In the name of the Risen Lord. Amen.
The Anglican bishop and theologian NT Wright has written that if we downplay the Ascension, the Church will end up filling the vacuum. And he does not mean this as a good thing. The Collect for the Ascension proclaims that Jesus “ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all thing,” and so if we neglect this feast of the Church, we will end up looking to ourselves to fill all things.
And this is where a lot of interpretations of the Ascension go – Jesus is gone, so now the work is up to us. The master has taught us to be apprentices, and it’s our turn to save the world and bring the kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. While it is certainly true that we are the Body of Christ who pray to be made into and used as instruments of God’s peace, it’s a rather sad story if Jesus is now missing-in-action and we are his replacement. What the Ascension proclaims is the very Good News that Jesus is still very much up to his work of saving grace.
Put most simply, what the Ascension does it to keep our faith alive in the present tense. It’s understandable that people might think that the Christian faith is about things that happened in the past: Creation, the call of Abraham and Sarah, the Annunciation to Mary, the miracles of Jesus, the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Our Scripture readings, hymns, and prayers are, for the most part, retrospective. Gratitude is rooted in the past, so there’s absolutely nothing wrong with recognizing all that God has done for us. But a faith that only about the past is one that is irrelevant today. This perception is what leads many to ignore faith today – it can seem old-fashioned and unapplicable to our modern anxieties and issues.
On the other side of the equation are the Christians who think that faith is, more or less, irrelevant until some point in the future – either the hour of our death or the end of time. Many shortsighted versions of faith focus on the future while ignoring our lived experiences in the meantime. Yes, of course, we have hopes for the future, but we are not left to figure it out by ourselves until then.
The Ascension of Jesus Christ though is why we can be confident that our faith matters now; that Jesus is in the present tense. This is true because the Ascension reminds us that we are not saved by an event, but a person. What saves us is not that God made a promise to Abraham, or that Jesus died on a cross, or even that Jesus rose from the dead. As amazing and wonderful as those events are as manifestations of God’s steadfast love, the events, in and of themselves, are not what heal us, save us, or make all things well. Instead, it is Jesus Christ who frees us, blesses us, guides us, and nourishes us. And the Ascension assures us that Jesus is not trapped in the past or locked up in the future, but Jesus’ “for us”-ness is always in the present tense.
While the Scripture passages that we heard this evening are all helpful, there are a few other passages that we need to have in mind for this point to really land. The first is Romans 8:34, “It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” In the reading from Ephesians, we heard that same language – that Jesus is at the right hand of God, which means that Jesus is in a place of proximity to the Father and shares the seat of authority with God Almighty. And at the right hand of God, Jesus is interceding for us.
The book of Hebrews makes a similar point throughout, that Jesus functions as a high priest forever – meaning he is interceding for us. And we are most familiar with the passage from First John that is often read after the Confession of Sin as a part of the comfortable words of our pardon – “If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” This is the gracious and good news of Ascension, that right now, Jesus is our advocate.
A few Sundays ago, I asked the question “Who is Jesus to you?” There are a lot of images that we might have for Jesus, and one of the less common but very theologically rich images of Jesus is that of our advocate – as the one who comes to our side as a defender, a supporter, a friend. This is what Jesus is about – being our helper. It’s what we say in the Baptismal Covenant to each of the vows – “I will with God’s help.” And that help has a name and a face: Jesus Christ. As we read in Philippians 2:13, “For it is God who is in work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
With all of the uncertainties and challenges of life, we could all use someone to help us. I’ve recently been thinking about grace in terms of relief – and relief is exactly what Jesus, as our advocate, provides: the relief from having to go at it alone, the relief from having it all rest on us, the relief from feeling like we have to get it right and be perfect. Jesus relieves us from all of these pressures because he is ever-present with us, not stuck in past deeds or in future dreams, but in our daily lived reality.
We heard in Luke that Jesus said, “repentance and forgiveness of sin is to be proclaimed to all nations.” This is what our Advocate, Jesus, is doing. This is the relief he gives us. And it’s a part of the answer to the question “Why do we still pray for the forgiveness of our sins on this side of Good Friday and Easter” and “Why do we pray when God knows everything already.” It’s because Jesus is our Advocate in the present tense. If Jesus was not our present-tense Advocate, we might doubt whether or not we really are forgiven.
Again, we are not forgiven because Jesus did something 2,000 years ago – that would be a transactional view of faith. But Christianity is not transactional; it is relational. The reason why we are confident that we are forgiven is because Jesus knows us – to him all hearts are open, all desires known, and from him no secrets are hid – and he intercedes for us from the right hand of God, forgiving us in the present tense.
Yes, the Cross is a demonstration of just how deep and wide Jesus loves us, but what makes this love not a concept or abstraction is the now-ness of our relation to Jesus. He is, at this very moment, interceding for us. Just as he said on the Cross, he says today, “Father, forgive.” When we pray for daily bread, that prayer is heard by the lover of our souls and taken to the very throne of God. Minute by minute, through Jesus Christ, God is seeking to bless us. What the Ascension of Jesus assures us of is that the love and mercy that we read about in the Gospels now intercedes on our behalf in heaven. In other words, we have a man on inside, a connection at the top, a friend in high places. This is why we can be so audaciously confident when we rest in the peace of Julian’s words that “all shall be well.” All shall be well because Jesus, who loves us to the point of death and whose love overcomes the grave, is the one who offers prayers and intercessions for us.
This is why interpreting the Ascension as “Jesus is gone, the work is now ours,” is such a depressing and crushing message – it takes our helper away from us and leaves us alone. Without the Ascension, we are left thinking that we are in charge, that we are helpless, that we are main character in the story of faith. There is such hope and grace in the Ascension because it reminds us that it’s not all up to us. The Ascension gives us the relief that Jesus is still God with us and God for us. Yes, we are given holy work to do in Jesus’ name, but we do not work alone and without his constant support, guidance, and blessing.
And, furthermore, it means that the work isn’t finished, which is such fantastic news. The work of Jesus did not stop when the last stroke of the Bible was written down. We’re not just biding time until God chooses to pull the plug on Creation. There is no delay in the coming of Christ because Jesus is always with us in the present tense and the story isn’t yet finished. Yes, I am aware that we live with injustice, violence, greed, and calamity all around us. But the story isn’t finished. Without the Ascension, we would be in trouble, for sure. We would live in a closed system where there is no possible help coming from beyond us. But Jesus has ascended to the throne of grace where he prays for us, forgives us afresh, and opens new possibilities for us through the limitless power of love. Because Jesus has ascended to be our mediator, our advocate, our intercessor it means that we are not defined by our mistakes, that death does not get the last word, that all things are moving towards their wholeness in Jesus Christ.
When we pray, we can be bold in knowing that our prayers are heard at the very heart of heaven. When we hear that assurance that “Your sins are forgiven,” we can be confident in knowing that mercy and forgiveness are new every morning. When we go through the valley of the shadow of death, we trust that we are never alone. The Ascension is the Good News that because Jesus is interceding for us as our advocate, all shall be well.
