SERMON
I think it’s fair to say that the Ascension of Jesus somehow gets lost between the excitement of his resurrection on Easter Day and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. It isn’t a church festival often celebrated in Methodism at all, in my experience, and that is a great shame.
I’ve spoken to many Methodists over the years who don’t celebrate Ascension Day and the main reason many give is that they don’t really understand its significant, they don’t really understand why its important and why we should celebrate it.
The first significance of the Ascension of Jesus is that it clearly marked an ending. New Testament scholar William Barclay comments, “The day when their faith was faith in a flesh and blood person, and when it depended on the presence of that person’s flesh and blood were over. Now they were linked to someone who was forever independent of space and time.”
The Ascension clearly marked the end of Jesus’ physical earthly mission. No longer would they be able to see him in the same way and touch him in the same way as they saw and touched each other. They would still feel his presence, but in a new way.
Jesus had done what he’d set out to do during his brief life on earth. He’d live a life of self giving love. He had taught us how to live. He had suffered untold agonies and give his life on the cross for us. Then he had risen from death to assure us of our own eternal life.
His physically embodied earthly ministry was done. Now it was up to others to take up that ministry.
The Ascension also marked a beginning, a beginning of a new kind of life and a new way of living: a life of faith centred on the risen and ascended Jesus.
The Ascension marks the beginning of the Christian Church, which continues to this day.
The Ascension marks the beginning of life in the Holy Spirit. In John’s gospel Jesus tells his first disciples, “Unless I go away the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.”
Jesus’ ascension meant the Holy Spirit would come to those disciples on the day of Pentecost, just as he comes to each one of us who are Christ’s faithful disciples today.
Because of Jesus’ ascension the Holy Spirit literally lives within us. Paul wrote that we are each temples of the Holy Spirit, who helps us, empowers us and guides us as we try to live as Christian disciples
The third significant thing about the Ascension of Jesus is that it marked the certainty of a friend on earth and in Heaven. William Barclay comments, “his Ascension gave the disciples the certainty that they had a friend, not only on earth, but in heaven. Surely it is the most priceless thing of all to know and to feel that in heaven there awaits us that self-same Jesus who on earth was wondrous kind. To die is not to go out into the dark; it is to go to him.”
Jesus in heaven in the same as Jesus on earth: Jesus is still fully human and fully divine. It wasn’t just Jesus spirit that ascended to heaven, it was his physically resurrected body as well. Jesus rose physically from the dead in a transformed resurrect human body and he ascended physically to heaven. Jesus still has his physical body in heaven. He is fully human and fully God.
We call Jesus Lord and Saviour and he is, but he is also our friend. Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servant, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
We not only have our Ascended Lord and Saviour in Heaven; we have a friend in heaven too; the most faithful friend we will ever have.
Jesus’ Ascension should be as important to us as Christian disciples as his Crucifixion and Resurrection.
It is important because it marked the end of his earthly ministry.
It is important because it marked a new beginning in the life of faith in the one true God.
It is important because it means that Jesus is in heaven, forever fully human and fully God, our friend who we know is waiting to welcome us to our eternal life with him.
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