2 Kings 2:5-11/Acts 1:1-11/St Luke 24:44-53
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord gives the Law, the prophets, and the Psalms. More than that, He gives light to read them. He cracks them open revealing a mystery and code more profound than that imagined by Dan Brown or any Doomsdayer. All Scripture, He says, testifies of Me.
What was the mind of Moses, the hope of Elijah, the sight of Isaiah? That the Christ, God’s own Messiah, the One anointed as Savior, should suffer and die and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all the Gentiles, beginning from Jerusalem.
The Gospel began, as it always does, with the preaching of repentance. St John stood in the wild place and exposed the dark hearts of men by the Word of God, employing them to turn from their sins and throw themselves on God’s mercy. Now the Gospel is complete. The Kingdom of God has come in the Person and work of Christ and is fulfilled in His suffering and death. He has ended the Father’s wrath, hell’s demands, Satan’s accusations, and the cry of justice against you. There is good news for men because Jesus died. Because Jesus became sin and a cruse, a worm and no man; because our sins have been pushed down on Him and He was pushed off the edge into Gehenna in our place. It is finished. It is done. It is over, perfected, complete, paid, and there is now peace for the angels to announce to the shepherds.
Now that sacrifice long foretold is complete, the Christ solely and emphatically insists that repentance is the great fact of New Testament preaching. The Church is, as St Paul exhorts, to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). And with this repentance, the forgiveness of sins in Christ is also and ever to be preached. In the forgiveness of sins men are made to see and hear and read and inwardly digest the Holy Scriptures, to know God in Christ as the fulfillment and purpose of all creation. Thus the Scriptures were opened to the disciples and thus the Scriptures, by grace through His Spirit, are opened to us.
God’s will is constant. Fallen men need a preaching of repentance. We need an exposure of our complicity and selfishness, a warning of impending death. You are not God. You do not make the rules. You have not behaved in ways honorable or just or good. You have looked the other way. You have cheated. We are traitors, deviants, perverts, liars, braggarts, hypocrites. Repentance is needed. It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God and it begins with us (1 Pt 4:17). Do not seek to have your sins justified, but seek instead to have them forgiven, removed, and counted against Him, that His good work might be counted to you.
The Lord doesn’t justify sins. He doesn’t wink and nod. He doesn’t understand or simply realize that to be human is to be a sinner. Because that isn’t true. He is a human and He didn’t sin. Sin makes us less than human. And what He does is declare us sinners to be just for His sake, as beneficiaries of His sacrifice.
The Lord has sent His Christ for you. He is historical. He lived in the time of Pontius Pilate. He is incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary, bone of your bone, flesh for hell’s roasting fires. He suffered, was mocked by soliders and priests, rejected by family and friends, betrayed by disciples, crucified, executed as the King of the Jews, and raised from the dead.
Most shocking of all His mercy is that He is not angry. He does not hold a grudge. He walks into the upper room and speaks peace and breathes out His Spirit upon His terrified disciples.
All this, all this, He has done for you. He has been sent by His Father not only for sins, not only for the Father’s will, not only to defeat the devil and show who is really good, but He has been sent also for you - to rescue you, to pull you out of the flames of judgment, to redeem you for Himself, to forgive your sins. He could be angry. Rightly so. But He isn’t. Nor is He indulgent. He simply is grace Incarnate, grace in the flesh, the Victor over death, our champion and hero.
And forty-three days after it was finished, forty days after He rose and showed them His hands and side, He again lifted His pierced hands and blessed them. And while He was blessing them, He rose into the air and was engulfed by a cloud so that they could behold Him no more with their eyes. Among the appearances of our risen Lord during those forty days, this was distinct. As at other times, He apparently came forth suddenly from the invisible world, but He did not, as on former occasions, suddenly vanish from sight as if He was returning. This time He withdrew in a different way. CFW Walther says that to consider “Christ’s ascension is like staring at the sun: the more closely one looks into it, the worse his eyes become and finally he cannot see anything at all. The work of Christ is generally not for those who need to investigate, but the Ascension particularly is for those who believe with child-like faith what the Scripture says concerning it. The more simply we regard the biblical description of this event, the more is strengthens and emboldens faith” (God Grant It 429).
