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Sermon for the Ascension of our Lord – May 17, 2026
Acts 1-11, Luke 24:44-53
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our ascended Lord Jesus Christ.
On April 1st, I watched live on my computer as the Artemis II rocket was launched. Up, up, up it went. There were people on the ground near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida who were watching, and every once in awhile the cameras would show them craning their necks, shielding their eyes from the sun, watching as that rocket got smaller and smaller and smaller, until it disappeared into the upper atmosphere.
After the launch, I followed the progress of the mission through an app on my phone. There was a running ticker showing how many miles away from Earth the Artemis II capsule was. It went further and further and further away – farther than any human being has ever traveled in the history of humanity! At their furthest, they were 252,756 miles from Earth. On an evening walk with my wife, I looked up at the moon and mentioned to her how crazy it was that human beings had recently been on the back side of that glowing orb out there in space. It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying to think about. I can’t imagine being an astronaut hurtling through space like that, watching Earth get further and further away, your home planet getting smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror, while space got darker and darker and colder and colder. I know it was awe-inspiring for them, because they have said as much. But it had to be terrifying too.
I couldn’t help but think about the Artemis mission as I’ve been studying our scripture readings for this Sunday as we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord – the capstone of the Easter season. The story of Jesus going up, up, up into the heavens is told in both our Acts reading and our reading from the gospel of Luke. St. Luke, who wrote both Acts and his gospel, describes the disciples as watching Jesus as he went up into the sky, higher and higher and higher, further and further away from them. The disciples were gazing up into heaven until he disappeared from their sight. You can picture them like those people watching the Artemis launch in Florida, craning their necks and shielding their eyes from the sun, watching him until they couldn’t see him anymore.
In the gospel account of the Ascension, it says that after Jesus was no longer in sight, the disciples worshiped him. It says they were filled with great joy. It says they were continually in the temple blessing God. This seems, on the face of it, to be a strange reaction. Jesus is gone! Hooray! He just blasted off into the heavens, let’s celebrate! He’s out of here, let’s go thank God!
It seems like a strange reaction, but it is actually an entirely appropriate one, and when we understand why the disciples were celebrating, why they were full of great joy, why they were continually in the temple blessing God, we can begin to see why the Ascension of our Lord is such Good News for us here today too.
One of the reasons the disciples were filled with great joy was that Jesus had opened their minds to understand the scriptures. Now they understood how what we call the Old Testament writings pointed to him. Jesus was the offspring of Eve who crushed the head of the serpent, defeating sin. Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham that through his descendants all the families of the earth would be blessed. Jesus was the Lamb of God in Exodus who delivers people from death. Jesus was the suffering servant in Isaiah, by whose wounds we are healed. Now they understood that Jesus’ death on the cross was not an accident or a failure, but God’s means of salvation. The Messiah was indeed to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. It was all part of God’s endgame from the beginning. Now they understood this, and so Jesus’ leaving was not a “so long, farewell, I’m outta here.” His Ascension was instead his triumphant enthronement at the right hand of God after his mission was complete.
In addition to opening their minds to understand the scriptures, Jesus also promised to clothe them with power from on high. Jesus promised them the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit they would continue to deepen their understanding of the scriptures. Through the Spirit they would be empowered for their own mission, which was just beginning – their mission of proclaiming repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ ministry would continue. The Ascension didn’t mean Jesus’ ministry was over – it meant it was just getting started!
As Jesus left them, as his risen body began to ascend, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. This was the posture the priests in the temple used to put God’s blessing on the people at the end of worship. It is the posture priests and pastors continue to use to bless God’s people, to put his word, his mercy, his love, his blessing on them. Jesus lifted up his hands in blessing. His hands, still bearing the wounds of his great sacrifice for them, were over them, covering them, shielding them, assuring them, blessing them. These disciples knew that these hands would remain over them, and so they could go back to their daily lives in great joy. They could even go back to Jerusalem, where so much ugliness had happened, without fear. The Ascension meant that God’s blessing was upon them.
