit of the spirit ripens and we see the feet of Jesus under the curtain entering Indonesia and Timor, and going with joy into lonely places to take away darkness and to comfort the dying. And, says John, that is only the beginning: You watch when Jesus Himself in all His glory will be back! And so..
Finally – the believer also says: THE DAY WILL COME THAT YOU WILL REALLY SEE ME!
It is as if God has taken a Polaroid photo of you and of me. When we were justified and made one with Christ there was the flash!! Out of the camera came that strange black picture. It does not look much. But something drastic has happened to that film! Life everlasting has exposed it. And slowly the lines of life are beginning to take shape on it. The story of the dead one who died when Christ died is the unfolding story of the living one who starts living for God. Still broken, still often vague, but it is getting clearer and clearer until the Day will fully reveal it.
And so the question is: where is your life: just here on earth? Is your homeland and your hearts’ content where your money is and your home, your car and your overseas trips? Is your heart’s delight where that woman is, that man? Just that family or that business enterprise? Is your full and final field, where you work with your elbows and let your ego batter the lives of others? Does your vision end where your envy and your jealousy, your hurt and your lust end? If so, you may have thought that Jesus disappeared but you will be wrong, so terribly wrong… and sorry… so terribly sorry! Before you die you may discover it. If not you will when the same Jesus, you had calculated OUT of your life, will stand before you as your Judge.
But how different will it be when it is your Loved One, your Most Loved One, (who came to die your death and arose to let you rise with Him) who will at last make the picture of your life complete.
His Feet you see in the Spirit’s work, uncomfortable at times, but chiselling away at you, making you kill what does not belong… and who one day will appear to make this planet the place of beauty God intended all along and give you the glory which will be so great that, if you would have it now even for a moment, it would blind and stun even the closest friend you have now. Things will then appear as they truly are. The curtain will be torn away and the Bridegroom will tell you with love in His voice: Here I am!… and so: There you are my darling! Don’t you reckon then that this day is better than Christmas?
AMEN.