Jesus tells His disciples, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
What are these words? You first learned them in Sunday School, or from dad and mom at home. As you grew in stature and in knowledge, you picked up a Bible and read them. As you read, you learned more of these words. By now you should have a good working knowledge of everything written about Jesus in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms.
But you don’t. Neither do I. Maybe you know the Green Bay Packers starters in the Ice Bowl of 1967. Perhaps you know the plot line of all the Harry Potter novels. You have facts and figures at your fingertips, but you don’t know what the Scriptures say concerning what Jesus fulfills.
Neither did the disciples. Jesus sends them into the world to proclaim the Good News of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Even after our Lord’s resurrection they still struggle with what is happening. They saw Jesus alive. They saw Him eat fish and bread for breakfast and were invited to dine with Him. They caught 153 fish after Jesus gave them fishing advice. They saw His hands and His side. Yet the disciples process these things like trying to listen to distant radio signals. It was all pops and cracks for the first eleven pastors of Christ’s church.
Jesus tells them, though, and tells us, too, that Help is on the way. That’s why we’re here tonight celebrating the Ascension of Our Lord. Tonight is about looking backward and looking forward at the same time. Jesus says, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. There’s a lot of comfort in the words, it is written. Jesus promises the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to help the disciples proclaim the Good News. Jesus promises the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to you and to me to keep us connected to the Good News in sermon and song, at the font and the altar, through water, bread, and wine.
We do not have a Spiritless Word. The Holy Spirit does not come to perform miracles apart from the Word. The Holy Spirit does not point us to places and things apart from where Jesus promises us He will be. We do not have a Wordless Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not silent. He speaks to us where Jesus promises He speaks to us. Even now as we are gathered in this place, the Holy Spirit shows us in the preached Word and in the Word with bread and wine, shown for us to be His Body and His Blood, where forgiveness and salvation are found.
Luther’s Small Catechism puts it this way: “The Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. He calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps her with Jesus christ in the one true faith.” We are unable to receive these gifts unless Jesus first ascends into heaven. If Jesus does not ascend, all that our Savior does for us is worthless. If all is worthless, then our Father’s words concerning the Living Word, Jesus Christ, are worthless and a lie.
Don’t look at Ascension Day like the little boy at the end of the Schoolhouse Rock video on interjections does. The boy, after yelling “YEAH!”, then realizes the song is over. He says one more interjection, “Darn! That’s the end.” Don’t look at Ascension Day as if tonight is the final night that all the neighborhood friends are able to play baseball one last time before school starts the next day or before one of the friends moves away. Ascension Day is when Jesus’s mission is accomplished, yet the mission is not yet completed. Now the mission is on the move and the Holy Spirit is the powerhouse of the mission. Using the preaching of the Gospel, the pronouncing of the forgiveness of sins, baptismal water, and eucharistic bread and wine, the Holy Spirit propagates the Good News when and where our heavenly Father wills. He willed the Word to be proclaimed in Arlington, Wisconsin. That’s a miracle of the Holy Spirit right here among us!
With an ascension there must be a descension. Jesus will descend again, this time not as a baby in Mary’s womb, but as triumphant Redeemer and Judge of the living and the dead. His return begins the life of the world to come, where all His children are gathered without sin, without death, and with an everlasting home in His presence. While we wait, we cling to our Lord’s certain words: I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. He comes to us right here, right now. He will come again. Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come!
Media Vita In Morte Sumus 