In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.    

After Jesus ascended into heaven, the Bible tells us that His disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” This is a helpful detail for understanding what the ascension of Jesus is all about and what it means for the Church. The disciples were not sad when Jesus ascended. They were not angry about it. They were not bitter about it. They were glad about it. When Jesus ascended into heaven, it filled the disciples with joy. 

We should ask ourselves if it does the same thing for us today. When we think about what Jesus did forty days after He rose from the dead, does it still fill us with joy? Do we get excited about celebrating our Lord’s ascension, or is it something that we really don’t think about that much, or maybe even something that we don’t completely understand? My guess is that for most of us, if we are being honest with ourselves, it’s probably the latter. But if we don’t understand exactly what happened when Jesus ascended into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God, then we are missing out on the crown jewel of our Lord’s redemptive work to save us. We are missing out on something that Jesus accomplished specifically that it might bring us joy; that it might comfort us in the midst of worldly sadness and bring us the peace that passes all understanding.

So, in today’s sermon, as we celebrate this pivotal event in the life of Christ, let us answer two questions about it. First, what exactly happened when Jesus ascended in heaven? And, second why should what happened give us joy?

The Bible tells us in multiple places that forty days after His resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and took His seat at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. In Acts chapter one, Saint Luke tells us that “[Jesus] was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” In His Gospel, Luke also adds that, “While [Jesus] blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” And Saint Mark reminds us that Jesus was “taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” 

But where exactly is the heaven to which Jesus ascended, and what does it mean that He is now at the right hand of God? As difficult as it can be for us to understand, we should not think about our Lord’s ascension into heaven in the same way that we think about our loved ones who have died in the faith and whose souls are now at rest in heaven. The Bible does not just say that Jesus went to heaven, but that He ascended far above all the heavens. For example, Saint Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter four, that “He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.” Furthermore, Paul says, and this is also in his letter to the Ephesians, that “[God the Father] raised [Jesus] from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority… and He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

The ascension of Jesus does not mean that is now confined to heaven as the other saints are who dwell there with God eternally, but rather that He is far above heaven. It is not that Jesus was received by heaven, but rather that He received heaven, as in, He took up the rulership of heaven. The ascension of Jesus means that Jesus, as both God and now as a man, fully exercises His divine right as the king of heaven. He lords over heaven. He lords over everything. He fills all things.

That is also what it means when the Bible tells us that Jesus is at the right hand of God now. Again, the right hand of God is not a place on a map where Jesus is confined. That is not how the Bible describes God’s right hand. The right hand of God is God’s divine power. It is the way in which God accomplishes His holy will. His right hand is His omnipotence, His omnipresence, and His omniscience. It is synonymous with His almighty rule over all creation. Consider some of the other passages from the Scriptures that talk to us about the right hand of God. From Psalm 118 we read, “the right hand of the Lord does valiantly, the right hand of the Lord exults.” And from Psalm 139 it says, “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” When we say that Jesus ascended into heaven to the right hand of God, we are not saying that Jesus went to live someplace far far away from us, but rather that Jesus now rules over us and is constantly with us, even as a man. Jesus can be in more than one place at the same time. 

Now, of course, everyone who believes that Jesus is God, would say that this is true according to His divine nature. Since Jesus is God, and God can be everywhere, Jesus can be everywhere. But the precise meaning of the ascension is that now Jesus promises to be everywhere not only according to His divine nature, but also according to His human nature. Jesus, as a man, can be present with His Church bodily in more than one place at the same time even though He only has one body. Obviously, this is a profound mystery. The ascension of Jesus is sort of like looking at the sun. The more that we stare at it, the more it blurs our vision. The more that we try to figure out how these things are possible, the more that we struggle to believe them, and the more we will be tempted deny them.

