Clothed in Power
I've never preached on the Ascension before. Which is a little bit odd, because it comes around every year. But Ascension Day comes around every year, 40 days after Easter, and so it always lands on a Thursday, just as it did this year coming on this past Thursday. And most years, we just skip the Ascension, and move on to whatever the lectionary reading is for the seventh Sunday of Easter, which is what today is. If we'd done that, today we could be reading in the Book of Acts about the election of Matthias to the twelve disciples. Or we could be reading Jesus's powerful prayer in the Gospel of John, where he prays for himself, for his disciples, and for all believers. And if you have the time today, I'd encourage to open up John 17 and read that prayer, because it does give us a wonderful glimpse into the mind of God and Christ's hopes and desires for us.
But this year, I want to go back a few days and look at the Ascension story that we usually tend to skip over.
Because in these few short verses we can get a sense of a great many things going on – there's confusion. There's apprehension. There's excitement and wonder. There's reassurance. And there's instruction – a sense that something is expected of us.
We're all familiar with most of those sensations. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not confused or apprehensive about something. And I wish I had a shortcut the way that Jesus gave the disciples when it says, “he opened their minds to understand the Scripture.” I'd be happy if my mind were opened to understand my phone bill.
But the Scriptures are both clear and confusing. It doesn't get much simpler than love your God and love each other, but at the same time, it's often written in riddles. Sometimes the big things are clear, but other times the big things – the things like the relationship between God and Christ; between God and Man; who God is and what God wants – sometimes those things take some understanding that only makes sense with revelation – exactly the sort of revelation that Jesus gives to the disciples when he opens their minds.
And as soon as their minds are open, the confusion and apprehension give way to other emotions – to awe and wonder and excitement. Because their new understanding is confirmed in what they are about to witness; in Christ ascending to heaven; in God welcoming his Son and bringing him home. That doesn't just happen for anybody, not the way it happens to Jesus. To see the Christ – to see ultimate, irrefutable proof of who he really is and what he really is. For those disciples who believed in him from the beginning, who left their fishing boats, left their jobs, left their families, to follow him from the early days along the Sea of Galilee to now... what a remarkable sense of joy and love and vindication they must have known. To witness that great and final miracle, to see Christ depart for heaven where he remains to this day, an advocate for us and for God's mercy in the forever after. Awe and wonder and joy, indeed!
But before he leaves, before he is welcomed into the cloud of God's glory above, Jesus gives his followers one final instruction.
And that is to wait.
And “wait” is a funny little word that we'll look at more in depth over the summer, when our sermon series will be on those funny little words that sometimes take on more than one meaning, or mean something that we might not expect.
Lamentations 3:25 - “The Lord is good to those who wait for him.”
Psalm 27 - “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living; wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.”
Psalm 37 - “Wait for the Lord and keep his way.”
“Wait,” when we're waiting for God, often implies that there's something we should be doing, something we should be focused on, or attentive to. Not just sitting around twiddling our thumbs, playing on our phones.
In Luke's Gospel, here in this moment, the people are told to wait with an instruction.
That is, to “stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
And when he tells this to them, he takes them just outside the city, to Bethany, and blesses them. And it's after Jesus blesses his people that he withdraws and is carried up to heaven.
Stay in the city. And wait until you have been clothed with power from on high.
Let's take a moment and think back to the Sunday after the Resurrection. The story we remember of Doubting Thomas, and the disciples after Christ returns. And remember the setting they're in then. They're scared. Anxious. Huddled together behind locked doors. They're in hiding. The city is a dangerous place for them to be at that time.
And after the Resurrection; after Jesus appears to them – the city doesn't get that much safer. We're now a little over a month later and the initial threat seems to have died down, but they're still wanted men. The Sanhedrin still have their names, still want them arrested, banished, eliminated, or somehow taken care of.
But even though they're still unwelcome to the lawgivers of the city, they're no longer their most pressing concern. Jerusalem at that time was a city of maybe 40,000 people or so – fairly large for that time. And in Acts chapter 1, when the disciples elect Matthias to replace Judas among the 12, we're told that the whole assembly of believers numbers about 120.
So to the Sanhedrin, Jesus is gone. Believers that had once swarmed the city have dwindled down to a small handful. And it looks like this sect of Christian zealots is well on its well to burning itself out. Their power is waning, the threat is passed, the Christians have gone back to their backwater farms and villages, or have moved on to something else and the ruling elders of the city can carry on as they always have.
“Stay in the city,” Jesus tells them.
Stay where you are unwelcome.
Stay where your friends are leaving you.
Stay where your glory days would seem to be behind you, and your future is bleak.
Until you have been clothed with power from on high.
