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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Epistle reading this evening. You may be seated.
That last stanza of the hymn about yearning for the Son’s embrace is the beautiful aspect of His ascension bodily. Already His resurrection proves to us that the new creation of a new body will be given to us, but that it continues on for eternity is made very clear in His bodily ascension into heaven. And we will feel the Son’s embrace, a remarkable thing indeed on that day. Come, Lord Jesus, come.
But it is the epistle reading that was very intriguing. Because in the epistle reading, Paul mentions very clearly to the saints in Ephesus about the ascension of their Lord and ours. When he refers to the ascension in this way, that the Father seated Jesus at His, the Father’s right hand, in the heavenly places. And as we know from this evening’s readings, in a bodily form. “…far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. And He, meaning the Father, put all things under His, meaning the Son’s, feet, and gave Him, that is the Son, head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
And this is the remarkable mystery that He who could be contained by a physical body in one place is not contained by that physical body in one place, for He fills all things and He is what makes us a part of the body of Christ, which is not only here in this country, but elsewhere in the world. And it is not only here in this time, but extends to all those who are already in heaven. The church is timeless. Which implies that if the church is His body, His body too is timeless.
Now all of this is in Jesus Christ, who is flesh and blood. Truly divine at the same time as being flesh and blood. And consider this: that He who descended to our realm and became flesh and blood with us does not take away from the glory of the Father or the Holy Spirit when He ascends into heaven in that fleshly body, which implies that neither will you, with your resurrected glorified body, bring any non-glory to the Father and the Spirit in heaven as we dwell in the same glorified body as our Lord Jesus. He honors our humanity by becoming one with us in His incarnation. He honors our humanity by ascending into heaven in the same physical body, fixing what Adam broke, and in fact, making it better, for we will never fall away again, ever.
Now all of this that Paul mentions to the Ephesians is crouched in all of those terms. But if you look at the verses, and I hope you saw this, there are only two sentences in that entire passage. One sentence goes from verse 15 all the way to the end of verse 21. One long sentence. English teachers would have a cow. Run-on sentences. You can break that down into many more, and yet Paul didn’t. It’s actually a prayer. He is praying for the people of Ephesus—his beloved people. He was a part of that congregation getting started, and he had been away for approximately five years, and he wrote this while he was in prison.
And he dearly loved the people of Ephesus. And you can see that in how and what he wrote to the people in this text. He talks to them about, “I’ve heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus.” “I’ve heard of your love toward all the saints.” Allow me to do the same to you. I have not only heard of your faith; I have seen your faith in the Lord Jesus. As your pastor, I have not only heard of your love; I have experienced it toward myself and the beautiful thing, seeing it expressed toward other people. And I pray for you every single day. I remember you in my prayers because you are the sheep entrusted to me and I’m the frail man who’s supposed to be the shepherd. That’s the love that Paul had for this congregation in Ephesus today.
And I wish to tell you it is the same that I have toward you. You have been known as a friendly and loving congregation. That has been the hallmark of this church. Perfect? No. Friendly and loving? Yes. Which is nothing more than faith and love showing itself expressed through you. Imperfectly, but through you. And as Paul gives thanks for the people in Ephesus, I give thanks for you. Like Paul, I’m sure at times the people at Ephesus disappointed him or caused him to be sad. Well, don’t worry. I’m sure that I’ve disappointed you and caused you to be sad too, but it’s reciprocal between you and me, isn’t it? It’s part of being in a relationship together.
But I give thanks for you. I give thanks for you for what God has done in you and through you toward other people and toward the person in the pew sitting next to you. But as Paul’s desire for the Ephesians is for much more, so it is my desire for you. But the much more is not something that you have to attain. It’s what God does in you and through you. He desires, that is Paul, as I do, that you, through His holy means of grace, grow and be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge of Him.
It’s one thing to trust in Jesus’ forgiveness when things in your life are okay. It’s a great deal different to rely upon and say, “God is my loving God and is pleased with me” when you’re not pleased with yourself, and when you’re living with the accusations of Satan, and when you’re dealing with the disappointment of other people in your loved life. But that’s my prayer for you, that in the midst of your worst days, God will lead you to trust in the wisdom that says, “In spite of it, God is gracious toward me because of Christ Jesus.”
That in your worst days, the knowledge and revelation of Him continues to be compassionate and merciful, long-suffering, patient, specifically that your heart would be enlightened to know by faith the hope to which He has called you. That you begin to see this world as so transient. It is not what matters. Paul said it another way in another letter when he said, “Set your minds on things above, not on things of the earth.” That’s really the same thing he’s saying here, to have your hearts enlightened, to know by faith the hope to which He has called you. That’s the things above.
That they play a much more prominent role in your life. Because obviously we are slaves to this world. We were supposed to dominate it and control it as God gave to Adam and Eve, but we allow this world and its things to dominate us and enslave us. The riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. One of the greatest gifts of being around seniors today—it’s a Lutheran Christian sermon. And being around men and women, who though they may be struggling and not always cheerful, still give you a picture of faith that trusts in the glorious inheritance of the saints, because that’s all they’ve got, isn’t it? And we’re distracted by a whole host of other things.
The other thing that Paul desires of the Ephesians is that they would understand and grow in the immeasurable greatness of His power toward you, who believe according to the working of His great might. That’s a packed statement. First of all, it’s saying for you to be a believer has to have come about by remarkable power that only He worked within you. It’s not an intellectual grasping of facts and data. It’s not being around it and growing up in it. It’s trusting that this great gift came from not from within, but from outside of you and in fact, in spite of you.
And that this great gift of faith that sees the glorious inheritance of the saints and sees the great gift of what is beyond and not here is what He continues to work in you as Satan is continually trying to tear it down. What a remarkable miracle that in the midst of you and I being torn down by ourselves, being torn down by this world, and being torn down by Satan, the Creator, the benevolent Creator, God the Father, through His Son and His Holy Spirit, is continually creating in you a new man, a new woman, the new that He wishes to bring about to its fulfillment and fruition.
At your resurrection and ascension, then you and I are given different eyes in this world and different points of view. Not that we struggle, because we do. It’s always inside. We can’t run away from these things that bounce around in our brain. But we’re given the power to say, “No, this is what is true. This is what is real. This is what is eternal.” And not those things. Your Lord lives and reigns in a body, and yet your Lord contains Himself in bread and wine, two places at the same time, to glorify the Father and to feed you.
And our Father has much more for us to continue in here at St. Paul, as He is glorified in using you, in witnessing, as He told the apostles, of the repentance and forgiveness of sins that you yourself have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Serving, as you yourselves have been served by the good Samaritan who found you half dead on the road and made you his own in loving other people, with the love that you yourselves have been loved, that is unending and that waits like the father of the prodigal son waits for the son to return. And if the son ran away again, he would wait again.
And finally to forgive as the prodigal son. It says, “But it is in Christ, and that is what matters.” One of the beautiful things that Jesus did right before he ascended into heaven, if you heard the Gospel text, he lifted up his hands and blessed his apostles.
Please rise that I may lift up my hands and give you a blessing. This blessing you haven’t heard as often as the others. This is from the writer of the Hebrews, and it’s very appropriate at this time liturgically.
Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good, that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. Through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