And sadly, that is what many Christians do. Some Christians today even claim that because Jesus ascended into heaven, He cannot be with us bodily in the Lord’s Supper. If you know, this is actually one of the main differences between us Lutherans and the so-called Reformed, which would include the modern-day Presbyterians and Baptists. Reformed churches, following the theological tradition of men like John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, say that because Jesus ascended into heaven the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is only a symbol of Christ’s far off body and blood and not His actual body and blood. They say that when we take Communion we do no actually eat and drink Jesus real Body and Blood, but that we only eat and drink a reminder of it. But that is not what the Bible says. And that is not what the ascension means. And that false theology can lead people to eat and drink Christ’s Body and Blood without discerning it to their own spiritual harm. As Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

Jesus is not gone. Jesus is exulted. Yes, Jesus has disappeared from our eyes, but He has not disappeared from us entirely. Yes, we can no longer see Jesus as others once saw Him, but Jesus is still here. Jesus is still with us. And He is with us in the places that He has promised to be. As Jesus says, and this is also on the mount of His ascension in Matthew’s Gospel, “Behold I am with you always even to the end of the age.” Jesus does not tell us that He is with us only according to His divine nature. He says, “I am with you.” The “I” to which Jesus refers is His whole person, both His divine and human natures. All of Jesus is with us, and He is with us always. That is what His ascension means. That is what happened when He ascended.

So, why should what happened at Jesus’ ascension give us joy? Well, it should give us joy for at least two main reasons. The first reason, as we already talked about, is that Jesus is actually with us. Again, as our Lord says at His ascension, “Behold I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus is truly with us. He is not symbolically with us. He not with us only in spirit. He is not with us only in our memory. Jesus is really with us. And He is with us where He has promised to be: in His Word and Sacraments.

We all know that there is a big difference between someone being there for us for real and someone only being there for us symbolically. There is a big difference between a friend actually standing by your side when you have to do something difficult, and him watching you from afar, giving you encouragement at a distance. We face real challenges in our lives on this side of heaven. We have real temptations that we face day after day. We have reals sins that we fall into day after day. We have real enemies that seek to do us real harm day after day. But Jesus is with us every day. And when we come to church to take Communion, He is actually there with His Body and Blood to feed us with the food that forgives our sins and strengthens us to meet every trail that we face. And that is because of His ascension. That is because Jesus is at the right hand of God, meaning, Jesus has fully taken up the divine authority and power that is His by right. He has stepped into His exulted state, which allows Him to be with us as a man wherever we men and women are.

The second reason why the ascension should give us joy is because not only is Jesus with us, but we are with Jesus. As Saint Paul writes in Ephesians chapter two, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” The Bible teaches us that through faith in Jesus we are seated with Him in the heavenly places. It tells us that because of Christ’s ascension we have the promise of our ascension too. All those who trust in Christ and cling to Him for forgiveness and salvation have the assurance that one day they will live with Jesus in heavenly glory too. 

The Church is the Body of Christ. The Church is all believers in the Gospel. As the Scriptures say, “If one member suffers all suffer together; [and] if one member is honored all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” What that means for us is that the triumph of Jesus is our triumph. Just like His death for sin is our death to sin, and His resurrection to new life is our resurrection to eternal life, His ascension to heaven is our ascension to heaven too.

In His ascension, Jesus showed us that He is the king of kings and the lord of lords. He showed us that He rules over everything. Nothing rules over Jesus. Sin doesn’t rule of him. Death doesn’t rule over him. The devil doesn’t rule over Him. And because we believe in Jesus, none of those things can rule of us either. Because we believe in Jesus, sin can torment us, but it cannot condemn us. Because we believe in Jesus, death can kill us, but it cannot destroy us. Because we believe in Jesus, the devil can accuse us, but He cannot judge us. We have victory over our enemies, because we belong to the One who put all of our enemies under His feet. We belong to Jesus. We have been united to the One who has overcome all our enemies for us already. We have been joined to Him who died, rose, and ascended.

When the disciples saw Jesus ascend into heaven they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. You can return to your life today with great joy too. No matter how miserable your life might look, no matter how hard your life might be to live at times, you can go back to your life with a greater joy than this world could ever know, because you know that your life is bound up with the life of your ascended Lord. Jesus rules and reigns to all eternity, and by faith in His word, you reign along with Him. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.