Pastor Tim Patoka Still Connected
Ascension May 16, 2021 Connected Though Not Present Acts 1:1-11 1) Established by the Holy Spirit’s Gift of Faith 2) Strengthened through God’s Revealed Knowledge
For the past 5 months, we have been following Jesus as he visibly goes about 1st century Israel. We began in December with his prophesied birth in Bethlehem’s manger. In January, we transitioned to Epiphany where we got to know Jesus as the promised Savior of the world through his miracles, words, and teachings. In February, we switched gears to Lent as we counted the cost that Jesus paid for our sins with his suffering and death. On April 4, we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on Easter and have since seen how we are connected to our Savior because of his empty tomb. Up to now, it’s been pretty easy to follow Jesus in and around 1st century Israel because he’s been visibly present. However, that all changes today on this Ascension Festival where Jesus goes from visibly present to visibly absent when he ascended into heaven. That doesn’t mean we’ve lost our connection to Jesus though. In fact, as we’ll see from our verses this morning from Acts chapter 1, we remain connected to our Savior although he’s not visibly present. This connection to our Savior is not dependent on Jesus’ visible presence. Rather, it is established by the Holy Spirit through the gift of faith he works in us at our baptism. This Spirit-established connection is then strengthened as we grow in faith of what our Lord has revealed to us so that we may rejoice when we finally see our ascended Lord visibly present. 1) Established by the Holy Spirit’s Gift of Faith The apostles likely felt a strong connection to Jesus in the 40 days between his resurrection and ascension. Not only had they seen and heard unbelievable things, Jesus had beaten death itself and showed the Roman authorities and Jewish Sanhedrin who was boss. As his apostles, they certainly felt that everything was on the up and up as long as Jesus was visibly with them. Can you imagine then how confused the apostles must have felt when they saw Jesus ascend into heaven? How their hopes were likely dashed to pieces when he went from being visibly present to visibly absent? Listen again to Luke’s report of Jesus’ ascension. “He was taken up while they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10They were looking intently into the sky as he went away.” (Acts 1:9-10a EHV) Just like that, Jesus went up and out of sight. And the disciples just stood there, looking intently into the sky and trying to process it all. You know how that goes. When you see something that’s beyond belief, sometimes the only thing you can do is stand there and stare at it as you try to process it. 1
Pastor Tim Patoka Still Connected
Ascension May 16, 2021
We don’t know how long the apostles stood there looking into the sky until the 2 angels came and explained what happened and what will happen. But once those apostles processed Jesus’ ascension, they would likely soon question their connection to Jesus. Were they still connected to him though visibly absent? Are we still connected to Jesus though he’s been visibly absent for almost 2,000 years now? As a planet full of people, we struggle to remain connected with people who aren’t visibly present – friends and family who live far away, classmates we haven’t seen since graduation. While we have video chats, snail mail, and social media to help bridge the distance, it’s not easy to remained connected when there’s a visible absence. If we can feel disconnected with these people, how much more is it with our ascended Savior? It’s been 2,000 some years since Jesus last walked on earth. If people claim to be connected to Jesus because they’ve visibly seen him, we rightfully question them because it conflicts with what the angels said to the apostles. Perhaps we ourselves have cried out to God asking that he show himself to strengthen a Christian’s weak connection or to connect someone to him for the first time ever. But because Jesus remains visibly absent, our doubts have us wonder if our connection to Jesus is still happening. Jesus’ visible absence does not mean we are disconnected from him. In fact, our connection to him does not dependent his visible presence at all! Rather, it depends on the Holy Spirit who establishes our connection to Jesus through the gift of faith he works in us at baptism. The apostles already had this connection established prior to Jesus’ ascension, but they would become even more connected to him in 10 days at Pentecost. Because we are celebrating Pentecost next week, I won’t go further into it now. But suffice it to say, Pentecost was a watershed moment for the apostles’ connection to Jesus as much as it was for the growth of the early Christian church. When it comes to our connection with our visibly absent Savior, we go back to what the Holy Spirit does for us at baptism. Where the Word and water come together, there he is working faith in the heart of a person whether they be 1 day old or 100 years old. And we know that baptism has power because it is God working through it to give us faith. A faith that connects us to our ascended Savior whom we’ve never seen or necessarily expect to on this side of heaven. Through this Spirit-established connection, we then receive the blessings that Jesus’ ascension uniquely brings. One is the assurance that Jesus’ work on earth is done. No one was forcing Jesus to go back to heaven 40 days after Easter. If he had unfinished business, he would have stayed here and completed it. But because he had accomplished his mission to be our Savior by suffering, dying, and rising, he didn’t need to be visibly present anymore. And so he 2
