Ascension Luke 24 44-53 2007
Ascension Day
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Luke 24:44–53
The Ascension of Our Lord
Life requires power. Imagine how different our lives would be if we had no electricity. No computers, no movies, no power tools! If we removed from our daily lives everything in some way dependent upon electrical power, very little would be left, and most of us would be hard-pressed to survive.
Electricity is not the only kind of power we need. Life itself does not come into being apart from the creative power of God. He breathes life into us, and we become living beings. Every heartbeat, brain wave, breath, or muscle flexing requires power.
Just as we need power to survive physically, so we need power to live spiritually. To all who know the struggle and burden of powerlessness, the Ascension Gospel brings good news! Today we celebrate the gifts of our ascended Lord as we consider that with our Lord’s Ascension He is clothed in glory and we are clothed with His power.
“We Are Clothed with Power.”
I. We are clothed with the power we need: power “from on high.”
St. Luke documents the teachings that Jesus shared with his disciples during the 40 days prior to his ascension. He taught them that salvation is centered in his sacrificial death and glorious resurrection, and that they had a message to proclaim after his return to heaven. They would be going into uncharted territory even going to the ends of the earth and facing stiff opposition.
Yet Jesus did not give them marching orders and then abandon them. “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49). The followers of Jesus would not be left to operate under their own power or to scratch and claw for whatever strength they could find in the world. Never! Rather, by his return to the Father, Jesus opened the windows of heaven to pour out his Spirit from on high. Just 10 days later, on the Feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit of God fell abundantly upon them and “wrapped them up” in the powerful love and truth of God. This is what the Father promised, and this is what the Father delivered to the disciples who witnessed Jesus’ bodily ascension.
Today we gather to celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord. Today we hear his marching orders to proclaim repentance and remission of sins in his name to all nations, and we need help at least as desperately as did the first Eleven. Our help, too, is in the name of the Lord. The power we need also comes “from on high.” We who are baptized have been born “from above” by water and the Spirit. We come into our eternal relationship with God not by our own power, not by our own reason or strength, but (as Luther emphasizes in the Small Catechism) by the powerful Spirit of God, who has called us by the Gospel and enlightened us with his gifts. The Holy Spirit has been poured out upon us and has wrapped us up in the truth and love of God. We are clothed with his power, by which he also sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith.
Often we are wrapped up with weakness, despair, grief, guilt, discouragement, and selfish passions. It’s as though we’re “shrink-wrapped” by these things, held captive by Satan, the world, and our sinful flesh. We cannot, on our own, escape its life-destroying clutches any more than a small insect can free itself from the web of a spider.
Yet by the all-powerful grace of our heavenly Father, through the total victory gained by Jesus through his death, resurrection, and ascension, we have been set free! The Spirit of power has torn away the ugly shrink-wrap of sin and has wrapped us up beautifully with the robe of righteousness! This righteousness is straight from on high and will not be compromised or conquered by anything on earth. Praise be to God, we are clothed with power from on high!
II. We are clothed with power that is incomparably great: God’s power.
Dare we place full confidence in God and in his power? Isn’t that a bit naive? Well, not according to St. Paul. He writes in the Ascension Epistle about God’s “incomparably great power for us who believe” (Eph 1:19a). The clearest evidence of the power of God is that he raised Jesus Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand. The supremacy of Jesus is established at every level of existence for all time! There are lots of powerful titles—“Chairman of the Board,” “Chief Executive Officer,” “Secretary General of the United Nations,” “President of the United States”—but consider the title Paul gives Jesus in our Epistle: “God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything” (Eph 1:22). “Head over everything”—that’s a title that stands above every title! All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. In Jesus Christ we have the power we need to accomplish the mission He has set us on.
III. We are clothed with power that transforms our lives.
Clothed with Holy Spirit power, we are now free to know and to love God and to care about others. Paul prays in our Epistle that a Spirit-led transformation will take place in Christian believers. He writes, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe” (Eph 1:17–19a).
The Spirit of God, working powerfully through the Word and Sacraments, improves our spiritual eyesight. As the Spirit does his dynamic work in us week after week, we know God better. We see more clearly the hope to which he has called us. We understand more completely the riches of the inheritance we have received. Our eyes are opened to the abundance of his blessing. We are empowered to witness to his truth and love. We are clothed with power to proclaim repentance and remission of sins to the ends of the earth. We are energized to worship him with joyful praise. As the scriptures proclaim, “When [Jesus] had led [the disciples] out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God” (Lk 24:50–53).
Our Lord’s ascension to the right hand of the Father does not mean that he is farther removed from us and from our needs. Rather, his ascension and the sending of his Spirit means that our lives, our future, our Christian mission are all “wrapped up” in the very-present strength and power of God.
Don’t let circumstances deceive you. Don’t let emotions trick you. You are clothed with power from on high! You are free from sins condemning power. You are free to worship the Lord. You are his witness, and you are commissioned to tell the story of his love. The one who is “Head over everything” will experience no power failure! He will not leave you or forsake you.
Conclusion: So what are you waiting for? Don’t just sit there. The disciples didn’t just stand around gawking into the sky! They gave glory to God, at His instruction waited for the Holy Spirit, and then went into all the world with the wonderful news of God’s redeeming love given through His only Son Jesus Christ. You have been filled with this same Spirit that now empowers you. It courses through you like electricity flows through wire, only more powerfully. Through you God turns on the light of His salvation as you speak His Word and reflect it in your lives. The power of God doesn’t float in the air. It is in you. As God works through you, go on your way rejoicing, until that day when you see him coming back in the same way as He was seen going into heaven (Acts 1:11).[i] Amen
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[i] Rev. R.C. Noack