So it was for the Apostles. They were bewildered. But they were not sad. For we read, They worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the Temple blessing God.
They knew that this was not like the little while as before the Cross, nor the little while since the Resurrection. Now they would no longer see Him with their eyes, but they would enjoy His blessed presence forever. For His ascension was not simply the physical movement from earth to heaven; rather, His ascension indicated a change of state. His humiliation was over. No longer does He deny Himself, as a Man, His divine rights and powers. Christ is still, and forever shall be, one of us, but now, as a Man, He fully exercises all His divine attributes. He is no more confined, as a Man, by physical space or subject to hunger or pain. Now, as a Man, is glorified, and thus opens up heaven for all humanity, especially for those who believe. As St Paul says, He who descended (in the Incarnation) is the One who also ascended fall above all the heavens, that He might fill all things (Eph 4:10).
That is why the apostles have great joy. They have the Christ no longer in His physical presence, but they have Him in His sacramental presence. And in that they have Him more closely than they had in His humiliation. They have the Scriptures opened to them and the gift and promise of the Father in the Holy Spirit of Christ.
You have the same. The ascended Christ is always with you, in the baptizing, in the teaching, in the breaking of the bread. He is present to the end of time as St Matthew records, in the Church, through the means of His Office of the Gospel.
This is why the apostles naturally go to the Temple, to church, to continue the work of Moses and Jesus, to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name in the shadow of the torn veil. There they point to the Mercy Seat, no longer hovering over the ark, but now in the crucified, risen, and ascended Body and Blood of Christ, given to His children to eat and to drink. Here, in the New Testament in His Blood, the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms are fulfilled and opened unto you for the forgiveness of your sins.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The Lord gives the Law, the prophets, and the Psalms. More than that, He gives light to read them. He cracks them open revealing a mystery and code more profound than that imagined by Dan Brown or any Doomsdayer. All Scripture, He says, testifies of Me.
What was the mind of Moses, the hope of Elijah, the sight of Isaiah? That the Christ, God’s own Messiah, the One anointed as Savior, should suffer and die and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all the Gentiles, beginning from Jerusalem.
The Gospel began, as it always does, with the preaching of repentance. St John stood in the wild place and exposed the dark hearts of men by the Word of God, employing them to turn from their sins and throw themselves on God’s mercy. Now the Gospel is complete. The Kingdom of God has come in the Person and work of Christ and is fulfilled in His suffering and death. He has ended the Father’s wrath, hell’s demands, Satan’s accusations, and the cry of justice against you. There is good news for men because Jesus died. Because Jesus became sin and a cruse, a worm and no man; because our sins have been pushed down on Him and He was pushed off the edge into Gehenna in our place. It is finished. It is done. It is over, perfected, complete, paid, and there is now peace for the angels to announce to the shepherds.
Now that sacrifice long foretold is complete, the Christ solely and emphatically insists that repentance is the great fact of New Testament preaching. The Church is, as St Paul exhorts, to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). And with this repentance, the forgiveness of sins in Christ is also and ever to be preached. In the forgiveness of sins men are made to see and hear and read and inwardly digest the Holy Scriptures, to know God in Christ as the fulfillment and purpose of all creation. Thus the Scriptures were opened to the disciples and thus the Scriptures, by grace through His Spirit, are opened to us.
God’s will is constant. Fallen men need a preaching of repentance. We need an exposure of our complicity and selfishness, a warning of impending death. You are not God. You do not make the rules. You have not behaved in ways honorable or just or good. You have looked the other way. You have cheated. We are traitors, deviants, perverts, liars, braggarts, hypocrites. Repentance is needed. It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God and it begins with us (1 Pt 4:17). Do not seek to have your sins justified, but seek instead to have them forgiven, removed, and counted against Him, that His good work might be counted to you.