Jesus knows. Those hundred-odd believers know. That remnant of the faithful knows that their best days are not behind them, but are yet to come.
That those few who remain will be clothed in power. That through the promise of Jesus Christ, through patience and perseverance, and through God's own blessings, their numbers will grow, their faith will be proven, and God will bring them into greatness.
And we saw it happen. We know that Christ's promise is fulfilled; that his message of compassion and hope and love and mercy are so compelling that it grew from that first dozen of followers to those few thousand who heard Jesus preach and shared the loaves and fishes, through the dark times of fear and persecution, only to grow again to become a global beacon of hope, known throughout the world.
And even knowing that; knowing that the name of Christ is shared and believed in on every continent, in nearly every country, in large cities and far-flung villages – that is still not the power that God promises to clothe us in. That we are never promised a Christian Empire. I don't know that such an idea would have even begun to enter the disciples' thinking.
It may be for us; it may be a possibility that we yearn to go back to.
But what Christ is talking about isn't the fulfillment of earthly power. Christ rarely, if ever, talks in those terms. The disciples are never promised that they will be clothed with power in the form of riches or titles or high office.
But rather, they wait until they are made ready. Until God has worked his faith in them to go out and bring real good news, real assurance, real hope to people.
They have seen Christ. Known Christ. Been a witness to Christ. And this has shaped their lives in profound and unimaginable ways. And soon, very soon – they will receive God's power; the power that God has promised to clothe them in before he sends them out from the city, a new and changed people, a vibrant people, a people who will change the world.
Next Sunday is Pentecost where we'll see what that power looks like and how God enters into peoples' reality and transforms their lives. But as we sit with those disciples on this Sunday, before the Pentecost comes, we wait. We wait, know that God does not make empty promises; knowing that the words of Christ and the kingdom of heaven are meant for us; knowing that God clothes the faithful in power; knowing that the days when we are at one with our Lord – our greatest days – are still yet to come.
To God be all glory, praise, and honor, now and forever. Amen!
Let us pray,
Gracious God, we give you our worship this morning. We come to you in faith that your promise extends to all people who call on your name. Help us to not be fooled by earthly gains and human power, but to seek only the riches of your heavenly kingdom and the power which only your Holy Spirit can give. Seal us in your faith and make us to trust in your wisdom and providence. In the name of Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Savior. Amen.
I've never preached on the Ascension before. Which is a little bit odd, because it comes around every year. But Ascension Day comes around every year, 40 days after Easter, and so it always lands on a Thursday, just as it did this year coming on this past Thursday. And most years, we just skip the Ascension, and move on to whatever the lectionary reading is for the seventh Sunday of Easter, which is what today is. If we'd done that, today we could be reading in the Book of Acts about the election of Matthias to the twelve disciples. Or we could be reading Jesus's powerful prayer in the Gospel of John, where he prays for himself, for his disciples, and for all believers. And if you have the time today, I'd encourage to open up John 17 and read that prayer, because it does give us a wonderful glimpse into the mind of God and Christ's hopes and desires for us.
But this year, I want to go back a few days and look at the Ascension story that we usually tend to skip over.
Because in these few short verses we can get a sense of a great many things going on – there's confusion. There's apprehension. There's excitement and wonder. There's reassurance. And there's instruction – a sense that something is expected of us.
We're all familiar with most of those sensations. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not confused or apprehensive about something. And I wish I had a shortcut the way that Jesus gave the disciples when it says, “he opened their minds to understand the Scripture.” I'd be happy if my mind were opened to understand my phone bill.
But the Scriptures are both clear and confusing. It doesn't get much simpler than love your God and love each other, but at the same time, it's often written in riddles. Sometimes the big things are clear, but other times the big things – the things like the relationship between God and Christ; between God and Man; who God is and what God wants – sometimes those things take some understanding that only makes sense with revelation – exactly the sort of revelation that Jesus gives to the disciples when he opens their minds.
And as soon as their minds are open, the confusion and apprehension give way to other emotions – to awe and wonder and excitement. Because their new understanding is confirmed in what they are about to witness; in Christ ascending to heaven; in God welcoming his Son and bringing him home. That doesn't just happen for anybody, not the way it happens to Jesus. To see the Christ – to see ultimate, irrefutable proof of who he really is and what he really is. For those disciples who believed in him from the beginning, who left their fishing boats, left their jobs, left their families, to follow him from the early days along the Sea of Galilee to now... what a remarkable sense of joy and love and vindication they must have known. To witness that great and final miracle, to see Christ depart for heaven where he remains to this day, an advocate for us and for God's mercy in the forever after. Awe and wonder and joy, indeed!
