The Ascension of our Lord – Thursday, May 13, 2010

Colossians 3:1-4 - Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³ For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

“Look where you’re going.” That’s good advice – whether you are on the road, walking down the hall, on the football field, or just about anywhere else. When we get distracted we stumble, run into things, stub toes, get lost, or hurt someone. Just ask the captain of the Titanic, the deer in the back of the pickup truck, or the child who bumps his head because he thought he would walk with his eyes closed.

“Look where you’re going.” That’s what Paul says to us in our lesson this evening: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” So let me ask you: Have you been looking where you are going?

The Festival of the Ascension of our Savior gives us opportunity to be reminded that we need to look where we are going; to be reminded that we need to seek the heavenly. After all, the purpose of Jesus ascension is to assure us that there is a place for us to go in heaven. That is what Jesus declared when he said to his disciples of all times, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:2,3).

Cherish that truth: the almighty, exalted Son of man is busy preparing a place in his heavenly kingdom for you.

Therefore, let your ascension worship this evening remind you to look where you are going and seek the heavenly.

Up until this chapter, the Apostle Paul has been talking about how, in baptism, the Christian is buried and raised with Christ. When the Holy Spirit, whether at your baptism or later in life, brought you to faith he joined you to Christ and made you personal sharers in Christ’s death and resurrection. In his letter to the Romans Paul put it this way, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead…we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3,4). In other words, having been brought to faith in Jesus, God regards Christ’s death as if it was our very own death and credits it to each one of us. In this we have been rescued from the lifeless slavery of sin and unbelief and now have the life-filled freedom won by Christ. We have been set free from the eternal death we deserve, and have received the promise of eternal life the Son of God secured by his own resurrection. Having been buried with Christ in Baptism and raised with him through faith, a change has occurred. Or, in the words of our text, since we have been raised with Christ we are to set our mind on things above. Or, to look at it another way, listen to how Luther put it:

If…you have apprehended by faith the resurrection of Christ and have received its power and consolation, and so are risen with Him, that resurrection will surely be manifest in you; you will feel its power, will be conscious of its working within. The doctrine will be something more than words; it will be truth and life.

So has there been much change in your life? Have you set your mind on things above? Are the ways of the world and the cravings of the sinful flesh the former things or the current things? Have our eyes lifted from the concerns and passions of this life to focus on the next? Have your eyes turned from sin to forgiven service to one another? Are you looking were you are going? Are you seeking the heavenly?

Are we living like this is the only life we have, or are we living this life in the joyous expectation of a better one to come? Is Christ priority number one – that is, do you desire Him in Word and Sacrament more than anything else – or are you priority number one? Are you standing in grace or walking in sin? How much thought does your relationship with God get throughout your busy day?

These are hard questions, aren’t they? We don’t like them, do we? And why? Because we know the answers, and the answers are embarrassing. No, the answers are worse than that, the answers are condemning. We haven’t sought the things above nearly as much as we’ve obsessed about the things below! We’ve raced our kids around to every activity under the sun, or sat and grumbled about our aches and pains, or fretted over the falling dollar and staggering economy, or gotten consumed with issues at work, or filled our lives with toys to pass the time, but when it comes to setting our minds on heavenly things, well, we say, “Who has time for that?” Truth is, far too often we haven’t been looking where we’re going, and so we stumble into sin, run into hard times, feel completely lost, or hurt someone. And then we have the guts to ask, “Where is God?” “Why isn’t he doing something about this?” And God says, “I’m right here. I haven’t gone anywhere. I gave you eyes and a mind, didn’t I? Maybe you should use them.”

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” God wants us to get the order right. When our spiritual life is a mess everything gets messy. Just think, with Christ we struggle hard enough against temptation, pride, anger, greed, envy, apathy, and selfishness. Without Christ we are helpless. Only trouble can follow.

Don’t get me wrong, the world God has given us is a lovely place. I am not suggesting that we become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. In fact, to the Thessalonians who had begun to live that way Paul said, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). So we will work. We will buy things. We will go on hikes in the mountain and stop to smell the roses too. We can play with toys, have a good time, live in a nice house and drive a nice car. It’s ok to like a lot of things in this world, and that is good, God created them for us to enjoy. But we must always, always remember that there is something that none of these creatures or creations can do! None can take the place of their Creator. None can fill the hole in our hearts carved out from the fall into sin and made bigger by our daily sinning. None can restore a relationship with our God that we destroy with our nonstop rebellion. None can promise anything better than a hole in the ground and an eternity of burning.

Only our Loving Father can promise us a future beyond things that spoil. Only our Loving Father can eternally heal us of sin, rebellion and death. Only our Loving Father can provide a purpose and a meaning to life that goes beyond the next fad, or our next goal, or that hole in the ground. Only our Loving Father can do that because it is our Loving Father who sent his Son Jesus to earth for one reason: to save sinners just like you and me. And he did. All of Scriptures testify to this fact. There on the cross our relationship with our Maker was restored as Jesus exchanged places with us. There with his death, our sin was put to death. And remember, we have been baptized into his death! And why is that? Because his death won us life! His death paid our sins! His death opened heaven! And now, victorious and resurrected, He has ascended to the right hand of the Father. Why? Because that is where we belong; and he is getting thing ready.

This now means that the practical everyday affairs of our lives get their direction from Christ in heaven. It means that we are to look at earth from heaven’s point of view. It means we will want to live up to what Christ has done for us; letting our earthly practice be worthy of our heavenly position. It means we will want to look where we are going.

This life is but a blink of an eye, and the stuff of this life are leftovers compared to the riches stored up for us in heaven. How foolish we would be to trade the eternal for the temporal, the real thing for the knock-off, the living for the dying, the satisfying for the dissatisfying.

Look where you are going. And Christ makes no doubt about where you are going when you are his. He ascends with arms outstretched in welcoming blessing before. He will descend with arms outstretched to welcome us who have, by faith, kept our minds on him. So keep your heads us. Why? “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Amen.