Pastor Tim Patoka Still Connected
Ascension May 16, 2021
went home in heaven. But that doesn’t mean we are left alone. As Jesus promises us in Matthew chapter 28(:20), he is always with us wherever we go. Though visibly absent, Jesus is not truly absent. He remains connected to us and we to him through the connection that the Holy Spirit has established through faith since our baptism. 2) Strengthened through God’s Revealed Knowledge We turn our attention back to the apostles and what they discussed with Jesus shortly before he ascended. “So when they were together with him, they asked, ‘Lord, is this the time when you are going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6 EHV) Raised as Old Testament Jews who connected God’s reputation among the nations with Israel’s prosperity, the apostles were expecting Jesus to show his resurrection glory through Israel’s good fortunes. After all, if that’s the way God had done it for the past 1,500 years, why would he change it now? Listen to what Jesus thought of this idea. “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:7-8 EHV) Jesus first rebukes the apostles for trying to peer into God’s hidden knowledge even if the apostles did it with innocent and good intentions. Jesus then redirects their attention to what God has clearly revealed so that they may be his informed witnesses to the world. I often find that when I teach a Bible class, there are almost as many questions about what the Bible says as what it doesn’t say. Our Lord has revealed a lot to us in his Word, but there are many things he hasn’t told us about, hidden things that we cannot help but be curious about. While not wrong in and of itself, such curiosity can get us into sinful situations. When we read between the lines of God’s written Word, we often come to unbiblical conclusions. When we fixate on the unclear and hard-to-understand aspects of God’s knowledge, we can find ourselves devaluing what has been plainly and publicly said. Because when we allow our curiosity to do these things to us, we endanger our connection with our ascended Savior by taking ourselves away from him. Rather than peer into God’s hidden knowledge, let us instead follow the apostles’ directive and focus on what he has plainly revealed to us. Jesus’ ascension into heaven was not to shroud him in mystery, but to assure us that his work of salvation is done. As we have seen these past 5 months from Christmas through Easter, our Savior has indeed won our salvation and saved us from our sins.
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Pastor Tim Patoka Still Connected
Ascension May 16, 2021
And as we keep our attention on what God has revealed to us, we strengthen our connection to the ascended Lord. The Holy Spirit has already established this connection through the faith he gave us at our baptism. But there’s room for growth. As parents gather their family around God’s Word, your faith grows. As youth study God’s Word in Sunday School, Youth Catechism, and Lifeliners, your faith grows. As young adults participate in campus ministry, your faith grows. As every adult makes Sunday and/or midweek Bible Study a weekly habit, your faith grows. The reason why your faith grows in all these different places is because we gather around the truths revealed to us in God’s Word. And as your faith grows, so does your connection get strengthened to your ascended Savior though he remains visibly absent. Conclusion As we watch Jesus ascend into heaven, we enter a new phase of the church year in which Jesus is no longer visibly present. While this may have us doubt our connection with him, that couldn’t be any further from the truth. In fact, we remain connected to our Savior though not visibly present. This connection between doesn’t depend on his visible presence. Rather, it has already been established by the Holy Spirit through the faith he works in us at our baptism. Through this Spirit-established connection, we then benefit from all the blessings that Jesus’ ascension uniquely brings to us. As we saw how Jesus redirects the apostles’ attention to God’s revealed knowledge, so we also focus on what the Lord has plainly said without trying to peer into what is hidden. This in turn strengthens our connection with our ascended Lord as we grow our faith in him. May we treasure our established and strengthened connection to our ascended Lord so that we when we finally see him visibly present, we may do so rejoicing. Amen.
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