Categories: John, New Testament, Word of SalvationPublished On: January 2, 2025
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Word of Salvation – Vol.38 No.18 – May 1993

 

Crowned And Being Crowned

 

Sermon by Rev. D. J. van Garderen on John 20:17b

 

Dear congregation,

It’s odd really, but when it comes to celebrating Christmas, everyone joins in.  It would be near impossible for a New Zealander / Aussie to be unaware of the celebrations that take place on December 25th!

In sharp contrast, the ASCENSION of our Lord passes by almost unnoticed!  If a survey would have been taken in the local shopping centre today and people were to have been asked: ‘Is there anything noteworthy or special about this day?’ I wonder how many would have pointed out that it is Ascension Day?

Why is this?  It may have something to do with the fact that this is no public holiday, and that commercial concerns have not yet discovered a way to cash in on it.  No presents or Easter eggs, you see!

However, what IS perhaps more important is the fact that even among committed Christians this day makes little real impact.

IT SHOULD…!

I mean to say, our faith focuses and has at its heart the wonderful, boundless love and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He humbled himself, emptied himself of all his heavenly glory and became flesh in order to dwell among us and share in our experience here on earth!

He humbled himself!  In other words, wonderful as his birth may have been for us, it was for our Lord the beginning of suffering!

Contrast this with Christ’s Ascension.  His suffering and shame, the bitterness of the cup he had to drink has been drunk in its totality.  ‘It is finished.’  He died.  Now begins the time of His EXALTATION.  He enters into His glory.  The first step was our Lord’s resurrection on the third day.  Death has been conquered; mourning has turned into dancing.  Humiliation has been swallowed up in victory and now his exaltation begins.

The next great step is our Lord’s ASCENSION!  He went to be at the Father’s throne in order there to intercede for us, and, even more, in order there to be glorified and exalted.

There the saints dance and shout in triumphant praise:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and who has and who is to come!’

Heaven rejoices and receives the exalted King of Kings!

Our celebration of Christ’s ascension, our remembrance of it on what we call ‘Ascension Day’ is really a joining in with the heavenly hosts in this song of victory and praise!  We have every reason to sing and rejoice and to join the heavenly host, in rejoicing in Christ’s exaltation!

We do this in several ways: In our singing; in our prayer of praise and thanksgiving, in our meditation, and in the way we discover the meaning and implications of Christ’s ascension for our own lives, for the life of the Church, and ultimately the whole world!

  1. In the Garden of Joseph of Arimathea

Our celebration and meditation on the ascension theme takes us to what seems a somewhat strange place for an occasion such as this.

It is the garden of Joseph of Arimathea where Jesus had been placed in a newly hewn tomb a few days before.  It is that first day of the week, still quite early in the morning.

Mary had been the first to spot that the stone in front of the tomb had been removed from the entrance!  The body was gone, strips of linen and the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head were all that remained.

Something unbelievable had happened!  The disciples believed that SOMETHING had taken place, but they did not know what it all meant.  The disciples went back to their homes.  Mary stayed.

Tears flowing, she went back to the empty tomb, peered into it, and saw what Peter and John had not seen – two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the foot and the other at the head!

They spoke to Mary!  ‘Woman, why are you crying?”

Surely they knew!  Surely they realised that Mary had believed she had solved the mystery of the disappearance of Jesus’ body!  What other answer could there be except that the body had been taken away and placed somewhere else!

Suddenly, as she turned around she was confronted by another person.  She saw his feet only since she was crouched down to peer into the tomb!  The gardener!  HE might know.

‘Sir, if YOU have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him!’

The person who stood before Mary suddenly said in a voice which Mary loved: ‘MARY!’

It was HIM!  ‘Rabboni’, Master!  Teacher!  She reached out to embrace Him.

Jesus spoke: “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father.

Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” (John 20:17).

  1. The Message to the Brethren

All at once this woman with the tear-stained face becomes a herald, a messenger with tidings of great joy!

She is entrusted with a glorious message of utmost importance.  A message for the brothers of our Lord!

Notice several things about this message.  Think on it and there will be reason for great thanksgiving and praise for us all.

Firstly, the message is addressed to ‘my brothers’.

