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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
“Out of sight, out of mind”—so goes the English proverb that apparently first came into being when the 15th‑century devotional work The Imitation of Christ was translated from Latin into English. The work’s author, a Dutch monk named Thomas à Kempis, in the 23rd chapter of the book, encouraging people to reflect on the brief nature of human life, is translated as having written:
Today man is, and tomorrow he will be seen no more.
And, being removed out of sight, quickly also he is out of mind.
The idea, obviously, is that something not in direct view is easily forgotten or is dismissed as unimportant. One could ask if The Ascension of Our Lord that we observe tonight so removed Jesus from the apostles’ sight that it also removed Him from their mind. Tonight’s First Reading gives something of answer to that question, as the First Reading gives us the fullest report we have about the Ascension, and the First Reading leads us to reflect on the Ascension under the theme “Out of Sight”.
The First Reading is the beginning of the divinely‑inspired book of Acts, and it gives both the opening of the book and the report of Jesus’s Ascension, 40 days after His resurrection, as we observe it tonight. The opening of the book closely connects Acts with the Gospel according to St. Luke, which itself ended with the report of Jesus’s Ascension that we heard as our Third Reading—the only two narratives of Jesus’s Ascension in the widely‑accepted text of the New Testament. Both that ending of the Gospel according to St. Luke and the beginning of Acts appear to combine a number of Jesus’s post‑resurrection appearances when He was with His apostles. As St. Luke tells it in the First Reading, Jesus was speaking about the Kingdom of God, and they were repeatedly asking Him if He was at that time restoring the Kingdom to Israel, and Jesus gave them a riddle of an answer. Finally, at the end of the last time they were together in such a way, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. While He was departing, with them still gazing with a fixed look into the sky, two angels stood by them in white robes and asked why they were looking into the sky, since Jesus Who was taken up from them into heaven would come back the same way they saw Him go. If I were one of the apostles, I am pretty sure that the angels’ words would make me keep looking that same direction. If that were all there was to go on, where else would one look?
Some of you heard me a few weeks ago in our Midweek Bible Class tell the story of my sister’s two dogs. One is supposed to be my nephew’s dog, and the other is supposed to be my older niece’s dog. When the children head out the door for school in the morning, the dogs jump up on the top of the back of the couch in the living room and watch the children go down the driveway. Then, they often will lay down there and much of the day watch longingly for the children to come back, until at last, late in the afternoon, the children come back up the driveway the same way the dogs saw them go. The dogs have no real reason not to wait there on the couch or to think they will find the children anywhere else. The disciples, on the other hand, were told by Jesus to wait a few days for the promise of the Father, and they were told specifically to wait in Jerusalem. So, even if Jesus’s being out of their sight did not mean He was out of their mind, we can at least say they were waiting in the wrong place, if we do not also say that they were looking in the wrong place.
Does Jesus’s being out of our sight mean He is out of our minds? Do we sometimes think that just because we do not see anyone standing right by us that no One sees or hears what we do or say? (The English proverb in that case is “When the cat is away, the mice will play.”) And, are we waiting and looking for Jesus in the right place? Even if Luke and Acts are the only New Testament books to narrate The Ascension of Our Lord, the other New Testament books certainly take it for granted that He no longer is with us is in the same way that He was before His Ascension, but even that does not mean He is not around at all. Where do we expect to find Him? Even if we are not guilty of letting Jesus be out of our minds because He is out of our sight, and even if we are not guilty of waiting or looking for Jesus in the wrong place, we are by nature guilty of countless other sins. The angels’ words remind us that Jesus is coming again, and we know He is coming again in order to judge the living and the dead—at our deaths or that coming, whichever comes first. Those who have repented of their sins and believed in Him will live eternally with Him in His Kingdom, and those who have not repented of their sins and believed in Him will live eternally apart from Him outside of His Kingdom. Which are you and I?
