Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 15 – April 1986
Ascended Into Heaven
Sermon by Rev. A. I. De Graaf on Lord’s Day 18
Reading: Genesis 28:10-22, Acts 1:1-11
Singing: 125, Bow. Ps. 51, 448, 365, 372, 140, 490
It says in Luke’s gospel story about Jesus’ ascension into heaven: “HE PARTED FROM THEM”. And the French say: “partir c’est mourir un peu.” “To part, to say farewell, that’s dying a little”. You’d expect people to be SAD at such an occasion: like at an airport when you have to farewell your mother who goes back all the way to Holland. Didn’t Jesus go away much farther? Yet Luke tells us that the disciples were FAR from sad: they rejoiced, they were glad! Yes, because Jesus went away with His pierced hands outstretched in BLESSING. He did that when they saw Him go away and that was the last they saw of Him. But He has done that ever since: He never stopped blessing them! He still does that today. Because He is in heaven, the centre of power from where He rules all things.
He is in heaven. Modern man has his troubles with that, with heaven. What on earth (!) must we imagine when we hear that?
Now and then there has been a privileged soul like John who saw a door opened into heaven, but most of us here on our troubled earth feel like JACOB did when he fled away from his angry and murderous brother Esau. After a tiring day of running through a strange and hostile land he lay down to sleep, pestered by a bad conscience, feeling strange and threatened… But then the LORD made him discover how close heaven was: angels going up and down along a ladder that connected heaven with this earth and suddenly he knew: HERE in this strange and cold place, is God and His care and His love – love undeserved and pure grace. And Jacob confessed it next morning: THIS place HERE is the GATE TO HEAVEN, THIS too, is the HOUSE OF GOD. “The gate to heaven… the door…!” “I am that Door,” said Jesus and He says it also to you and to me. You may come in THROUGH ME. In Him God came so close, heaven became our home! But then we can – and must – take seriously what the Bible says about the ascension into heaven of Jesus, our Saviour and our Brother.
Heaven is now the place where He is, where OUR FLESH AND BLOOD is close to God. The place from where He will come again. Heaven – the place to which already in the day of shadows of the Old Testament ELIJAH went up in splendour and from which that same Elijah was sent down to come and talk with Jesus about what He was to do at Jerusalem, on His bitter cross, paying also for Elijah’s sins.
Elijah was sent down from heaven to speak with Jesus also about the victory-to-come: to encourage Him to go on and finish it all! Heaven – the place from where God still sends His angels, not to do our job for us (after all WE received also from heaven the Holy Spirit to do it OURSELVES) but the angels are still sent from there to help us, to serve us who are the children of God. Real angels they were, who stood on the Mount of Olives to comfort Jesus’ disciples and tell them he would come again as He went! Real angels like the one who shook Peter awake when he was in prison, and broke the walls of the cell in which later Paul would be found singing praises to his God. And Paul could do that because he too knew that his Lord was not far away but very close. It is all much more real, much closer than we think at times. LET US THINK TOGETHER ON THE ASCENSION OF JESUS.
We hear of three things:
1. JESUS IS THERE
2. WE ARE HERE
3. YET WE ARE CLOSE TOGETHER
1. JESUS IS THERE
According to His human nature, in his true flesh and blood, Jesus went: He is THERE… not here. That’s what the Catechism says in those long answers where it argues against our Lutheran brothers and sisters who teach that at the Lord’s Supper Jesus’ BODY can be truly coming along WITH bread and wine because at His ascension Jesus’ HUMAN nature became as powerful and everywhere-present as His DIVINE nature.
But the Bible does not say that, and we are NOT told that we need this kind of theories to explain that God is close to us. The HOLY SPIRIT can give us true fellowship and nearness to Jesus’ true Body and Blood at the Lord’s Supper also without these theories.
Jesus Himself said, as did the angels there on Mt. Olivet, that Jesus went. He said so already before He died on the cross: I am GOING to prepare a place for you, and: It is good for you that I go, for then I can send down to you THAT OTHER COMFORTER, the Holy Spirit, and He will stay with you until I come back, yes He will even stay inside you! Our Great High Priest Jesus is now in heaven and He is there for the good of His People. Praying for us, caring for us! Our Great King is not sitting in an office in Jerusalem giving interviews to newspaper reporters and making statements on political issues, but He is at the centre of the universe on the throne where He guides and rules all things.
