Rev. John Heuss was the rector of Trinity, Wall Street in the mid-20th century and I came across one of his Ascension Day sermons and wanted to commend it to you. –Rev. Zac

From his book Our Christian Vocation

Entitled “Up into Glory”

This same Jesus…[was] received up into glory (Acts 1:11; 1 Timothy 3:16)

What a startling contrast Ascension Day is to the rest of the Gospel story! From Christmas to Good Friday, we were with the earthly Jesus. Easter Day brought proof that He was more than man. On Ascension Day we behold the sublime climax of the drama. Lo! He is received up into glory. Christ is enthroned at last in His rightful place. As St. Peter wrote, “…on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers…made subject unto Him” (1 Peter 3:22).

The Christ who now reigns in splendor above Creation may never again be thought about only as the beloved carpenter of Galilee. Forevermore He is Christ the King. He is Lord of Heaven and Earth. He is Judge of quick and dead. He is coeternal with the Father. 

This is why Michaelangelo chided those who painted Jesus only as He was on earth:

Why should He still be shown on every side,

Painted and preached, in nought but agony,

Whose pains were light matched with His victory,

When the world’s power to harm Him was defied?

Why rather speak and write not of the realm

He rules in heaven, and soon will bring below,

Unto the praise and glory of His name?

Ah, foolish crowd! The world’s thick vapours whelm

Your eyes, unworthy of that glorious show,

Blind to His splendour, bent upon His shame.

Ascension Day has many lessons to teach us Christian people. Today I dwell upon only one. Notice how the Ascension demonstrates the remarkable consistency of God.

In the first place, there is a conspicuous similarity between the way Jesus came into the world and the manner of His return to Heaven. Christmas Day and Ascension Day have much in common. Both occurred in tiny villages. Christ was born in Bethlehem. He ascended into Heaven at Bethany. There is even a resemblance between the names.

How far apart do you think these little hamlets were? Only about six miles. Stop to consider for a moment the lesson we have here. The greatest human being who has ever lived left this earth a few miles from the place where He was born. Distance does not make greatness. Distinction is not a quantitative matter. Judged by any quantitative standards, the life of Jesus Christ did not amount to much; He was only thirty when He died. He never owned what He could not wear on His back. He lived His whole life in a small province on the edge of the Roman Empire. He never wrote a book. He had only a handful of loyal friends. Yet the quality of His greatness was such that it touched in one sweeping arc the whole experience of mankind. Christ did not have to make a place for Himself in the City of Rome to be remembered. Bethany was just as good a place to make His last appearance.

When God came into the world, He came unobtrusively. When he returned to His throne in Heaven, He left earth in the same modest, unassuming way.

There is a second example of the consistency of God. When he was born, only a few people knew that a King had come. When He ascended, scarcely more witnessed His departure. Gentle Mary, humble Joseph, a few shepherds, and three Wise Men were the only ones to stand before Jesus in the manger. On the Mount of Olives, eleven disciples say “a cloud receive Him out of their sight.”

Have you ever marveled at what that speaks about God? The greatest things God brings to pass are done quietly. The sun rises in the morning and makes no sound as it breaks upon the world with all its splendid glory. The seasons come and go in utter silence. Yet time in its passing bears all the sons of man away with it.

How different all of this is from the ways of men. In our foolishness, we expect each great event to be attended by a fanfare. When we do something we think important, we summon the people, call a solemn assembly, gather the multitude together, and, nowadays, hire a publicity director. What a rebuke the Ascension is to the headline hunters of our day. Instead of playing to the gallery in newspapers and television as tiresome little men do in order to advance their petty ambitions, behold the consistent modesty of God! He climbed the throne of Heaven and allowed it to be reported merely as “a cloud received Him out of their sight.” One cannot help wishing that certain well-known contemporary Americans would take a hint from God’s ways of doing things and take advantage of any cloud that would remove them permanently from our gaze.