But before he leaves, before he is welcomed into the cloud of God's glory above, Jesus gives his followers one final instruction.
And that is to wait.
And “wait” is a funny little word that we'll look at more in depth over the summer, when our sermon series will be on those funny little words that sometimes take on more than one meaning, or mean something that we might not expect.
Lamentations 3:25 - “The Lord is good to those who wait for him.”
Psalm 27 - “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living; wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.”
Psalm 37 - “Wait for the Lord and keep his way.”
“Wait,” when we're waiting for God, often implies that there's something we should be doing, something we should be focused on, or attentive to. Not just sitting around twiddling our thumbs, playing on our phones.
In Luke's Gospel, here in this moment, the people are told to wait with an instruction.
That is, to “stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
And when he tells this to them, he takes them just outside the city, to Bethany, and blesses them. And it's after Jesus blesses his people that he withdraws and is carried up to heaven.
Stay in the city. And wait until you have been clothed with power from on high.
Let's take a moment and think back to the Sunday after the Resurrection. The story we remember of Doubting Thomas, and the disciples after Christ returns. And remember the setting they're in then. They're scared. Anxious. Huddled together behind locked doors. They're in hiding. The city is a dangerous place for them to be at that time.
And after the Resurrection; after Jesus appears to them – the city doesn't get that much safer. We're now a little over a month later and the initial threat seems to have died down, but they're still wanted men. The Sanhedrin still have their names, still want them arrested, banished, eliminated, or somehow taken care of.
But even though they're still unwelcome to the lawgivers of the city, they're no longer their most pressing concern. Jerusalem at that time was a city of maybe 40,000 people or so – fairly large for that time. And in Acts chapter 1, when the disciples elect Matthias to replace Judas among the 12, we're told that the whole assembly of believers numbers about 120.
So to the Sanhedrin, Jesus is gone. Believers that had once swarmed the city have dwindled down to a small handful. And it looks like this sect of Christian zealots is well on its well to burning itself out. Their power is waning, the threat is passed, the Christians have gone back to their backwater farms and villages, or have moved on to something else and the ruling elders of the city can carry on as they always have.
“Stay in the city,” Jesus tells them.
Stay where you are unwelcome.
Stay where your friends are leaving you.
Stay where your glory days would seem to be behind you, and your future is bleak.
Until you have been clothed with power from on high.
Jesus knows. Those hundred-odd believers know. That remnant of the faithful knows that their best days are not behind them, but are yet to come.
That those few who remain will be clothed in power. That through the promise of Jesus Christ, through patience and perseverance, and through God's own blessings, their numbers will grow, their faith will be proven, and God will bring them into greatness.
And we saw it happen. We know that Christ's promise is fulfilled; that his message of compassion and hope and love and mercy are so compelling that it grew from that first dozen of followers to those few thousand who heard Jesus preach and shared the loaves and fishes, through the dark times of fear and persecution, only to grow again to become a global beacon of hope, known throughout the world.
And even knowing that; knowing that the name of Christ is shared and believed in on every continent, in nearly every country, in large cities and far-flung villages – that is still not the power that God promises to clothe us in. That we are never promised a Christian Empire. I don't know that such an idea would have even begun to enter the disciples' thinking.
It may be for us; it may be a possibility that we yearn to go back to.
But what Christ is talking about isn't the fulfillment of earthly power. Christ rarely, if ever, talks in those terms. The disciples are never promised that they will be clothed with power in the form of riches or titles or high office.
But rather, they wait until they are made ready. Until God has worked his faith in them to go out and bring real good news, real assurance, real hope to people.
They have seen Christ. Known Christ. Been a witness to Christ. And this has shaped their lives in profound and unimaginable ways. And soon, very soon – they will receive God's power; the power that God has promised to clothe them in before he sends them out from the city, a new and changed people, a vibrant people, a people who will change the world.
Next Sunday is Pentecost where we'll see what that power looks like and how God enters into peoples' reality and transforms their lives. But as we sit with those disciples on this Sunday, before the Pentecost comes, we wait. We wait, know that God does not make empty promises; knowing that the words of Christ and the kingdom of heaven are meant for us; knowing that God clothes the faithful in power; knowing that the days when we are at one with our Lord – our greatest days – are still yet to come.
To God be all glory, praise, and honor, now and forever. Amen!
Let us pray,
Gracious God, we give you our worship this morning. We come to you in faith that your promise extends to all people who call on your name. Help us to not be fooled by earthly gains and human power, but to seek only the riches of your heavenly kingdom and the power which only your Holy Spirit can give. Seal us in your faith and make us to trust in your wisdom and providence. In the name of Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Savior. Amen.