What Jesus Is Up To (Ascension)

Well friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father, and our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, as you just heard me say, Ascension is kind of a really big deal. It's up there with Christmas and Easter, and all the biggest holidays, because it means that Jesus is in charge. And do we like Jesus being in charge? I'd say that's probably a good thing, right?

And I don't know, it's kind of weird, isn't it? It's kind of odd that we don't really make as big of a deal out of it as we do Christmas and Easter. Maybe we should start giving presents at Ascension! Or having big family meals at Ascension, or maybe we should do a grill out. We should make a big deal out of it because it is a big deal that Jesus ascended into heaven and that He is in charge.

Today, we're going to talk about why it's a big deal. We're going to talk about the where of Jesus's Ascension, the what of Jesus's Ascension, the who and the how, and finally, the when.

Now, I have to say that as a kid, I didn't really like Ascension. I didn't really understand it because I thought, "Well, why would Jesus go away?" I mean, the custom is that the Christ candle, we put it out at Ascension, right? We start to light it at Christmas: Jesus is here! And then the custom is that traditionally the Christ goes out at Ascension because Jesus goes up to heaven. And as a kid, I always thought, "Well, wouldn't it be better if Jesus was here?" I mean, it's great that He's up there and all, but I mean, think about how much easier it would be to believe in Jesus if He was here. People would be lining up to see Him!

And so I didn't really get it as a kid. And then, when you come to these passages, you kind of get some mixed messages almost from Jesus, don't you? In Matthew 28, right before He floats up into heaven, He gives the Great Commission to His disciples, and He ends it with this: "Behold, I am with you always," till when? "To the end of the age." All right, so before Jesus leaves, He says He's going to be here with us. And you know what? I don't think that Jesus talks in Hallmark cards. Like, "Uh, bye, I'm going to be with you always!" That's not what Jesus is saying. He's actually going to be here with us.

But then He says this in John 16, "I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you." He's talking about the Holy Spirit, by the way. Next week is Pentecost, so come back next week! Jesus simultaneously says that even though He's going away, He's going to be here with us, but then He also says that He's going away.

Ascension is a good thing. I wish that somebody told that to me as a kid, that Ascension—Jesus going up to heaven—is a good thing. And it doesn't mean that Jesus is gone. He may not be with us in the same way that He was when He was walking around, but in some ways, He's even more with us. His presence is with us in a deeper way than He could be if He was just simply walking around as one of us.

So maybe that answers our first question, the where of Jesus's Ascension. Jesus is both away and here, present, with us. Jesus is present in His Church. He's present in His Word. He's present in your baptism. He's present in His Supper. He is present in His Holy Spirit with you every moment of every day. And Jesus is reigning at the right hand of the Father, and He's reigning with us. He's not away, but His reign is with us and it's for us. It is for His world. It's for His earth.

And that's what we're going to talk about then in Revelation chapter 22. This is the very last chapter of the Bible. And now we'll talk about the what of Jesus's Ascension. Now, you heard these words a few moments ago, but I want to read them again for you here. This is from Revelation 22, and it gives you this picture.

John the Apostle is seeing this vision of heaven throughout Revelation. And he says, "Then the angel showed me the river flowing, the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city." By the way, those are the streets of gold! You can imagine this river flowing through the street of gold. "On either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves on the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it. And His servants," that's you and me, "will worship Him. And they", His servants, "will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light. And they", His servants, that's us, "will reign forever and ever."

I love that picture, right? You can open your eyes now, unless you're sleeping, then you can stay asleep. I love that picture. It kind of reminds me of this concept, I don't know if you've heard of this, but of terraforming. People like Elon Musk are talking about this kind of thing now, like terraforming Mars, or like in a science fiction, you might terraform something. The whole idea of terraforming is you find a planet that can't support life, and then you terraform it. You earth-shape it so that you make it livable and hospitable, and you make it a place that actually supports life instead of being hostile to life. Now, it's not very possible, right? At least that's what they say. But it kind of reminds me, this idea of terraforming, of this image of Revelation 22, of water in the river flowing from the throne of God and the trees that give life also lining the river of life flowing from the throne. It kind of sounds like this world has been terraformed, or maybe even heaven-shaped, right? That now this place that is so hostile to life in so many ways has been terraformed by Jesus. It supports life.