This is all drawn from the gospel account of the Ascension, but perhaps the most meaningful detail of all is found in the account we have in Acts. There Luke tells us that Jesus was taken up into a cloud. It is easy for us in the Pacific Northwest to dismiss this as par for the course. We’re used to clouds, right? But to the disciples this was important. To students of the Bible in all times and places, this is a crucial detail. You see, throughout the Bible a cloud serves as a symbol of God’s presence. In the book of Exodus, we read that as the people of Israel traveled through the wilderness, the Lord God went ahead of them in pillar of cloud. When Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the commandments from God, the mountain was covered by a cloud, from which God spoke. A cloud hovered over the tabernacle and over the ark of the covenant, and when it did it was described as the glory of God. Drawing on all this, there are psalms which describe God’s presence taking the form of a cloud. When Jesus was transfigured, God appeared in a cloud. And so, when Jesus ascended and a cloud took him out of their sight, it meant something. Luke wasn’t just recording the weather that day. It meant something. Jesus was being taken bodily into God’s presence, and if Jesus has been taken bodily into God’s presence, now he is capable of being everywhere!
This is a point Martin Luther made about preaching on the Ascension. Luther said: What good will it do you if you merely preach that he ascended up to heaven and sits there with folded hands? … For this purpose did he ascend up…that he might be down here, that he might fill all things and be everywhere present; which he could not do had he remained on earth.”
Today we have external computer data storage we call “the cloud,” which is capable of keeping all our files so we can access them from anywhere, right? That isn’t unlike what the cloud in Acts represents! This is essentially what Luther is saying about the Ascension! By being taken up into the cloud, Jesus is now everywhere present, accessible from anywhere.
Everything that made the Ascension Good News for the disciples makes it Good News for us too.
Jesus is the key to understanding the scriptures, and it is there that we find him. It is all about him. He opens our minds to understand the scriptures. This doesn’t mean our baptism magically confers immediate perfect knowledge about every verse. Those of you who have been in my Revelation class know that there are still passages that make me scratch my head. We need ongoing Bible study! But Jesus has given us a key to unlock the scriptures in that we are to go to every page looking for him! He has promised that we will find him there, and we do! And so Jesus is not just up in the heavens, he is found in his Word.
Jesus continues to clothe his church with power through the Holy Spirit. To be sure, it might not look like worldly power, but we have the power to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus’ ministry. And so, Jesus is not just up in the heavens, he is found in his church, where his hands are lifted over us in blessing.
Because Jesus ascended up into a cloud, he is down here too. He is everywhere present in a way that wasn’t possible had he remained on earth. There is nowhere we can go where he is not present. As it says in my favorite psalm, “If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the grave, you are there also.” (Psalm 139:8)
Victor Glover ascended higher up into the heavens than any human being ever has. He was the pilot on the Artemis II mission. Glover has been very open about his Christian faith. In fact, he mentioned in one interview that he took a Bible with him on the Artemis II mission. That capsule was roughly the size of two minivans and had to house four people for 10 days, along with all the equipment for their research. You can bet that every square inch had to serve a purpose for the mission. But as a disciple of Jesus, Glover was part of a bigger mission. As he traveled farther away from Earth than any other human being in the history of humankind, even there Christ was with him. As he hurtled through the deepest darkness and the coldest reaches of space, even there Christ was present. Christ was with him through his Word, in that Bible he brought. And when Glover returned to Earth, Christ’s mission and ministry continued through his witness. As Glover told reporters from all across the globe: “We need Jesus, whether on Earth or circling the moon.”
The Ascension of our Lord means that Christ is with you too. He is everywhere present, everywhere accessible. He is with you even in the darkest, coldest moments of your life. He can be found in his Word. He can be found in his church. His hands are lifted over you in blessing – his blessing of forgiveness, his blessing of divine mercy and love. By his Holy Spirt he continues to empower our mission, which is to bear witness to everyone on this beautiful planet that we all need Jesus, and that because of his Ascension, he everywhere present, available to all.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church