The Lord doesn’t justify sins. He doesn’t wink and nod. He doesn’t understand or simply realize that to be human is to be a sinner. Because that isn’t true. He is a human and He didn’t sin. Sin makes us less than human. And what He does is declare us sinners to be just for His sake, as beneficiaries of His sacrifice.
The Lord has sent His Christ for you. He is historical. He lived in the time of Pontius Pilate. He is incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary, bone of your bone, flesh for hell’s roasting fires. He suffered, was mocked by soliders and priests, rejected by family and friends, betrayed by disciples, crucified, executed as the King of the Jews, and raised from the dead.
Most shocking of all His mercy is that He is not angry. He does not hold a grudge. He walks into the upper room and speaks peace and breathes out His Spirit upon His terrified disciples.
All this, all this, He has done for you. He has been sent by His Father not only for sins, not only for the Father’s will, not only to defeat the devil and show who is really good, but He has been sent also for you - to rescue you, to pull you out of the flames of judgment, to redeem you for Himself, to forgive your sins. He could be angry. Rightly so. But He isn’t. Nor is He indulgent. He simply is grace Incarnate, grace in the flesh, the Victor over death, our champion and hero.
And forty-three days after it was finished, forty days after He rose and showed them His hands and side, He again lifted His pierced hands and blessed them. And while He was blessing them, He rose into the air and was engulfed by a cloud so that they could behold Him no more with their eyes. Among the appearances of our risen Lord during those forty days, this was distinct. As at other times, He apparently came forth suddenly from the invisible world, but He did not, as on former occasions, suddenly vanish from sight as if He was returning. This time He withdrew in a different way. CFW Walther says that to consider “Christ’s ascension is like staring at the sun: the more closely one looks into it, the worse his eyes become and finally he cannot see anything at all. The work of Christ is generally not for those who need to investigate, but the Ascension particularly is for those who believe with child-like faith what the Scripture says concerning it. The more simply we regard the biblical description of this event, the more is strengthens and emboldens faith” (God Grant It 429).
So it was for the Apostles. They were bewildered. But they were not sad. For we read, They worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the Temple blessing God.
They knew that this was not like the little while as before the Cross, nor the little while since the Resurrection. Now they would no longer see Him with their eyes, but they would enjoy His blessed presence forever. For His ascension was not simply the physical movement from earth to heaven; rather, His ascension indicated a change of state. His humiliation was over. No longer does He deny Himself, as a Man, His divine rights and powers. Christ is still, and forever shall be, one of us, but now, as a Man, He fully exercises all His divine attributes. He is no more confined, as a Man, by physical space or subject to hunger or pain. Now, as a Man, is glorified, and thus opens up heaven for all humanity, especially for those who believe. As St Paul says, He who descended (in the Incarnation) is the One who also ascended fall above all the heavens, that He might fill all things (Eph 4:10).
That is why the apostles have great joy. They have the Christ no longer in His physical presence, but they have Him in His sacramental presence. And in that they have Him more closely than they had in His humiliation. They have the Scriptures opened to them and the gift and promise of the Father in the Holy Spirit of Christ.
You have the same. The ascended Christ is always with you, in the baptizing, in the teaching, in the breaking of the bread. He is present to the end of time as St Matthew records, in the Church, through the means of His Office of the Gospel.
This is why the apostles naturally go to the Temple, to church, to continue the work of Moses and Jesus, to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name in the shadow of the torn veil. There they point to the Mercy Seat, no longer hovering over the ark, but now in the crucified, risen, and ascended Body and Blood of Christ, given to His children to eat and to drink. Here, in the New Testament in His Blood, the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms are fulfilled and opened unto you for the forgiveness of your sins.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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