He is in the place from where He shall come again and then every eye shall see Him. He did not go away to take a holiday from us. He is not like the weary husband who has to take a break from his nagging wife or like the wife who has to get out of the place hoping that absence will make the heart grow fond again. No – more than ever – more than when He was on earth, He is involved with His people.
In Lord’s Day 19 we will hear more about what it means that He SITS AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. But how involved He is with us Stephen found out. The first Christian martyr, whom his enemies were accusing falsely and whom they would stone to death, was in terrible pain. Where was Jesus then? Was he left to it? No, just before this awful thing was to happen (and the Lord LET it happen) he was given a glimpse into heaven. For a moment God made his eyes like radar, they could look right up to the Great White Throne. And there he saw Jesus NOT SITTING but STANDING! Jesus had stood up! So involved was Jesus with his suffering servant. Therefore that servant could go on with his witness and when falling under the stones battering his body, could cry out: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! Jesus went: but He said: I keep in touch! I sent the Spirit.
Therefore even the darkest place on earth is like that place where Jacob lay dreaming; in prison cells and concentration camps; on sick beds and at gravesides, the Lord says: You are not alone, I am with you. You have a direct connection with heaven itself. He is there for our good. So: (1) HE IS THERE.
2. But WE ARE HERE!
Yes, because God wanted his Church to grow. We are here as pilgrims who have our citizenship in in heaven. We are here as people who belong to Him above and therefore here below we shall not (need not!) sell our soul or expect all our happiness from things down here, things that come… and go again.
We are here on this earth where God has done great things, and here He has great things for us to do… but WE HAVE A HOMELAND. We are here where Jesus gathers His church and sends His people to proclaim the good tidings. We are here where He has poor people to be given food and suffering people to find help. We are here where Jesus still is doing things but He does not want them done without us. We are here and at times like Paul we long to be “cast off like ships and be with Him” but then He says: not yet, your task is not finished yet.
He is like that king He told about, going to a far land, but giving talents to His servants. And HERE when He has come back, He will one Great Day look at our work and say hopefully to you and me: “well done my faithful servant!”
We are here, but not without the Spirit… ever. Not ever without close touch with Him who knows… knows it all.
And that gets me to my last point. We saw: (1) He is there, and (2) we are here. But we saw it already:
3. WE ARE STILL AND ALWAYS TOGETHER
That’s what we celebrate around the Lord’s Supper table and therefore it is good and Christian to call that table HOLY COMMUNION which is another word for fellowship, togetherness. Still together. That’s what we confess and experience: the Good Shepherd still looks after His sheep. But you only experience it when you trust it, when you surrender to it.
Just as you never know you can swim until you get INTO THE WATER. In struggle and persecution, we find out: WE ARE TOGETHER WITH HIM, the body is connected to its head. The church is never a headless torso. We are very much together. We sing that around our open graves, and we look up, away from earth, but find out when we go home: with Him, lonely perhaps… but never alone. For we know that those who went are singing around the throne. And when temptation comes, when we are pestered by the devil telling us that we have to fix it all by ourselves, then Jesus says: “Don’t believe that liar, I am with you all the days. Heaven is closer than you think! And so the Bride says: “COME, my love!” and even when she whispers that in terrible agony, the Bridegroom whispers in her ear: I am coming soon, don’t give up my little one!”
When we confess these things we say what is too great and too wonderful for us to understand. We cannot make drawings of this reality. But then, who would dare take away anything from the greatness of God and His Son? God has proved that heaven is not far: He has come and visited us. Jesus proves it daily to whoever trusts in Him and relies on His nearness. And so, citizens of heaven, let me ask you, where is your home? Oh your job is here, but where is your home? The loving bride says it: “My home is where he is whom my soul loves. My heart is where He is, where Jesus is.” Citizens of heaven, never mind what happens, lift up your head! Take heart! He is near to you now, and soon you will see Him. Maranatha!
AMEN