May 26, 2022 – Ascension Text: Ephesians 1:15-23
Dear Friends in Christ,
No intelligent preacher would ever start a sermon with a four-letter word. Well, this one is going to. Hold on to your pew. That word is h-o-p-e. Hope. Do you think that doesn’t count? Sure it does as hope has four letters. When I said four-letter word, you were thinking something else. My family was confident it wouldn’t be one of those four-letter words because I have never used one in my marriage. In our world to talk about hope is like burping in public. Everything seems so bad; can we really have hope? Can we talk about hope when our world is depressed and hateful and spiteful and worn down and sees no end to their troubles? Is it possible to have lives based in hope?
“WHERE IS THE HOPE?”
We need hope. Hope is not the same word as optimism. It is tied to action, not attitude. The late British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book Celebrating Life, pointed out that optimism is passive while hope is active. Optimism is having a gym membership. Hope is going jogging every morning.
Despair would be the opposite of hope. It leads to laziness and guilt and fear. Despair wants to stay in bed all day. Why face the day if I have no hope? Luther wrote this in his Small Catechism on the meaning of the 6th petition of the Lord’s Prayer – “lead us not into temptation.” We are asking that the Lord would “guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.”
When we have hope it is easier to move through the day, look to the future. Without hope, everything just grinds to a halt. Where to find true hope?
False hope is no hope. Think of the religious cults who lied to their people about the world ending. They sold all their goods got ready and…life continued. If people have false hope, in say a miracle cure, and it doesn’t work it can lead to bitterness, disillusionment. People may even rebel against God. False hope leads to despair.
The Apostle Paul ties real hope to Jesus, specifically His ascension. Because God has raised Jesus “from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.” (v. 20) That right there gives us real hope for our future.
Jesus is not gone. He has been promoted and we get to go along. Christ is the Head, we are the members of his body, the Church. If all things are under his feet, it means they are under ours as well.
Christ has called us. He has given us “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” (v. 18). Because of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension our sins are forgiven, and we inherit a portion of his riches by grace.
Because of Christ’s ascension He is with all of us. We can live lives of hope of being in His presence forever. It would be easy to despair. The world likes to do that to people. “There will be no more gas or electricity!” “How many more years before the North or South Pole flood your living room?” “Covid may be controlled but what’s next?” Should you even leave your house? The market for hope is one big open area.
Don’t buy the false hope some are selling. You and I know the only answer is found in Jesus. God cared enough about you to send His Son to redeem you. You know that the Son was crucified, died, rose, and has now ascended to the right hand of God the Father. You know that He rules over all things, and He has promised to be with you always. He is not gone. He is here in his Word. He is here in His Sacraments. He is here among His people. That gives you and I hope for the days ahead.
The Church has many great festival days that we love. Christmas and Easter and Pentecost and All Saints. Ascension is unique and not just because we celebrate it on a Thursday. The central message is the hope message. It centers our faith, strengthens us for what lies ahead, and give us the promise of a better future.
Christ ascended to ensure us of our eternal place with Him. That is our hope.
Amen.