5-24-20 Grace-Benson Sermon

Grace Benson – Pastor Frank Rose May 24, 2020 Acts 1:1-11 Sermon for May 24th, 2020 celebration of Jesus’ Ascension Jesus’ ascension doesn’t get the same attention as his birth, death, and resurrection.

There is no national holiday arranged around the ascension. But I hope today we can learn to appreciate the ascension just as much. Jesus’ ascension helps us to deal with some false versions of the Christian life that the devil introduces to us. Satan is a master of allowing us to read Scripture, but then he sells us false versions of what the words of Scripture mean for our daily life. He once tried this with Jesus in the temptation of Jesus, it didn’t work. But often Satan finds success with us.

Consider 2 false versions of Christianity on display in this story of the ascension. I’ll call the first, “What’s in it for us Christianity,” and the second “Spectator Christianity.” The disciples dealt with these, we deal with them. And the ascension of Jesus helps us with both.

First, what do I mean when I say “What’s in it for us Chrsitianity?” We’re told that once when the disciples were with Jesus, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you are going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The disciples were Israelites. They were descendants of Abraham. When they thought about the kingdom that Jesus came to bring, they had their sights set on their group. Their people. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your group, your people to be well. It’s natural for us, like those disciples to want God’s blessing on the people close to us.

We want God to bring his kingdom to our family members, to our local church, to our group of Lutherans, to American Christians. That’s not a wrong desire. But it can become a problem if we lose sight of the larger picture, that God wants people from all nations to be saved. It can become a problem if we focus too much on caring for the people closest to us, that we lose sight of helping the people outside of the group that we find ourselves in. The devil wants us to have an inward focus, a ‘we-take-care-of-our-own’ mentality, to the exclusion of taking care of others.

Jesus answers this problem well. We’re told that in the 40 days after his resurrection, he met with the disciples, gave them many convincing proofs that he was alive, and taught them about the kingdom of God. Not the kingdom of Israel. Not the kingdom of Grace Lutheran church members, not the kingdom of my family or your family. But the kingdom of God. What Jesus had accomplished; his death in place of sinners, his resurrection to defeat death itself, his ascension; everything had to do with the kingdom of God. He came proclaiming, “The kingdom of God has come near.” He accomplished the certainty of the closeness of God’s kingdom for us.

God’s kingdom is simply: wherever what God wants to happen is what happens. That’s the kingdom of God. His kingdom is not God domineering over people who can't help but cower and submit. He instead invites people to choose to be a part of what he’s up to in the world, which applies to every part of life, and every interaction with any person from any group.

Someone who is a church member, you get to interact with them in a way that brings the kingdom of God to them. Also someone who is not a church goer, the same is true. God’s kingdom is available to them and to you as you interact with them. God is interested in bringing all people into the kingdom of God.

This already starts to answer the second problem, which I called “spectator Christianity.”

You can see it in the disciples, first of all when they say to Jesus, “Will you now restore the kingdom to Israel.” They were looking to him to do something, more than expecting that they should participate actively. We also see this tendency toward spectator Christianity in their gazing intently into the sky after Jesus ascended. They were still looking to Jesus and not expecting that they should be active participants in what God wanted to accomplish in the world through them.

This is very tricky of Satan. There is a very important sense in which we need to look to Jesus to do what we cannot do. He went to the cross because we could not. We are saved by grace, not our works. If we try to earn God’s forgiveness, we alienate ourselves from the grace that could be ours. So we need to be passive in a sense in how we receive what he has done for us.

But the devil takes that truth of the Bible and tries to isolate it from the whole picture. He says to you, “You’re saved by grace, so you better not try to do anything for God. You shouldn’t expect that he wants you to try doing things for him.” The devil gets us to become spectators when God clearly wants us to be participants in his spreading of his kingdom until he comes again.

The danger of this is not only that we miss out on an incredible invitation from God. The ultimate danger is that by making us spiritual spectators, the devil can effectively weaken our faith muscles. Just like someone who never exercises or even walks will grow weaker so that eventually they cannot walk or exercise even if they wanted to; the devil wants your faith to be inactive to the point where it becomes so weak that he can easily break it by some affliction or temptation. That’s what he’s after, the weakening of your faith so that he can kill your faith.

It’s clear that Jesus wants a faith that is first received, but then exercised and expressed and strengthened through activity. He does this again and again.

Acts 1 says, “In my first book, I wrote to you about all that Jesus began to do and teach.” Not all that he did and taught, but all that he began to do and teach. The implication is: Jesus hasn’t stopped doing things and teaching. The book of Acts is the story of Jesus doing and teaching through the first Christians. All of New Testament history, including here and now with us is the history of Jesus continuing to do things and teach through ordinary people like you and I. When you speak the message of forgiveness in his name, he speaks through you. You may not notice at the moment it happens, that’s not the point. But he speaks through you. In Ephesians 4 Paul told the Ephesians that they heard from Jesus and were taught by him. Did Jesus ever go to Ephesus? No, Paul did. But when Paul spoke the message of Jesus to them, they were hearing from Jesus.

In Ephesians 1, we’re told that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, ruling over all things for the good of the church. That doesn’t mean that Jesus dictates every decision that gets made in time and space, but he allows human decisions to fall under his rule and goodness.

That means that when you do things motivated by his love in you, he is doing things through you.

His ascension is central to this all. So what exactly is his ascension? What is its importance? His ascension is a going up. Not so much spatially, but authoritatively. Imagine you lived 300 years ago, and there was a throne in a nation where monarchy was the government

structure. And you went there and went up and sat on the throne. You went there spatially, but you don;t actually have the authority. But imagine that the son of the previous king who had died, that new king went up on the throne and sat on it. He has the authority to assume the position of king, with all the power that comes with: the ability to set policy and arrange details of lives in his kingdom in a way that he thinks will benefit the people in his kingdom.