Originally the disciples had been addressed and known as ‘men of Galilee’ and later, as they began to follow Jesus they had been known as his disciples – followers/students.

The relationship became even stronger when the disciples received a new title: ‘friends’.

Look at John 15:13-17

‘Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing.  Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.’ (13-15)

Here we as disciples are told that we SHARE Christ’s knowledge, and do as Christ does… thus we are friends.

Now, on the day of the resurrection, disciples are addressed by our Lord in an even more intimate and glorious sense: ‘my brothers.’

In Hebrews 2, the author describes the miracle of Christ’s suffering becoming the means of our salvation.  Christ suffers for us, in fact he walks the road or pathway which we, in and with Him, follow.  We experience with Christ all that Christ experienced.

He goes on:
‘Both the one who makes men holy (viz. Jesus Christ) and those who are made holy (believers) are of the same family.  Therefore Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers!  He says: “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praises.”’ (Heb 2:11,12)

Calling us brothers (and sisters) means that we SHARE and, as sons and daughters of the SAME heavenly Father, RECEIVE the same blessings/inheritance.

In Romans 8:16,17 the extent of this sharing is such that we become joint-heirs with Christ of all His glory.

“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.  Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.’

Go and tell my BROTHERS, Mary… those joint-heirs, fellow receivers with me, Christ Jesus!

Secondly, we consider the message:

‘I AM RETURNING!’

This word ‘returning’  or as other translations have it ‘ascending’ reveals Christ’s future.

He was going back to the glory which He had left behind when He became flesh, when He was born in a stable in Bethlehem.

He was not going to some empty dark void, to an unknown place of nothingness.

He went to ‘My Father’ and ‘My God’.  He returned or ascended into the eternal presence, glory and majestic holiness of His father, the place of glory that belongs to the only-begotten Son of the Father!

If the resurrection was the first step or stage of our Lord’s exaltation, His RETURN, or ascension, is the MORE GLORIOUS.  The resurrection was that gigantic step from death to life here on earth, the ascension outshines it as the heavenward leap from life here on earth to life in the presence of the Father!

What a glorious crowning ceremony the ascension becomes in this light!  The resurrection declares Jesus the Lord of life, and His ascension is the crowning ceremony!

‘See, the conqueror mounts in triumph!’

‘Rejoice the Lord (is crowned) KING!’ Praise Him!

Thirdly, remember how Mary is told to address the disciples?

They are brothers!  They, by virtue of being the brothers of our Lord are now members of the divine family!  As brothers the disciples can now know and believe.  God is Christ’s Father and OUR Father and He is Christ’s God and OUR God.

‘I am returning to my Father and YOUR Father, to my God and YOUR God.’

We are adopted children of God through faith in Christ Jesus and as adopted children, our reward, our inheritance is exactly the same as Christ’s inheritance.

We too have been raised.  We have experienced a resurrection from death to life.  We became a new creation, the old passed away and behold, the new came!

But the crowning ceremony is still to come!  (cf. 2Tim 4) We too will ascend and like Christ, go to be with our God and with our Father.  We too will be crowned.

What a ceremony that will be!  As Christ ascended to receive the glorious reward, so will those whom he calls my brothers and my sisters!

  1. The Meaning of Ascension

Mary, hurry up and proclaim this great news to Christ’s brethren!  Tell them that death has been conquered, and that Christ is about to ascend to His Father and His God!

Proclaim this as the messenger of good news of great joy!  How the disciples need this message of victory!

Congregation, let us hear this message!

On this day, Ascension Day, we remember and are called to rejoice as we focus our hearts and minds on our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The conquering, victorious King of Kings ascends to the heavenly CORONATION.  Celebrations have begun.  Heaven rejoices, and we, who have received the Spirit of Sonship, are called to join in the festivities here and now.

Let your hearts to rejoice!  Praise the Lord!

He ascends to His Father and His God!

At the same time, on this day, let all of us be reminded of the coronation in which we, because by grace we are Christ’s brothers and sisters, share!

He ascends to make a place for us!
He ascends to intercede for us!
He ascends so that one day too we will be crowned with the crown of righteousness!

O, what perfect joy and glory was received as Christ ascended!

O, what great joy and glory awaits us as we, His brothers and sisters, will one day ascend with Him to be crowned.

AMEN