Our First Reading reminds us that, after Jesus’s suffering, He presented Himself alive to His apostles by many proofs. Jesus suffered and died for all people, including you and me. He was dead, having paid the price for our sin on the cross, and then He was raised to life, the Father having accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. There were no eyewitness as such to the actual resurrection, but there certainly were of the Ascension. As the apostles were looking on, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. We often assume wrongly that He simply continued to go up, as if heaven is a distant place up there and as if some form of travel between places is involved. In fact, a cloud, perhaps like that God used in the Old Testament or at Jesus’s Transfiguration, essentially hid Jesus so that the apostles would not look for Him in the same way until His return on the clouds on the Last Day. Holy Scripture, such as our Second Reading, tells us that until that Last Day, Jesus is sitting at God’s right hand ruling over all things for the benefit of His Church. So, when we repent of our sin and believe in Him, God forgives our sin—whether our sin is of letting Jesus Who is out of sight be out of mind, of waiting or looking for Jesus in the wrong place, or of whatever our sin might be—by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, God forgives all our sin.
The Third Reading tells us Jesus was speaking to the apostles about the Kingdom of God, and that they were repeatedly asking Jesus if he was at that time restoring the Kingdom to Israel, and I mentioned earlier that Jesus gave the apostles a riddle of an answer. Jesus at least seems to rebuke them a little, telling them it is not for them to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. Yet, while they are not to know times or seasons, Jesus says they will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon them, and they will be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Now, knowing a little of the history the Old Testament gives about the Kingdom of Israel is helpful here. The larger kingdom united under David and Solomon split into two: the southern kingdom, often called Judea, with Israel’s original capital city of Jerusalem, and the northern kingdom, often called Samaria after its capital city. Jesus had been teaching the apostles about the Kingdom of God, the Church, but they asked about restoring the Kingdom to Israel, and Jesus answers essentially by telling them the Holy Spirit through them will bring people into the Church not only from Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem and not only from the original kingdom of Israel, known at that time as Judea and Samaria, but the Holy Spirit will bring people into the Church also from every other kingdom and nation to the very end of the earth. (The rest of the book of Acts, in fact, describes how the Holy Spirit essentially does just that.)
The Holy Spirit brings people like you and me into the Church through God’s Word in all its forms. The apostles waited not many days, only ten, for the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, and so we observe Pentecost here in ten days. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on that day truly was a unique “Baptism”, but we ought not think that those who had already been baptized by John did not have the Holy Spirit already active in them. For, Jesus sanctified the waters of Holy Baptism for us, so that they connect us with His death and resurrection for us. At the Baptismal font, God acts to make us His children and to bring forth the fruits of faith, such as the confession of His Name. Similarly, we confess that the Sacrament of the Altar gives us Jesus’s true body and blood (in, with, and under bread and wine), and so with them it also gives us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Jesus with His ascended human nature is not confined to heaven in such a way that He cannot get out in order to be present on this altar, distributed by me, and received by you. We might even say that Jesus can be nearer to us now than He was to His disciples before His death and resurrection. We expect to find Jesus in His Word and Sacraments, as that is where He promises to be; we look for Him there. Through His death and resurrection Jesus has restored us and all creation. His Word and Sacraments are His ways of bringing that restoration to us, even if we do not yet fully experience that restoration, either inside of ourselves or out in the world. To be sure, on the Last Day there will be full and complete inner and outer restoration.
Now we live in eager expectation of that Last Day, with daily repentance and faith. We, as our Office Hymn put it, build the sure and certain hope of our own ascensions on the sure and certain fact of Christ’s Ascension. We know where He is and what He is doing. He may be out of sight, but He is not out of mind. If anything, maybe we say “out of sight” more in the sense of “excellent, incomparable, and fantastic”; in that sense it was first recorded back in an 18-93 book and later in a 19-68 Australian surfing magazine, both before its 19-73 use in the magazine Black World. With those senses of “excellent, incomparable, and fantastic”, we can say our Ascended Lord truly is “outasight”.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +