Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Psalm 47
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  May 21, 2023

The tradition began on a Good Friday upon the Island of Bermuda. A Sunday school teacher was trying to teach his students about Christ’s ascension, the exaltation which would follow the humiliation of the cross. So he took his class to the beach, where he launched a large kite on which he had painted a picture of Jesus. When the kite reached its maximum height with all the children gathered looking up at it, the teacher snipped the string, allowing the kite to fly up, up, up and become lost in the clouds. Ever since that day, the people of Bermuda pack the beaches to fly kites on Good Friday. Although most have nothing to do with Christ’s ascension, I think it’s still a cool tradition. 

But I wonder how I would have felt if I were one of those students that day when the teacher snipped that string…Have you ever seen what happens when a child accidentally lets a balloon slip out of their grasp and watches it sail away? (That happened to my son once and he didn’t recover for about a month.) In other words, “Yeah, that’s a great illustration of the ascension, but now we lost that kite!” It’s hard to be happy when it feels like you’re losing something, isn’t it? Do you ever wonder why we’re supposed to be so happy about Jesus’ ascension? You know, the time when he left us? I couldn’t help but wonder, wouldn’t it be better if he’d stuck around? Even now, part of my heart still wonders whether it wouldn’t be easier if he had stayed. It really would be handy at times as a pastor! I’m only half-joking though. Why are we supposed to be joyful that Jesus is no longer on earth physically?

Today I want to look at Psalm 47 and see why the psalmists are so excited about the Ascension of our Lord. What do they reveal about Jesus’ ascension that we may be missing? Psalm 47 is a beautiful description of God, as a king, ascending  his throne. Coming on the heels of Psalm 46, where we are commanded to “be still and know that the LORD is God” we are now commanded to get moving! We are commanded to shout and clap our hands because that same LORD is now ascending his throne! The conquering King has returned and all are awaiting his enthronement. One thing that is interesting is that this Psalm is composed of exactly 77 words in Hebrew. It signifies perfection and is so fitting for the celebration of a king who has completed his victory and now reigns in glory. But this purposefully worded Psalm has, at its center, the number 3—often understood as the number of God. The center of the psalm is the first words of verse 5. In Hebrew it’s just three words, both preceded and followed by 37 words (37 + 3 + 37 = 77). What are those words? As we translate them in English: “God has ascended with a joyful shout.” The center of the psalm is joy, unbridled JOY, joyful shouting because of the ascension of God. 

You see, the reason we sometimes struggle to shout with joy is because we naturally assume that Jesus’ ascension means that God is now up in heaven, far away from us on earth. We are the ones who have to get things done down here. We have problems down here.  We are the ones who need to make his kingdom come on earth. But he is up there in heaven far removed from us and our issues. Now of course we  don’t believe that. We would always say that God blesses us and provides for us if someone asked us, but my point is that we often don’t always live like that’s true. We don’t often pray like that’s true. We operate as if God is far away and it all depends on us. We grow cynical because it seems to us that God is in heaven and this world and our future seems out of his control. We often lose our will to fight for holiness and fall into temptation, because we assume God is not present with his power for us in those moments. We grow dissatisfied with our blessings and envious of what others have, because we don’t really consider God’s grace something practical and sufficient for life on earth. We don’t pray continually or consistently because the Devil tells us it’s simply not worth it, God is far away and cannot hear our prayers. But the worst of all, is that when we live like God is far away, separated from us in heaven, we begin to lose our joy. 

Joyless Christianity is dangerous, my friends. No, I’m not talking about clinical depression. And I’m not advocating an inauthentic paste on smile. I’m talking about a deep and abiding joy and excitement for God and his kingdom. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23). Joy is a part of God’s character and nature. A Christian who has lost their joy in Christ, is in danger. Nehemiah 8:10 says that the “Joy of the Lord is your strength.” So to lose your joy, is to lose the strength of your faith, to lose heart and become easy prey for the evil one. 

This is why we are looking at Psalm 47 today! But the shouting joy of Psalm 47 does not picture the ascension as God’s absence, but his enduring presence. It pictures a King returning from victory who is enthroned among his people—whose rule and power is established among his people! And the same is true of Jesus’ Ascension. In fact, that is the reason for the “cloud.” Do you remember the conspicuous cloud that received Jesus from the disciples’ sight at his ascension? This is not just a random detail. It is included as a fulfillment of an Old Testament type: the settling cloud or dwelling cloud that represented the presence of the Lord. Think of the cloud which covered Mount Sinai, or the pillar of cloud which guarded Israel in the desert. This cloud was a guarantee of the presence of God. So, at the ascension a cloud is used to mark Jesus’ entry to the realm of God, which we cannot understand with our present little thoughts and human experience. To put it a different way, Jesus was not like a kite that got away and kept rising into the air, nor did he zoom thousands of miles out into space until he reached heaven. He rose up a little way above the earth and a cloud received him to show that the form of his presence on earth was now shifting. The cloud reminds us that Jesus is now present and does things in the whole range of God’s exalted and unlimited power! We cannot push our little measuring tapes into the cloud and study what goes on. We cannot understand how Jesus is now again united with the Father and the Spirit even as he remains our truly human brother exalted in glory. We cannot comprehend all this, but what we can know is that Jesus’ ascension allows him to make good on his promise that he is with us always.

And isn’t this in keeping with all Jesus came to do? He came to a world separated from God by sin and he took that upon himself. He stretched out his hands and said, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me, so that we could be together with the Father. And there is no flame which can burn the bridge Christ made. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus! The ascension isn’t a picture of God leaving! It’s a picture, like we see in Psalm 47, of Christ sitting down upon his throne! The ascension is the establishment of Christ’s unlimited power, amplified over all creation. It is the realization of his own words and promises!

Rejoice, dear Christians, because your God is not far away! In fact, there is no place where he is not present! He is the one “who fills everything in every way,” as the Apostle Paul wrote in our second reading. Think of it, because of Christ’s Ascension, we can truly say and trust that Jesus is with us this morning, as he promised to be when two or three gather in his name! Because of Christ’s ascension, we know that Jesus is present with us in the Lord’s Supper, just as he promised when he said “This is my body…this is my blood.” You don’t have to guess where God is. You don’t have to try to manufacture a feeling of closeness to God. For something so full of mystery as God’s presence, this much is clear: Jesus is present where he promised to be found—in His Word and Sacraments. Within these normal, basic things, God is intimately and powerfully present for you! It is through these means, which we often take for granted, that the Holy Spirit brings us into the cloud of God’s presence to glimpse his glory. It is through Word and Sacrament that our ascended Savior brings heaven into the earth, and faith into our hearts. It is through these means of grace that God gives us joy in his presence.

My friends, Jesus isn’t the kite that got away. He is your reigning Lord, to whom all authority in heaven and on earth belongs. And perhaps most surprising of all, in that matchless power and authority, he has chosen you as his witness. He chooses to use frail human people, cracked jars of clay like me, to spread his message. Certainly the angels in heaven must be envious that we have this privilege! What’s left but to shout with joy! We have a Savior who has conquered our enemies, who has established his power for us right now on earth, and has given us the dignity to serve in his Kingdom! And one day, we look forward when our faith becomes sight, when we get to see our Savior ascend his throne and hear the joyful shout that resounds for all eternity. 

Amen.