God does not show His hand in spectacular displays of power. He does not astonish in order to compel men to acknowledge Him. He makes Himself quietly available. He welcomes those who, like the Wise Men, are wise enough to seek Him out. He slips into life gently in a thousand ways. Then He silently withdraws. 

Many are the things which are certain about God’s ways, but none is more certain than that, underneath everything He does, there is the quality of dependable consistency. The fact of God’s reliability acts as a great bolster to our faith. 

What is it that you like most about a true friend? A friend is one whom you like but not only like. A friend is one upon whom you can rely to be the same kind of person all the time. A man becomes your friend after you have had time to witness again and again the working of certain traits of character which you gradually come to know will always be the same. A friend is someone you can always trust. You can pay no higher tribute to anyone you know than to say of him, “No matter what happens, this man remains the same.”

Now think for a moment about the words of Scripture I selected as a text. I am always gladdened when I read them. They are spoken by the angel to the apostles at the moment of the Ascension: “…this same Jesus…”

I do not know how each of you really thinks about God. I suppose, in spite of the fact that all of you are Christians, there would be, if the truth were known, quite a variety of thoughts among you about what God is like. But I do know what the Church believes about Him. It believes that even though Christ is received up into glory and that–

The highest place that heaven affords

Is his, is his by right,

The King of kings, and Lord of lords

And Heaven’s eternal Light. —Hymn 106, v2 (1940 Hymnal)

Nevertheless this is “the same Jesus” who said “Let the little children come unto mean and forbid them not.” This is “the same Jesus” who stretched forth His hand to heal the sick. This is “the same Jesus” who forgave a woman in adultery. This is “the same Jesus” who held out His loving arms unto the whole world and said, “Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” This is “the same Jesus” who now enthroned at the right hand of the Majesty on High, still stretches forth His hands in eternal welcome to all who will come to Him. 

He is no stern, terrifying deity who rules unmovably over all His universe.

It is true that Christ gloriously reigns in Heaven now. But we need have no fear of Him. He is a consistent God. When He comes again to be our Judge, the same loving understanding of our weaknesses will prevail as prevailed when He lived amongst us as a man. Indeed, the Ascension of Christ means one great comfort-bringing fact. Our own weak human nature has been exalted. Christ on the throne of Heaven is still a man. The Father will not look upon my human frailty except as He sees what it has become in the person of His beloved Son.

There is a third thing to be remembered about the consistency of God which Ascension Day makes clear. People today pay little attention to it; yet we Church members should. Christ had an existence before He was born in Bethlehem. His Birth was not His beginning. His Birth was His Incarnation. The Son is co-eternal with the Father. From the beginning Christ was. The brief span of thirty years in which Jesus lived on earth was a short episode in His continuing being. God sent His Son to be the Redeemer of the world. This was His task on earth. All that is over now. It ended when Christ died upon the Cross saying, “Father, it is finished. Into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Yet the work of the ascended Lord is not finished. “He still liveth to make intercession for us.” When Christ ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, God showed His consistency again in restoring His Son to His rightful pre-existent glory. 

Again, this act of reliability on the part of God is the chief foundation stone on which we Christians rest our personal hope of life eternal. It means no less than this: If God restored Jesus to life in the Resurrection and then followed this up by restoring Him to the glory He once had enjoyed before He humbled Himself to become a man at Bethlehem, then we can believe that God will be just as consistently reliable when it comes our time to die.

We mortal creatures did not share Christ’s pre-existence before we were born. But when God created man, He made him in His own perfect image. Each of us share the original perfection which God gave to man. If we live with honor, if we strive to do our best, if above all we keep our faith strong in God through the example we have in Christ, then God will raise us also from the dead and restore us to His perfect image. We shall not sit on the throne of Heaven. But we shall be made worthy to worship before that throne.

What did the disciples do immediately after the Ascension? Luke gives the fitting answer:

And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up to heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. (Luke 24:51-53)

The vision of the Ascended Lord is a call to worship. That is why we celebrate Ascension Day with special pomp amidst the glorious ministry of music, colorful pageantry, and song.

Let us now here, as we soon shall in Heaven, draw near unto the throne.