A Sermon for the Ascension of the Lord 2024
The Ascension of the Lord – 5/9/2024
2 Kings 2:5-15
Rev. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion of God’s holy Word for consideration this evening is our Old Testament lesson from the Second Book of Kings in the second chapter with special emphasis on verses nine through twelve which read as follows:
“When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.”[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ, today we mark the Ascension of the Lord, wherein we remember that our Lord Jesus returned to heaven from which He came as He promised and foretold. And, as we learn from the New Testament, this departure of our Lord is not a cause of sorrow. Instead, our Lord promises that this is for your benefit. To be brief, this grants to us a number of things: in His place the Lord sends the Holy Spirit, the Helper.[2] And it is the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us, that is makes us holy and who gives us the very holiness of our Lord Jesus and the gift of faith by which to receive that holy, righteous, gift of Christ’s blood-bought salvation.
Further, our Lord goes to prepare a place for us in heaven.[3] His absence allows us the space needed to do greater things than even our Lord has done.[4] That is to say, the saving Word of the Gospel has been spread beyond Gallilee and Judah and now has been extend to the very ends of the earth. The ascension also validated and seated our Lord in authority and power,[5] put all things under His rule, and proclaimed Him as the head of the Church.[6] Even more, He is now ordained and serves as our eternal High Priest, continually interceded, that is pleading on our behalf to the Father, and mediates between us and the Father.[7] From this place at the right hand of the Father, the Lord bestows on us gifts of the Spirit.[8]
In other words, the work of our Lord was brought to a sort of temporary conclusion in the Ascension, allowing us to have the full benefit of the saving death of our Lord Jesus and the comfort, even the Comforter, that He had promised us.
But it was not just the Lord Jesus who predicted His ascension. By way of example, Eljah was taken to heaven in a whirlwind by way of heavenly chariots. Just as an aside, there is one other example of this sort of bodily taking of someone into heaven in the Old Testament, that of Enoch, of whom we have only a single line describing His going to heaven in Genesis 5.[9] This episode prefigured the Lord’s even greater taking to heaven and there are parallels here to the Lord Jesus.
Elijah, as you may remember from the discussions in the books of the Gospels, was brought up when people were trying to figure out who Jesus was. He as many of the Old Testament prophets, served to point the people of God to the coming Messiah both by their prophetic Word given to them to speak by God and by events of their lives. This event is of the latter sort, of course. Theologians call this Old Testament typology. That is to say, some event in the Old Testament, this is the “type,” corresponds to and points to something in the New Testament, which is the “antitype.” This is all to say, a number of Old Testaments events, commands, rituals are a shadow, really a foreshadowing, of a truth to be revealed fully in the New Testament reality of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The taking of Elijah to heaven is just such a thing. He is taken and, by consequence, Elisha is given the great thing of a having a double portion of the spirit that God visited on Elijah. In the same way, the Lord Jesus being taken away has allowed us to have a number of great blessings, particularly, the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself. And, of course, there is the obvious connection of Jesus who was raised in His body to heaven just as Elijah was taken to heaven.
This is all to make a relatively simple point: nothing about the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus was not planned or not thoroughly thought through by our Lord God. It was all on purpose from beginning to end. The plan was in the works from the beginning. That is to say, our Lord did all that He did and suffered and died for us not by accident, but by way of a divine, that is godly, plan.
So, this event from the time of Elijah served not only to transition from the prophetic ministry of Elijah to his successor Elisha, but also foreshadowed the coming work of Christ in ascending to the Father to accomplish the full work of salvation and provide for us those things we need to endure in this life to the next.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] 2 Kings 2:9-12 English Standard Version.
[2] John 16:7
[3] John 14:2
[4] John 14:12
[5] Mark 16:19, John 6:62
[6] Ephesians 1:15-23
[7] Hebrews 4:14
[8] Ephesians 4:8ff
[9] Genesis 5:24
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