See It Through the Ascension Angle

Revelation 5:11-14
May 17, 2007
The Ascension of Our Lord

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

What’s your perspective? What’s your angle when it comes to driving across town? Do you look forward to a drive to Mayfair Mall? From my angle in Whitefish Bay, it’s a terrible drive to have to make. Either you fight your way through the tangle of traffic and stoplights on Silver Spring . . . OR you can swallow hard and white-knuckle it through the Marquette Interchange, and just hope that a Brewers game isn’t letting out at Miller Park. From my angle, it’s an un-enjoyable journey no matter how you drive it.

But from a different angle, it’s not so bad. For someone who’s lived in Chicago or LA, a drive across Milwaukee is like a tiptoe through the tulips. If you’re accustomed to heavy traffic and aggressive driving and commute times of over an hour, well then a drive to Mayfair is like a walk through the park. You simply have to see it from the right angle.

The same thing is true when it comes to the Ascension of our Lord. There are two angles on the ascension. The first is the earthly angle—the perspective of the open-mouthed disciples looking up as the Lord is taken from their sight. This is the perspective that St. Luke gives us. And looking skyward from planet earth, there had to be some uncertainty, some worry and fear for the disciples. When the General takes leave of His troops, the troops have to wonder, “What now? What next? Where do we go from here?” That’s the earthly angle which St. Luke wrote down for our benefit.

But St. John sees it differently. In the book of Revelation, St. John gives us a different angle for seeing the Ascension. In Revelation chapter five we see the Ascension of our Lord from up above. We get a front row seat for what transpires in the heavenly realms when the Risen Christ returns to His heavenly throne, up through endless ranks of angels, to an endless Eastertide. From this angle the sights and sounds are glorious, as angels and archangels and all the company of heaven join their voices in song to the living Lord: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.” From this angle, there’s no uncertainty, no worry, no fear, because Jesus is reigning over heaven and earth.

Beloved in the Lord, that’s the angle for you to have in your heart this Ascension Day. Be invited this day to set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God—where the Lord Jesus is interceding for you and working all things for the good of those who love Him. That’s the prism. That’s the lens. That’s the Ascension angle through which you can see all things.

And yet, that’s not how we see all things. Our sinful nature always sets our sights lower, rather than higher. When Jesus ascended into heaven, the residents of heaven sang that Jesus was worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and praise. Jesus is the rightful, righteous recipient of all that. And yet, we live each day as if we are the ones deserving of power, wealth and wisdom. We’re constantly coveting the strength and honor and praise that only Jesus is worthy to receive. He’s worthy of it all! We’re worthy of none of it.

We’re unworthy because we refuse to see life through the ascension angle. Through the ascension angle we see the living Lord Jesus using all His power, wealth and wisdom for one thing: to accomplish your salvation. He wants to use His mighty strength to carry you through these brief days of sinning and sadness, to carry you through the valley of the shadow of death, to carry you up to meet Him in the clouds of glory. Do you believe that?

If we believed that—if we lived every day of life on earth with the vision afforded us by the Ascension—then surely we would use our power differently. Surely we would manage our wealth differently. Surely we would use our wisdom and strength to bear witness to Jesus, to tell everyone what He has done, and to live each day in the hope that we have in Him.

I want you to see your life through the ascension angle. Because when it comes to your life, there are only two angles through which to see it. Either your life is a sad and meaningless series of unrelated events, or else the risen and ascended Christ is guiding your every step. Either the crosses and hardships you bear have no purpose other than to make you miserable, or else the Lord Jesus is using them to strengthen your faith and draw you closer to Himself. Either the whole world is going straight to hell, or else the man who ascends into heaven is present here and now to save you and serve you and love you. Either your sins are sticking to you like superglue, pulling you down to death and hell, or else Jesus has taken your sins upon Himself, paid your penalty on His crucifixion cross, opening the gates of heaven for you and all who believe.

