Ascension, 2010

Topical

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“The Ascension: The Goal of our Humanity”

Inscribed in golden letters upon the lintel of the grand entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi were two Greek words: gnothi seauton – “Know Thyself.” It’s a famous saying that has come down through the years to mean many things. In modern times “Know Thyself” means go within yourself to find truth and meaning. All truth lies within, therefore all you need to do is get to know who you are to figure out what reality is for you. But in its original context it probably meant something more along the lines of “know who you are in terms of your place in the world. Know how you fit in, and what your role is in society, for that is how you really know who you are.”

So in that sense, if you’re interested to know thyself, what I want to tell you tonight is that it is the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ to the right hand of God, more than anything else, that tells us who we are and what are role is here in this world and in our society.

In years past I’ve talked about the Ascension as the culmination of Christ’s redemptive work on our behalf. But tonight what I’d like to focus on is what the Ascension says about us. And that may sound like a bit of an exercise in narcissism and introspection, but I believe it is a profoundly Biblical angle to take on the great event which were celebrate here tonight. What does the Ascension have to say about us?

Well, first, it is obvious that the Ascension foremostly has something to say about Jesus. From one perspective the Ascension was the restoration of the glory that the Son of God had before His Incarnation. In anticipation of His death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” So from one perspective the Ascension was Christ’s return to the glory He had with His Father from all eternity.

But it was more than that. From a second perspective the Ascension was the glorifying of our human nature in a way that had never happened before. You see, when Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven He did not cease to be a true man. Though he was returning to the glory he had from all eternity, he was bringing something with Him that He didn’t have before His Incarnation: a true human nature. And in bringing human nature into the glory of the Father, Christ accomplished, as the forerunner of all who believe in Him, the very goal of our creation: the exaltation of our humanity; participation in the divine glory. That’s what God created man for.

When God put Adam in the garden, He placed Him in state of probation in which he could have, if he had obeyed God, risen and brought all of subsequent humanity with him into a state of exaltation and glory in the presence of God forever. Of course, Adam disobeyed God and fell from even the possibility of being exalted by his own merits. And so it took the Second Adam, through His merits, to raise man up to the glory he was intended to have from the beginning. So in Christ’s ascension, we too, in a very real sense, have ascended– we who are in Him by faith. St. Paul says we have been raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:6).

The problem is, we can’t see this reality in our lives. It’s something we have to come to have confidence in as we put our faith in the reality of Christ’s ascension and the exaltation of our humanity in Him.

The book of Hebrews deals with this very topic. In chapter 2:6-9, the author begins by quoting from Psalm 8:

“What is man that You are mindful of him,

Or the son of man that You take care of him?

You have made him a little lower than the angels;

You have crowned him with glory and honor,

And set him over the works of Your hands.

You have put all things in subjection under his feet.

Then he comments on the Psalm: “For in that He put all things in subjection under him [i.e. man], He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor…” The point being that in Jesus Christ we see, with the eyes of our faith, our own humanity exalted and glorified. And that is a great exercise of our faith, isn’t it?

See again the problem is, as fallible creatures living this side of eternity, we always tend to judge what is real by what is apparent, when the Scriptures call us to judge what is apparent by what is real. And what is real is that in Christ our humanity has been exalted and glorified. And that’s something that affects our lives. That’s something gives us an understanding of who we are and what our place is in the world. For there is another element in what the Ascension means for us.

From a third perspective what the Ascension means is that we who are in Christ have already begun to reign over the nations as kings and priests in the kingdom of God and of Christ, a kingdom that is an everlasting kingdom, and a kingdom that is destined to bring all dominion, authority, and power, under the sovereign lordship of the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Listen to what it says in the Book of Daniel, chapter 7 beginning at verse 13. [Read]. And then Daniel asks the angel who is conveniently standing by for an explanation of the vision. So continuing in verse 26 the angel tells him what it means: ‘the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High.” Isn’t that interesting. In Daniel’s vision it’s the “One like the Son of Man”—obviously Christ—who receives the kingdom and the dominion. But in the angels’ explanation it’s “the saints of the Most High” who receive the kingdom and dominion. So identified is Christ with His people that as He receives the kingdom and the power and the glory, we receive the kingdom and the power and the glory.

But when does Christ receive His kingdom? Here in the context of Daniel’s vision it’s at His Ascension, when He was lifted up with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days—God the Father. His kingdom is now. The apostle Paul says in I Cor. 15, “He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet..” But you see, what that means is, in a very real sense, “we must reign, the saints must reign, the Church must reign, till all enemies have been brought under His feet.” Christ reigns in and through His Body, the Church, His continued Incarnation in the world.

It is true, as the Book of Hebrews says, we do not yet see all things in subjection under our feet. We don’t see the Church reigning. As a matter of fact, so often all we see is the Church in apparent defeat. Instead of conquering the culture with the Gospel, so often we see the Church cowering before the culture, and trading in the Gospel for worldly approval. Or we see faithful churches only very small and non-influential, and we tend to disbelieve any notion that the Church is now reigning. We judge what is real by what is apparent. And this I think is exactly what the devil wants us to do. He wants us to undergo an identity crisis. He wants us to think of ourselves and our place in the world, not in terms of who we truly are in Jesus Christ – kings and priests and co-rulers with Christ— but by what we seem to be in the eyes of the world—weak, insignificant people relegated to the sidelines of society.

In The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis illuminates for us, with characteristic brilliance, this tactic of the devil. You realize that in The Screwtape Letters Screwtape is a senior tempter writing to his junior temple nephew about the various things he needs to do to drag his human “patient” down to Hell. And in one letter Screwtape writes,

“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do no misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All you patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy’s side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father Below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.”

That’s judging what’s real by what’s apparent. But what is real is that Christ has ascended to the right hand of God, and in Him you have ascended.

So “know thyself,” and therefore act like thyself. If you are reigning with Christ, then reign. Reign through the Gospel—the only way to bring Christ’s rule to bear on society, because it’s the only way to bring Christ’s rule to bear on human hearts. Reign through prayer, because in prayer we go to the source of all dominion and power. Reign through worship and witness, because through worship we ascend into the heavenly places to behold the Lord in glory and to receive His message, and in witness we go back down to carry that message to the world. That’s what Christ’s ascension has opened up to us, and that’s what Christ’s ascension says about who we are and what are place is in the world. +