June 1 – Sermon
Almighty God, we acknowledge Jesus as our risen and ascended LORD. Through the power of Your Holy Spirit, please empower us to be His faithful disciples. Please help us to seek Your will for our lives and give us the courage to proclaim the Gospel. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight our rock and redeemer. Amen
In our country, and all over the world, sports are a big thing. Being on a team gives identity. And if you’re on a winning team, it’s even better. If your team wins the championship, you feel a sense of elation.
But then everything is over. The celebrating is over, the season is over, and that’s it. That sense of joy you had before is gone.
But that’s not just in sports, but in just about everything we do. We all want to have a sense of purpose that gives us joy. Sports can provide that, but only for a little while. It’s true in other things as well– home improvement projects, hobbies, traveling, but the purpose and the joy they bring lasts only a little while.
Today is the 7th Sunday of Easter–Ascension Sunday, the day when our Lord spoke one last time to His disciples and then ascended into heaven. If we really want to have a sense of purpose in our lives, we need to look up, at our ascending Lord. Everything in this world is fleeting. Look up, look to Christ and you’ll find a deeper and longer lasting joy than you have ever known.
In the Gospel for today Jesus and His disciples were together. They all gathered on the Mount of Olives, the same general area where Jesus had been arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane—within sight of where Jesus was crucified. Jesus still had a few more things He wanted to tell the disciples before His ascension, because the disciples were still confused about their purpose. Over the last three years, their purpose had been to follow Him, and to watch Him fulfill every single Messianic prophecy that was ever written about Him in the Old Testament. Their purpose was to watch Him suffer and die and rise from the dead. and very soon, with the Holy Spirit’s help, they would come to understand all that He had taught them. For now, they were done following–done learning. So Jesus gave them a new purpose for their lives.
Jesus tells them: “You are witnesses of these things. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That’s what Jesus wanted the disciples to do – that was their new purpose in life – to be witnesses to other people. They had witnessed all these things happen and soon they would understand why.
As a Christian today, that’s our purpose too. Through God’s Word, we know how Jesus suffered, died, but then rose again. We may not have seen those things with our very own eyes, but someone else has witnessed to us that we might believe it with our hearts. The Holy Spirit has led us to understand the reason Jesus died, and why He rose from the dead. We know His life was sacrificed for us. We know Jesus is the reason we are forgiven of our sins and have the sure hope of eternal life. So now, your purpose and mine is to be a witness of these things to others. That’s why God has put us here on this planet – to be witnesses.
The evil one would like us to be so confused about the purpose of our lives that we lose sight of Jesus. We all have other earthly purposes – to earn a living, to be a good parent, to look for ways to help other people, to make this world a better place – they are all good purposes–but there’s something deeper that is keeping us here on this planet—namely “to be the witnesses of all these things.”
God has put us on this planet to tell what Christ has done–to show love to others as Christ has loved us. That happens when we have conversations with people about the real meaning of life. Telling others of how Jesus Christ came into this world die on a cross so our sin might be taken away. We are called and commissioned to tell others that someday Jesus will come back and what glory that will be for those who believe.
After talking with His disciples, Jesus performed one last visible miracle for them. He lifted up His hands and blessed them, just like we do at the end of the service and then He ascended into the sky and was hidden by a cloud, but Jesus will come back again.
And so what did those disciples do? Filled with a sense of great joy, they returned to Jerusalem. They met with each other in the temple courts, praising God for the things they had heard and seen.
The disciples were no longer afraid of the Jewish leaders or to be seen out in public. They were filled with joy and openly worshiped Jesus.
There no longer was any doubt in their minds that Jesus was the God of the universe and the King of heaven and earth. No longer doubting, they openly displayed their joy right in the temple courts.
If you’re looking for a sense of joy in your life, a deeper, longer-lasting sense of joy, look to Jesus. Sure, there will be times in your life when you are upset. Things will happen that will anger you, sadden you, depress you. But for a Christian, underneath all those emotions, you have a layer of joy that the world can’t take away. You can say with certainty: “All my sins have been taken away by Jesus. I know I’m forgiven. I know that God will work this problem out. I know that God will give me the strength I need. I know God’s not punishing me. This world isn’t my home. There’s a better world coming.” That’s Christian joy. The disciples had it after they saw Jesus ascend. May God give that same kind of joy to you.
Jesus has ascended into heaven, but He wants to remind you of your real purpose: Go and witness to others without hesitation. Amen.