Can you see that? Can you believe that? If so, then you’re seeing things through the ascension angle. And even if you’re not exactly sure, at least you’re in the right place. Here in the Divine Service is where we see life through the ascension angle most clearly. When we sing “This is the Feast,” we’re singing the song of angels, archangels and all the company of heaven. Here in the Divine Service, the same Jesus who sits at the Father’s right hand, also comes here in the Word of the Gospel, in the Word of His absolution, with His precious body and blood, to open your eyes—to make you see things through the reality of His resurrection and through the angle of His Ascension.

For no matter how weary you may feel tonight—no matter the size of the burdens you carry—Jesus is reigning over heaven and earth. He’s got the whole world—He’s got the little tiny baby—He’s got the wind and the rain—He’s got you and me, brothers and sisters—in His nail-scarred hands. He loves you with a sin-forgiving, death-defying love. Worthy is He to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise, forever and ever. Amen.

Father Knows Best

May 13, 2007
Easter 6C
St. John 16:23-24

[Jesus said:] “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
Have you ever noticed how we talk like the people around us talk? How we tend to pick up the local dialect wherever we may be? I grew up in southeastern Kansas. And in SEK you don’t do the wash, you do the “worsh.” The president doesn’t live in Washington, he lives in “Worshington.” When I lived in St. Louis I learned that two of the major highways there were not Highway forty and Highway forty-four. No, in St. Louis it’s highway “farty,” and highway “farty-far.” In seminary I had classmates who studied abroad in England for a semester. Now, they could have hailed from Possum Tail, Arkansas, but after a few months in the UK they came back sounding like Gregory Peck: “This is the “Wehd of the Lohhhd.” It’s true that we often take on the same manner of speaking as those with whom we associate and live—for better or worse.

But where the manner of speaking is Jesus’ manner of speaking, it’s always for the better. Nowhere does our manner of speaking matter more than when we pray. When we pray, we should pray “in Jesus’ name.” That means our prayers should aim to be the sort of prayers Jesus would pray. Our prayers should follow the pattern set by the Savior. The more closely we travel with Jesus—the more we associate with Him—the more we hear His commands and promises—the more our prayers start to take on the accents of Jesus’ prayers. His divine dialect becomes our own. When the talk you talk is prayer talk, talk like Jesus.

In today’s Holy Gospel Jesus gives us a lesson concerning the parlance of prayer. It was just a little while before Jesus would leave His disciples. In little more than forty days they would see Jesus no more. The intimate personal contact they had known each day would be broken. The lives of the disciples had come to revolve around Jesus. Where Jesus went, they followed. But very soon Jesus would be gone to the Father. And while all this would be for their good, you can imagine the huge gaping hole that would leave in their hearts. Goodbyes are always difficult.
As a true man, Jesus knew this feeling too. Jesus knew that He would need to prepare His disciples for His departure to the Father. And so Jesus gives them the promise of prayer: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. . . . . Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” This must have been wonderful news for the disciples. Because although tangible contact with the visible Jesus would be gone, a deeper, stronger, more inward contact with God was thrown wide open to them: The privilege of prayer in Jesus’ name.

That same privilege—that same strong inward contact with God—that same speaking to God in words and thoughts—has been given to you, so that your joy may be full. “Ask in Jesus’ name and you will receive. Ask in the accents of Jesus. Pray in the parlance of Jesus. Declare your needs in His dialect, and you will receive.”
It used to be that we Christians were often ridiculed for taking Jesus at His Word—for praying with faith in Jesus’ name and expecting those prayers to be answered. “Yeah, right!” the world used to say. But in recent years I’ve noticed that prayer has become the property of nearly all people. Hindus, Budhists, Muslims, Jews, Shamins, Unitarians, New-agers—everybody it seems has jumped onto the prayer bandwagon. Secular research seems to show that prayer gets results. And since the ends justify the means, then prayer can be the means for all people—each to His own “god.”

