Luke 24:44–53

May 13 2010 Sermon Ascension

⁴⁴Then he said to them, "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." ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, ⁴⁶and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." ⁵⁰Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. ⁵¹While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵²And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, ⁵³and were continually in the temple blessing God.

Grace, mercy and peace from our ascended Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Cleo was old enough to be my mother. She was a waitress at the restaurant. One day Cleo told me a dream she had more than once, where something terrible took place at their house, like a fire or a break-in. But when she dialed the old rotary phone to call the police, her finger kept slipping. She couldn't get the dial to work. In this same dream, when she tried to run from the trouble, she kept falling down. It was as though her legs wouldn't carry her.

Lots of people have dreams like Cleo's. Lots of people have a real life that feels that way too, as if they're slipping and stumbling. They feel as though they can't get ahead.

If you feel like you're standing in front of a closed door, if you had your heart set on going in a particular direction, but now it seems as though you're being blocked, if God appears to be denying some wish you cherished, if you can't see the big picture or how this will all work out, or if you are weary right now with frustrations piling up, then today's text is aimed at you. When Christ was carried up into heaven he became...

Lord over Your Frustrations.

Our reading describes the day that Jesus ascended to heaven. It was forty days after Easter, the day he left this world. The reading from Acts gives us more detail and says that this was the record of all that Jesus "began to do and teach until the day he was taken up." That's breathtaking! It means all the words Jesus spoke and the acts Jesus performed until the day of his ascension were only what he began to do and teach. It means Jesus Christ kept on doing and teaching his people even after he went back to heaven.

This is the true story of the ascension. Yes, he went up bodily far above the heavens, but is still guiding his people by his spirit. "Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you." The Book of Acts begins with a huddled group of believers, praying in one lonely room in Jerusalem. Every Christian on the face of the earth fit into one room at that time. But by the end of Acts, just twenty-eight years later, the Good News of Christ had spread far. One of Christ's apostles was getting ready to tell it to the emperor in Rome, the emperor Nero, nonetheless.

Thank God, this isn't just the story of the first disciples, or of the Book of Acts, but it's your story and my story. It's the story of believers. Picture yourself at this point in your life, almost as if you were standing on a hilltop, looking back at this moment over many years' experiences. A lot of things that were not clear in the past have become clear now. You may be able to see now how Christ's Spirit guided you during your education, though it didn't seem so at the time. You may see now how Christ's spirit brought you through work situations that were not your first choice. You may see now how Christ's spirit has taught you things through everyday life with your husband or wife, thought some of those experiences may have been a real strain for a while.

On that hilltop as Jesus was preparing to ascend to heaven, this disciples asked him if this was now the time that he would restore the kingdom to Israel. Jesus responded, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority." Jesus Christ keeps on doing and teaching by his Word and many times through the circumstances of your life to make God and his ways better known to you. And just as we can stand now, looking back to the beginning and say, "He really did guide those first Christians," we can look back on our years gone by and say, "I do see it now. Christ really has been guiding me."

The most consoling things about this guidance is that Jesus does it in the real world. The story of the Bible is not fairy tale in which Christians went out into the world and God fixed it so everybody listened to them politely. It was no imaginary world where believers always got along, their lives were always happy and there were gobs of money, easy family relationships and so on. That would be a fairy tale. That's not the world the first Christians lived in.

The fact is, the disciples loved Jesus. Their faith was real. They had a sincere desire to serve Christ, being willing to leave home for years on end and make big sacrifices. Yet Jesus tells them that they don't need to see the big picture. He told them to just remain in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. He would not tell them when he would return. He did not let them in on the big picture. The point is, these are people of sincere faith, real devotion, and their desire to see the bigger picture seems legitimate. We also are usually okay with struggles and frustrations as long as we can see the big picture, the end goal. But that is not always the life of the Christian. Jesus tells us to live by faith, trusting him for all things, not looking into the future to see what is going to happen. "Just trust me," he says.

This was surely hard on the disciples. They were told they were to be Jesus' witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (v 8). But when? How? We can only imagine how this time must have felt for people of faith who wanted to serve Christ but who were left in the dark; imagine the stress and irritation and then maybe even the doubts creeping in about whether they were doing the right thing at all. Imagine that stuff, and pretty soon the disciples huddled in a room in Jerusalem may start looking like the frustrations you had to endure at various times. Maybe one of those times is still with you.

The Bible says, "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman" (Gal 4:4). When God decided the time was right, he sent Jesus down here to be the Savior of the world, the real world. Jesus Christ came to redeem people in the real world. He came to the world as it is, frustrated, confused, and unable to move forward because of human sin and all its crippling consequences.

What Jesus Christ does for the world, he does for you. Jesus Christ loves the real you. He did not come for the person you think you ought to be. He does not wait to love you until after you have all the frustrations, all the failures and calamities of life nicely under control. He doesn't ask you to clean up your life and rid yourself of your sins first. Jesus Christ didn't die for some make-believe person, the one you let other people think you are. Jesus Christ loves the real you, with your sins, frustrations, anger, doubts, and all. He came to this real world in all its unworthiness and bled to death for the sins of the people in all their unworthiness to become the Savior of men and women like you, in all your unworthiness.

This love Jesus has for you as you really are moves him to be in your life and to do things in your life, struggling with frustration as you may be.

He proves he is Lord over your frustrations, your failures, and your weariness. He's Lord over them all, because he died to pay for your sins and he brings forth blessings as you follow him, even though you keep wrestling with the frustrations on many occasions.

The blessings he brings forth often turn out much better than if we'd always gotten our first choice and everything had happened without roadblocks. The missionaries-to-be likely didn't appreciate that at first, frustrated and confused as they were for a while. But they were in good hands. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they got to see the work of God firsthand.

If you're honest toward God, you can see similar things. What a disaster it would have been in my own life if I hadn't groaned with frustration and had always gotten my own foolish first choices. In this real life of yours, Christ can use your frustrations to teach you what faith really is. Sail right through everything without a hitch, and pretty soon you get smug. "I'll just do this and this and this," you say, as if success were a matter of your deciding. The prophet Amos had a more realistic view of how life can be. It is "as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him" (Amos 5:19). In other words, hit the roadblocks, fall on your face, head off into the unknown, and you find out how true it is that you are completely dependent on the grace and blessing of God.

In the annoying, exhausting frustrations, you can learn how to pray and cling to the Lord in a way you never did before. The prayers may not be long and polished. But they will be real, like the prayer of that Canaanite woman who said to Jesus, "Lord, help me" (Mt 15:25), because years of frustration taught her she couldn't fix the trouble in her family on her own.

Christ is Lord over your life. He opens up opportunities, fruitful ones, for you to be his witness right where you are. God isn't running your life by accident. He has a reason for you living when you do and in the circumstances you are. In that position—in other words, in your real life—he knows how to bless the words you say for Christ, the influence you bring, and many times even the example you show in handling your frustration.

A great Ascension season exercise would be to open your Bible to John's Gospel and read chs 14–16. There Jesus told his people what it would be like after he ascended and all the things he would keep doing for them. Well, he is doing all those things for you in your real life. At the end of those chapters, he speaks this promise. It has your name all over it: "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33). God give you the faith to trust that indeed it is so. Amen.