Sermon Notes: The Ascension of Jesus 2020

The Road to Glory

 

Acts 1.6-14

1 Peter 4.12-14; 5.5-11

John 17.1-11

 

Prayer of Invocation

Father, Your blessed Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ descended into our darkness and brokenness, our waywardness and rebellion,  so that we might know You and be healed by Your love; and He ascended to heaven to bring us near to You through the ministry of the Holy Spirit; He sits at Your right hand reconciling all things to Yourself and caring for Your world and Your people: we ask You to give us faith to see this, that He sits on the throne and guides, protects and provides for his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; and that you would give us faith to delight in this truth, that we share in the fellowship that you have with Your Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we pray, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Prayer of Illumination

We cannot know you, Lord, through the wisdom and common sense of this age.  For your wisdom, Your gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing. But for those who are being saved, the foolishness of the gospel is the Good News of Your reign and your salvation. Knowing You is a gift. So, by your Spirit, we pray that you would impart to us Your secret wisdom--that in and through Jesus You are reconciling all things, healing all things; and enable us to receive your wisdom and then walk in it. For your glory, and for the life of the world. 

Homily

The hour had come. It was time to manifest what was true--that she might know, and that I might know; that we might know;  that the whole world might know. (I was 12 years old; my world was pretty small.)

The plan was straight forward. I would get on my bike and make the three-mile journey to her house. I would pass by her house over and over again until she spotted me from her upstairs window. When she saw me, I would then show her my glory, my biking skills glory--how I could hop over the sidewalk, pop a wheelie, ride with no hands, etc. As she gazed at my glory, this would surely melt her heart; and it would obviously communicate to her that I thought she was the one; that we should be one. To draw on the language of Jesus in the Gospel of John, when I hopped on my bike and began riding to her house, I was on the road to glory--the road to manifesting what was in my heart, the road which would reveal what was in her heart. For I was about to reveal who I was, what I wanted; she was about to know who I was, and I was about to know who she was and that she wanted me as well.  We would both know--the whole world would soon know. 

My road to glory came crashing down, literally. I made it to the house; she saw me from her window; I hopped over the sidewalk--but when I elevated the front tire, I quickly learned that the wheel was not properly fastened to the fork; the wheel  fell off, and I went flying, face-first into a chain-linked fence which left and diamond shape cut on my face, and gave me a fat lip. 

The hour had come; and I was utterly humiliated, embarrassed, revealed to be a total loser. As I scrambled to find my wheel and re-attach it to my bike, I could see her through the window laughing at me. That’s how it ended. I was nothing but a fool; that was my glory. 

You may have noticed that the words “glory” and “glorify” make frequent appearances in our Gospel reading (John 17) and our epistle reading (1 Peter). Just prior to his heinous murder, Jesus prays, ‘Father, glorify your Son that the Son may glorify You’ (17.1).  He adds, ‘I have glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do, now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had before the world existed’ (17.4-5). Glory is a major theme in the Gospel of John. In the introduction to the Gospel, Jesus’ mission is described as a glory-fest. The Word that was in the beginning and that was with God became flesh and tabernacled with us. Exodus 40 reminds us that the glory of God filled the tabernacle; now that glory is manifested in the walking, living, breathing tabernacle of Jesus Christ. This is why John immediately follows what he has said about Jesus tabernacling with us with the line: ‘we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth’.  This is the mission of Jesus--to take what He knows and give it to others; to share what it delights in; to  make known, to manifest, to reveal, to show, to explain, to demonstrate who His life of love with the Father.  ‘No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father’s  side, he has made him known’ (1.18). 

Did you catch that? ‘The only God who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’. The ascension. We will come back to that in a minute. 

Peter also uses this word glory--three times in the verses we read. As long as you share in Christ’s sufferings, you also get to share in His glory when it is revealed (1 Pet 4.13). The Spirit is further exposed with the phrase ‘of glory’, revealing that it is the Spirit's work to make known to us the name, or reputation, of Christ (4.14). And towards the end of the letter, Peter reminds us that we have been called to God’s eternal glory in Christ, through suffering (5.10). 

But what does this all mean? What does it mean to be called to eternal glory? What is God’s glory? When I try to understand what the Bible means by the terms ‘glory’ and ‘glorify’ the image of Barry Sanders comes to mind. He was this unbelievably elusive running back for the Detroit Lions. Just when you think you had him, poof, he was gone. Getting a grasp on the meaning of “glory” is kind of like that. The Hebrew word for glory means heavy, weighty--and yet God’s glory is often characterized in the OT as being in a cloud or as smoke! In the NT glory can mean a favorable opinion, it can mean the act of praise. It can also refer to the act of being recognized for one’s status or performance. Sometimes ‘honor’ is a synonym of glory. But often ‘glory’ means that something that was previously unknown or unseen has now been made visible, known. 

Do you feel the tension? How can ‘glory’ be associated with humiliation and shame? Jesus’ road to glory runs straight through the humiliating, embarrassing, dehumanizing cross. In fact, the point that Jesus makes in John is that it is precisely at this point that the Father and Jesus are glorified. This is not the way we think about glory. Glory is winning the battle. Glory is Michael Jordan on the floor, hugging his trophy. Glory is Joe Exotic standing on the hood of his truck singing “I saw a tiger, and the tiger saw a man”. Glory is everyone oohing and aaahing at power, domination, shock and awe. 

But not here in John.  God’s glory is manifested in the shocking humiliation of Jesus Christ. 

This is because God’s glory is His life of love, his life of life-giving. And this is what Jesus has made known. Jesus extends the life of God to us. Jesus manifests the love of God to us. To know Jesus, is to know the love of the Father. To know that Father is to know eternal life. Jesus, in his suffering and humiliation, made known who God is and what God wants. 

‘Glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed’, Jesus prays in John 17.5. What is that glory? John 17.24-26 reveals that the glory that Jesus is talking about is the love that He delighted in before the foundation of the world. Jesus’ delight is the eternal never-beginning and never-ending love of the Father. But here is the amazing thing: he didn’t keep it to himself. And it is here where we see God’s glory! Rather than take and keep for himself, Jesus suffered humiliation and shame so that we might be reunited to God’s life and enjoy what he enjoys. This is God’s glory. This is life-giving life. This is what we have been called to--a life of enjoyment in what Jesus enjoys. 

This prayer in John 17 reveals the deepest desire of Jesus--that we might delight in the love that he delights in. That through His acts of love, we might come to know what He knows; that He would be glorified so that the Father might be glorified. 

Fellowship. Koinonia. Communion. Together. This is the glory of God. 

And the ascension is the proof. Jesus is at the Father’s side, once again delighting in His love. He has completed His mission. 

Jesus’ crucifixion was not a crash that revealed his foolishness; rather it was the very manifestation of God’s glory, His othering love; God needs nothing; he does not need our service and worship; he has life in himself--and so much so that it overflows as a fount of blessing. God’s glory is super-abundant, self-giving love; and in Christ we are invited to come and delight in what Jesus delights in. 

What is our proper response to the ascension of Jesus? What is a fitting way to celebrate the mission that Jesus has accomplished? How might we commemorate this day? Delight! Gratitude. Pausing and saying, ‘ah’; and “thank you”. Taking a moment to enjoy that which Jesus has enabled: onenesss; togetherness: ‘that they might be one even as we are one.’ (John 17.11).

So on this first Sunday back together. Let’s pause to delight in one another. Let’s delight in our communion with God. In the life we share with one another, and with God. For it is our delight that glorifies (makes known, manifests, shows, explains, demonstrates) who  Jesus is and what He has done for us. (John 17.10-11).