But notice that Jesus says nothing about “God” in today’s text. He doesn’t use that ambiguous term. Our prayers aren’t addressed to some generic divine being. Our prayers—your prayers—are addressed to the Father. That, beloved in the Lord, makes all the difference in the world, all the difference between life and death. It’s only because God has come to be your Father that you can pray to Him. Only because Jesus has taken your sins on Himself and wiped them out by His crucifixion cross and His glorious resurrection, can you stand before God as a forgiven and loved child in Christ. Connected with Christ as children of God, we can pray to the Father with boldness and confidence. Apart from Christ—apart from His redeeming work—God is no one’s Father. The so-called prayers of the Christ-less are nothing more than empty, undeliverable words—shot skyward like a bottle rocket, only to fall again to earth.

But what about your prayers, you child of God? It’s easy to criticize the prayers of pagans. It leaves us feeling perhaps a bit smug—a little self-righteous. We need to be careful that our prayers don’t wind up sounding like the Pharisee who prayed, “I thank Thee God that I’m not like those other folks.” Prayer requires an empty heart and empty hands. But in the Pharisee’s heart and hands there was no room—no room for God to come and do His thing. The Pharisee felt no lack, no need. His prayer was really a summons for God to come and admire Him. Better by far was the brief prayer of the tax collector, who beat his breast in repentance and simply said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

To pray in that way is to pray in the name of Jesus. “Ask the Father in my name,” Jesus says, “and you will receive.” Now, some of you are no doubt saying to yourselves, “I’ve asked for lots of things in Jesus’ name, and I haven’t received them.” That may be true. But what kind of a loving father gives his children everything they ask for? Because your heavenly Father loves you, He will only give you those things that are for your good—those things that draw you closer to Jesus, in whose name alone we pray aright.

I’m here to tell you that even when our Father refuses, out of love, to give us that particular thing for which we’re asking, that prayer is not “unanswered.” Take the old example of little Billy asking his mother for a sharp knife to play with. Little Billy wants to have fun playing with the knife. His mother refuses to give him the knife, but she still grants the heart of Billy’s request. Billy thought he would be happy playing with the knife. Mom knew he would be happier not playing with it. Little Billy’s happiness has been granted, even though he may pout for an hour and believe that he has the worst mother in the world. So, too, your prayers to your Father in heaven never go unanswered. Your Father always knows best.

Your Father always answers your prayers in His own way, in His own time. The Bible contains lots of examples of these prayers. When Lazarus lay dying, his sisters, Mary and Martha, sent word to their best friend, Jesus, for help. But Jesus got held up, and Lazarus died. Of course, you know what happened four days later. St. Paul was afflicted with a thorn in the flesh and prayed three times to be cured of it. God didn’t take away that thorn, but He strengthened Paul to bear it and to boast in all his weaknesses. And on this Mothers’ Day you should know about a Christian mother named Monica. Monica prayed forty years for her unbelieving, prodigal son. And her son was finally gripped by Christ and became the great man of God we know as St. Augustine. But it’s his mother, Santa Monica, after whom the boulevard in front of our church is named.

Prayer is only prayer when the requests are made in Jesus’ name—with faith in Him. No Jesus, no prayer, and no Father to hear our requests. But with Jesus, cleansed by His blood, hearing His Word, washed in His Baptism, receiving His Supper—with Jesus—you can pray with all boldness and confidence, just as dear children ask their dear father.

To pray in Jesus’ name is to talk in the Jesus way—speaking in His parlance, His dialect, His accent. When you pray in the Jesus way, you can ask without reservation—without hesitation. When you ask for what God has promised, God has to give you what you ask for: things like faith and the forgiveness of your sins, the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting. God has promised you those things and, in prayer, you can hold Him to His promise.

Today we have primarily talked about prayer as asking, but of course it’s more than just asking. Prayer is our whole response to God’s work in our lives: our deliverance from sin, death and hell by the blood of Jesus. Jesus has overcome the world. And as we breathe in His love and mercy, we are able to breathe out our love and worship to Him in prayer. He is your Father. You are His child. And your Father always, always knows best. Amen.