That’s what the ascension of Jesus means. There is a man who has assumed a position of authority over all things that exist and that happen. It’s staggering. Jesus still is man. He understands from experience and from his shared humanity what you go through day by day.

He knows what it is to grieve, knows what is is to be tired, knows what it is to die. He has overcome all those problems, and he is the one on the throne of the universe, of all this is and all that happens. And he arranges all things for the good of his people. He is in the process of gathering a kingdom from every nation, tribe, and language. God and man in one person has ascended.

His ascension in a way is what unlocks his benefits to you. He died and rose, but if he had remained on earth, the access of his death and resurrection would be limited to the place and space he occupies. When he lived in this world, if someone wanted to be healed, they had to find him in a place and space. Now he is available everywhere, every time, every situation.

That;s the significance of his ascension.

Just like it’s be foolish to cook an amazing meal and no one eats it, or to build an incredible house but no one lives in it; it would have been foolish for Jesus to die and rise, but then to be limited in his ability to give the benefits of an eternal kind of life now and forever. His ascension means, you get to eat the banquet, you get to move into the mansion. Because he is present right where you are, and that will always be true of you, wherever you find yourself in the future.

Think about our 4 locations at Grace. When we worship here in Benson, is Jesus here but not in Sahuarita? Is he in Sahuarita but not in Tucson? When Jesus was around visibly, he was not in Galilee and Jerusalem at the same time. But since his ascension he has taken up again the full use of his omni-presence as God and he is in Benson, and Tucson, and Sahuarita, and even in Vail. He can be everywhere at one time in a way that he wasn’t when he lived humbly here.

The ascension is not about losing Jesus’ presence, but about getting more of it. The ascension does not mean that Jesus relates to us like a man in an attic, but more like the light that drives out darkness in a room, or like the heat that radiates first outside of you, but then warms you and travels through you.

Think again of the disciples. Jesus prepared them to be active, but as long as he remained with them, it’s as if they looked too much to him and were spectators. Only after his ascension, with the angels’ prompting; they stopped staring into the sky, they left the hill, they went back into Jerusalem, the same city that killed Jesus, and they waited. They received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and became what Jesus had described, witnessed to the ends of the earth.

The leaving of Jesus was necessary so that as Jesus said, they’d be baptized with the Holy Spirit and start acting as Jesus’ agents in this world. Jesus has prepared you to do similar things as well. How has he prepared you? You’ve been baptized. Just like washing with water can make a dirty person clean, your baptism makes you fit for service to Jesus. It’s an event

that is meant to have the ongoing significance of the Holy Spirit applying forgiveness to you continually, immersing you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constantly so that his presence and reality affects everything you do.

You are to be a witness of Jesus as well. What’s the job of a witness? SImply to speak what he has seen, what he knows. Think of a witness in a courtroom. They are not asked to give opinions about what they think happened, or why they think it happened. They are to simply speak what they know. Let the jury examine the evidence and make a verdict. In being a witness to Jesus, it’s not up to us to convince the jury of a person’s heart that Jesus is the Christ, just share how he’s impacted you, share the simple details of what he has done. Let the verdict fall where it may. Be a witness.

But, having said that; we need to keep balanced. I’ve been saying, “don’t be a spectator, be witness.” And I know that one effect this has is guilt. I haven’t been a witness like I should.

We need the balance of what Jesus said, “Wait.” Learn to be active, but also to be ok if you find yourself in a season of waiting. He said to his disciples, “Wait, and then, on my timing, you’ll receive the power of the Holy Spirit and the opportunity to witness.” We can’t force it. We are to be active, but also we need to be ok waiting for the power of God to come to us.

This isn’t easy. For many of us, the past months have shown us the difficulty of waiting.

When will businesses open? When will normal return, when will it be safe? It’s a challenge. And a far bigger question is “When will Jesus return?” The Bible simply tells us to wait.

The angels said, “He will come back in the same way he left.” Jesus hasn’t changed. At any moment, the same one who went to the cross, who rose from the dead can make himself visible again. One day he will. We wait for that moment. So even as we serve, there are times of waiting for God to give clarity, to give strength, to give opportunity.

That model, wait and receive, is hard for us. We struggle to wait. The only way we can do it is to look at Jesus. Consider how Jesus was that unique combination of activity, but also a trusting ability to wait through incredible suffering.

Jesus went to Jerusalem knowing he would be killed. But he also in a sense waited for it to happen. His attitude on the Thursday before he died could be described as, “Wait to be clothed with power from on high.” He had to wait and trust through the agonizing prayer, through the arrest and trial, he waited expectantly and with faith as he was nailed and lifted up. His soul waited even as his body was laid in a tomb. And when the timing was right, in an instant, God clothed him with the power of an indestructible human life. It is on that basis that we wait through the difficult times in our lives, with a faith that says, God, you will deliver me from all trouble, but on your time-line. Jesus will come one day, but even if today is not that day, I can wait, celebrating what I’ve already received; a Savior and Lord who has ascended to the throne and who now actively rules over all things. Jesus is now both active in expanding his kingdom through the words and actions of people like you; but at the same time, he patiently waits to come again until all has been prepared, until every soul that he would have is gathered. And so, knowing that he is ascended, we say to Jesus with balance and confidence and joy: I will wait for you through any amount of hardship, and I will be your witness. Amen.