And maybe that's a good way of thinking about the Ascension of Jesus. Jesus ascends to terraform this creation because what we just read in Revelation and how Revelation ends is how the Bible begins in Genesis. It is the Garden of Eden restored. But it's not just a little garden in Eden in a little pocket of the world, it's now the entire world. The entire world is now covered in a place that is even better than the Garden of Eden. It's all been restored. And you know, the Garden of Eden had these multiple rivers flowing from the Garden of Eden and watering the rest of creation. And now the river doesn't flow from Eden. Where does it flow from? The throne of Jesus, because who is the source of life? Jesus.

And I love how then it says it's not just the river flowing from the throne, but there are trees of life. There was a tree of life in the Garden of Eden, and when Adam and Eve sinned, they were cut off from the tree and they could no longer access it. That means that they were cursed to die. They were doomed to die. But now there's not just one tree, there are multiple trees there. There are trees of life lining the river, and you get the idea that it's all around creation. And it's not just one kind of fruit. It's 12 kinds of fruits. And it doesn't just come once a year at harvest. The fruit is in season every month. It blooms monthly. You get the idea that it's not just one tree with one fruit that Adam and Eve ate from anymore. It's life, and it's life abundant, life forever, but also life to the full because it's 12 kinds of fruits. And maybe the best thing is that there's no curse anymore. There's no night. There's only goodness and the Lord's light always.

That sounds pretty swell, doesn't it? You know, in John chapter 14, Jesus says that He is going to prepare a place for us. I think Revelation 22 gives a picture of that place, and the reason why He is going is because He is the source of life for the world. And He's sitting on His throne right now, preparing that place. But you know, in some ways, we're not only waiting for that place to come in the future, in many ways that place has come to us now.

And Jesus, when He's preparing that place, He doesn't start with landscaping and infrastructure, although that might be nice. Could you imagine walking through a garden that Jesus planted? But He doesn't start with landscaping and infrastructure. He starts with you and me. He gives it life, not with a grand river and not with trees giving fruits, at least yet. He begins it with His blood and His Word because He is the source of life. The place that He's preparing starts with us, with you and me.

And so that's the where of Jesus's Ascension and the what of Jesus's Ascension. But maybe most important is the who: you and me. Because Jesus ascends to transform us into that place that He is preparing. And you are a sinner. We're sinners. We are the spitting image of our parents, Adam and Eve. If given the opportunity, we would do the same exact thing. We would take that forbidden fruit and we would joyfully eat of it. Or like Adam, we would watch as the whole world falls apart in front of our eyes.

You and I, we don't deserve a place like Revelation describes. We have no business living in paradise. We don't belong there because like Adam and Eve, we listen to Satan, and we do what he suggests, and we do what we want and not what Jesus wants. We think all the time that we know better than God. And instead of that kind of paradise that Revelation 22 describes, we have our own ideas of paradise, do we not? And too often, we put all of our time and all of our money and all of our resources and all of our hopes and our dreams not in the kind of paradise that Jesus has in store, but in our own idea of paradise.

We have no business being in a paradise that Jesus has for us. And yet Revelation 22:14 says this: "Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life."

What a beautiful verse because Adam and Eve, who are banished from the tree of life so that they might die and not live in their sin forever, have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white, purified in the blood of the Lamb. And you know what? That gives them the right, the authority, to access again the tree of life. And not just the original tree, but the new kind of tree, the one with the 12 kinds of fruit, and it's in fruit and bloom every season.

And you and I, in the spitting image of our parents, Adam and Eve, that's true for us too. You and I, by our robes being washed in the blood of the Lamb, have access to the tree of life. And His name is on our foreheads, written there, spiritually tattooed on your forehead in your baptism. And that means, dear Christian, it doesn't matter if you feel too small or too insignificant or too unimportant or too far gone or too sinful. If your robe has been washed in the blood of the Lamb, if you bear the tattooed name of Jesus on your forehead, you have authority, you have the right, you have access to the tree of life. And here's the crazy thing: Jesus wants you there. He wants you there. You are part of the place that He is preparing. And for Jesus, who puts His name on your forehead, it is not His idea of paradise without you there. You, you are worthy. You, you are part of the who of Jesus's Ascension.

