Why Are You Leaving Luke 24:44-53
The reason I picked this scripture is because this past week, Thursday the 13th was the fortieth day after Easter, and 2000 years ago on the fortieth day after Easter, Jesus ascended to heaven.
We know God is infallible. We may not always know or understand why things happen, but God has a perfect plan. God never does something and says, “Oops, shouldn’t have done that.”
Now I admit that when I was young I used to look at the Bible and think there were two things that I wanted to look at God and say, “I think you may have messed up on that one.” One was in the Garden of Eden; “God, you could have saved a lot of problems if you just didn’t put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in there. No tree, no fruit; no fruit, no sin.”
The second situation is this one. Jesus taught and preached for over three years. Witnesses saw him die on the cross and then be buried behind a tomb stone. And then people saw him alive again. For forty days hundreds of people witnessed the risen Jesus; they saw the proof that his death paid our sin debt and the proof that death has no claim over us, the proof we will live forever with God.
I kept thinking that Jesus could have molded the church in the way he wanted. We wouldn’t have different denominations arguing with each other. And everyone would come to Christ because he would be visible and solid, a constant touchable presence for the past 2000 years.
I thought God could have prevented sin from entering the world by just not planting that tree,
or at least by making its fruit inedible. Gods could have prevented the conflict between churches and ensured everyone would believe if he had just left Jesus here, or created us in a way so we would not question or doubt.
I used to think that sounds like a better plan. Know what else it sounds like? It sounds like the robots from the Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov stories I read as a kid. (To those young people here I apologize, you probably never heard of these authors.)
You know what else it sounds like? It sounds like not much of a life. No free will equals no change, no exploration, no growth; no life. God gave us free will because he created us to grow, to experience and to challenge. Robots are not what God wants. God wants us to come to him freely, by our choice. It brings no glory to God if we come to him because we have to, it brings glory to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit when we accept the Son, love the Father, and seek the Holy Spirit because we want to.
I used to ask, why the ascension? One reason is it plays into God’s desire for our faith; John 20:29, “…blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
A second reason for the ascension can be found in the Book of Acts, Acts1:8, “…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria and to all the ends of the earth.”
Genesis 12:1, “The Lord said to Abram ‘Go from your country…to the land I will show you.” 20th century theologian William Beck wrote, “Abram was the Lord’s first missionary to a heathen idolatrous people of Canaan. Jehovah told him to go to a designated land and carry the knowledge of Jehovah to where they never heard of his name.” The prophet Isaiah said this of Israel, Isaiah 49:6, “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
We talked about how ancient Israel didn’t carry this out. God sent Jesus into the world to save it; absolutely, but God also sent Jesus to re-teach us, to clarify and correct the lessons of scripture. God’s plan was always to have his creation reach out to his creation bringing him to all corners of the earth.
God sent Jesus to teach men how to reach out to others. Jesus reached out to the man with leprosy, to an adulterer, to a blind man, a paralyzed man, a crippled woman, a Samarian woman; all outsiders of society. As Christ’s followers we are to reach out to those on the fringe of our society; the homeless, those in prisons, the diseased.
I know as individuals we cannot reach them all, as a church we cannot reach them all; but this should never stop us from reaching out and doing what we can, when we can and how we can.
Jesus ascension allows us to grow in our faith and in our service. Jesus ascension allows us to glorify God through our actions on his behalf.
As I was preparing for this message I came on this about Jesus after his resurrection; John 20:30,
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book.”
This got me thinking and I did a little research. Do you know how many times it’s recorded that Jesus was seen after his resurrection? Ten; ten times in forty days. I would have thought Jesus would be appearing pretty much 24/7 to show the world what he accomplished.
But Jesus had God’s great plan in mind; the same plan that was started in the Garden of Eden; the plan of free choice born out of God the Father’s love.
I believe that even if Jesus was constantly visible for those forty days, or even if he had not gone back to heaven, there still would be those who doubt him. Jesus ascension creates in his follower a deeper, richer belief; a belief not based on what we can touch, but rather a belief based on faith.
Here’s something else for us to think about. How do you suppose people would react to the suffering of others if Jesus were still here? Think of the hungry and the poor. If Jesus were walking in the world don’t you think most people would say, “Let Jesus deal with it.”? At best people would wait for Jesus to tell them what to do. By his ascension Jesus created a faith with him at the center and a faithful community working for men and God as God’s instruments of change.
By acknowledging Jesus as our savior, we can acknowledge the love he has for us and we can show our love for him by reaching out to others. Through the ascension we no longer wait for God to change the circumstances some people live in, through the ascension we are God’s way of changing the circumstances some people live in.
The ascension; like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil in Eden, show us God’s deep love for us demonstrated through his gift of free choice.
The ascension shows us God doesn’t want us to be like pre-programmed robots, coming to him, following him because we have no choice. That brings no honor to God. God wants us to follow him because we want to, because we see the truth of the cross; that is want brings honor to the Creator.
The ascension is God’s way of restarting his plan for the world. The plan of having those who believe in his message, share his message with others. Like Israel before us, we as believers are to spread God’s word, we are to share his love and we are to promote his salvation. It’s the ascension that sets us on the course to do that.
Instead of looking to Jesus to fix all the world’s problems we look to him as our savior; the one who loves us enough to suffer God’s wrath over our sins. The ascension keeps our eyes on Jesus but our actions on earth.
We shouldn’t look to Jesus to fix the world’s problems; we need to look to Jesus to give us the strength to fix the world’s problems. So reach out to others as the instrument God uses to change the world.
Never forget the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:40,“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Look to heaven, believe in Jesus, be open to the Holy Spirit and work for God.
Amen.