Thursday, May 14, 2026
Ascension of Our Lord
Text: Acts 1:1–11
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?” This question that the two men, angels, ask the apostles at the ascension of our Lord rings throughout time. I can’t blame them for gazing longingly into the sky as Jesus fades from their view. They have been through so much with Him. They have seen the resurrected body of the Christ who was slain and now lives. They know the forgiveness that Jesus brought to them. They know He is the source of their life and the only way to salvation… and there He goes. Poof. They don’t quite get it yet. They stare, but Jesus has been quite clear that He will be with them until the end of the age. The way that He was with them has to change. Things are different now. Jesus will come again in a cloud of glory when the final trumpet sounds, but until that day, we focus on what His ascension truly means for us now. People of the Coulee Region do not stand looking into heaven.
Jesus did not go to the Father to sit on a throne and observe us from afar. The right hand of God is a position of power that He holds. God’s right hand is everywhere guiding and caring for people.This dominion of God is revealed to us through nature. He loves His creation and tends to the needs of all, but this universal caring doesn’t proclaim God’s mercy through Christ. Yet people stare at the clouds, or the trees, or the mountains and think they are closer to God somehow. These things won’t tell you that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and took on our sinful flesh. The forest won’t tell you that Jesus lived a perfect life that God requires of mankind. The stream won’t proclaim that the perfect Jesus was crucified to bear the punishment of your sin. The bluffs won’t reveal that Jesus died and was buried so that sin, death, and the devil would forever be buried in His tomb. The clouds don’t show us that Jesus was raised from the dead and now lives and reigns as our eternal prophet, priest, and king in whom we have hope of eternal life.
While creation certainly proclaims the glory and majesty of a Divine Creator, it isn’t where His people go to find mercy and the relationship with Him that they desperately desire. The birds and the flowers receive care while they live here, and they aren’t created to be in the image of God. God uses his creation to tend to the needs of His people. Pagan religions look to creation instead of the Creator for life. They stare into the heavens and see the majesty of God and create their own ideas of God from it. The world doesn’t show them where to find the mercy that only comes in Christ. Only in the mercy of the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord do we have life that others stare into the clouds looking for. Jesus doesn’t leave us to grope around in nature, He gives us assurance of where we can find Him. We can only receive this benefit because He is ascended. Only after His ascension does Jesus send the full power from on high that the Father promised His people, the Holy Spirit.
Only in the Spirit do we receive the revelation where Christ is located for us today. Jesus tells us in our reading from Acts that His disciples will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. In the Spirit you are baptized and made holy. The twelve won’t fully realize everything Jesus has been telling them until they receive power when Christ’s Spirit comes on them in a special way at Pentecost. This special giving of the Spirit to the first pastors of the New Testament church is how God distributes the Holy Spirit throughout the world. He gave them full understanding, through the Spirit, of everything they had witnessed so they could proclaim Christ crucified and risen to the world. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the words of Christ. Wherever the Spirit is, there Christ is. Jesus ascended so that He could be with His people in a concrete way in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The witness of the apostles’ brought the world truth. This term for end of the earth certainly means to every inch of the globe, but the word for end also can mean to the end of time. We have Holy Scripture, faithfully recorded by the apostles, so that the truth of God’s Word can continually turn the hearts of men to God. The Holy Spirit continues to work faith in us in this hearing of Scripture. He sustains us in truth so that we aren’t tempted to look to the world for life apart from God’s revealed mercy through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
When you were baptized you were given the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, forgiveness of sins, and united to Christ to be heirs of the Father’s kingdom. Wherever Christ is there you are. That means that even while you sojourn here on earth, Christ is in you and you are in Him. You are connected to the heavenly throne room through your baptism. We are actually with Him there as it is written in Ephesians 2, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” When you pray to God you are joining into the heavenly conversation as someone who is baptized into Christ. The Holy Spirit that resides in you is praying through you in the name of Christ in groanings too deep for words. Jesus is our mediator with the Father, who still pleads on our behalf. You who believe and are baptized are truly united to God in a way that we couldn’t have if Christ didn’t ascend to His throne and send His Spirit to make us His temple.
Let’s not forget the feast that we are about to celebrate! In the Lord’s Supper we see the resurrected body of the crucified Christ and are truly partaking in the body and blood of our ascended Lord. We feast now in the heavenly banquet. This is not some emotional response to a faint hope, this is the true bodily presence of our Lord. He can come to us and to all Christians everywhere because He has ascended and united us to Him through His Holy Spirit. So, while you patiently wait for the Lord to return in the clouds on Judgment Day, you don’t have to wait on the feast. You dine now in heaven with Christ and all of the heavenly hosts who are waiting for the glorious resurrection of the dead; that Christ is the firstfruits of through His resurrection. You who are united to Him in His baptism and continue to feast in our ascended Lord have a certain hope that His feast will never end. Since our Lord is ascended we can partake in all of this now through His Spirit as we wait for Him to return to create the new heaven and new earth. When Jesus ascended and sent His Spirit out into the world through the apostles He made it possible for all Christians, everywhere, to be with Him in a physical way, right now. The Savior who took on our flesh and walked the earth, died, and rose some 2000 years ago still walks the earth in a physical way, in His ascension, through His Word and Sacrament ministry.
You have received this truth and can now reveal this truth to those who still stare into creation to look for God’s mercy. Share with your neighbor who is staring at the sky the words of the angels, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Stop staring. We are certain He will return. Until He does, find Him where He promises to be. This is the treasure that the Sacraments bring us that so many of our Christian friends have lost. We don’t look for Jesus in nature, our feelings, or anywhere else. We can tell the world about the sure and certain hope that we have. Our ascended Lord is still walking with us in a truly physical way so that He can keep us in Him eternally. Why do you stand looking into heaven? Until He returns, we look to where our Lord promises to send His Spirit and dwell with us.
You, dear saints, are truly blessed to have Christ with you in a way that goes beyond all understanding. You have been given faith through the Holy Spirit. You don’t stare into the clouds looking for Jesus. You look to Christ where He promises to still physically deliver His mercy. Right here at this altar, in His preached word, and in the waters of Holy Baptism. Forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation still pour out in a real way from our ascended Lord. Our Lord didn’t leave us, He made it so we can have Him and have Him abundantly while we wait for His glorious return. Thanks be to God!
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard and keep you in the true faith unto life everlasting. Amen. Alleluia! Christ is risen!