And so that's the where and that's the what and that's the who, but there's a beautiful how. You know, we might expect that when Jesus ascends into heaven and He's reigning over all things, we might expect big change, right? You, might have all voted in November, right? And I'm not going to ask who you voted for, but we in this country, when we elect a new official, like a president or a mayor or a governor, we kind of expect big change, don't we? And we kind of expect them to make big promises along the campaign so that we might vote for them. We might like to see our lives change, and we want things to be better, and we want the taxes to be lower, right? We have all these big changes in mind. You might expect that, boy, if, Jesus takes the office of the highest throne, the highest office in all the cosmos, and He's also all-powerful, we might expect some big change, right?

Anybody ever feel like it's not changed that much? Like, you might have thought the changes might be bigger and flashier? Friends, if Jesus is on His throne giving eternal life, then Revelation 22 is not just in the future, it's also now. It's us. The place that is described is what the Church is. The Church, dear Christian, the Church is the new creation. You could maybe say it this way: the Church is the new creation in primordial form because Jesus reigns through the Church. Jesus terraforms this world through His Church, through you and me.

And that river, that grand river that flows from the throne of God, giving life to all the world, that's coming from Jesus's throne through us now. And the Cross is the tree of life with the greatest fruit of Jesus's body and blood that gives healing and life and forgiveness to the nations. And that you and I, as a Church, we are the branches, right? We are the branches to Jesus's vine. We are the leaves for the healing of the nations. And because Jesus has ascended into the throne, that means that Jesus being still human has made humanity like you and me at the right hand of God. Sometimes I hear Christians think that, because Jesus ascended or He rose from the dead, He's no longer human. No, do you know how much longer Jesus will be human for? Forever. Humanity sits at the right hand of God. Jesus has dignified and glorified humanity.

And look what that does. Ezekiel 47 also has a picture of the river flowing from God, now flowing from His temple. And the temple, what we learn, is that the temple is, is now Christ, and that you are part of the temple of Christ. You are part of His body. And that you and I as Christians are priests in the temple of His body. And then you fast forward to Revelation 22:5, and it says that you and I, as servants of God, we will reign forever and ever. I know that we all think of Jesus reigning, but did you know that you are going to be reigning too? Did you know that you have that kind of responsibility? You will reign with Christ forever and ever.

20 in Revelation 22:17 says this: "The Spirit and the bride," who's the bride of Jesus? The Church, us. "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' And it says, 'And let the one who hears.'" Anybody hearing today? All right, we got one, okay, that's good. It says, "The one who hears," let that person say, "'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price." Dear Christian, Christ reigns through you and through me. He reigns through His Church to transform, to terraform others into His place with His Word, to care for His creation. Do not underestimate your role in what Jesus does. Do not underestimate what Jesus does through you when you speak His Word, or you take care of others, and you care for His creation. That is Jesus reigning, using you.

So that's the where, and the what, and the who, and the how. We end with the when. You know the end is soon. And really, maybe we should call it the new beginning. The new beginning is, is coming soon. In fact, that's what Jesus says, right? Does anybody believe Jesus when He says words? All right, a few of us. All right, Revelation 22:2, one of the last verses in the Bible, says, "Surely I am coming soon." And so He's not here yet, and that glorious promise in Revelation 22 is not yet because He hasn't come yet. And yet, because Jesus is on His throne, the end, the new beginning, is also now, because Jesus is present in His Word and He is present in the sacraments that He gives to you. And He is terraforming our lives, and He's terraforming the world through the Church.

And so we don't know exactly when, but we also know that we are to be ready, and we know that we are to be praying for Him to come soon. And like John does in Revelation, we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus." And of course, we are praying for Him to come back and to finally make all things new. But we also pray that in an evangelistic way. Maybe you know somebody who doesn't know Jesus. Maybe you know somebody who's walked away from the faith. When we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus," we are not just praying that He comes to bring the end. We're praying that He also comes now. That He comes to our loved ones who don't yet know Jesus. That He comes again to those who have walked away from the faith. And we pray knowing that Jesus reigns to restore all things. We pray believing in His power, not ours. His power to change and transform and to terraform lives. We pray knowing that you and I, as the Church, are the beginning of Jesus's new creation that He is preparing by His Ascension over all things.

And so that's the when. It's now and not yet. It's still the season of Easter, but now it's after the Ascension. And so I want to modify our normal cheer. Usually it goes, "Alleluia, Christ is risen! He's risen indeed! Alleluia!" All right, how about this? Now let's add Ascension. "Alleluia, Christ is risen and ascended! He is risen and ascended, indeed! Alleluia!" In Jesus' name, Amen.