Ascension
2018 (May 10, 2018)
“God Has
Gone Up with a Shout” (Psalm 47)
Psalm 47 is our text this evening. It has been labeled an “enthronement” psalm. Picture the ark of the covenant taking its
place in Jerusalem after dwelling in the house of Obed-edom. 2 Samuel 6:15 records for us, “So David and
all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with
the sound of the horn.” God sits there
on his holy throne, as the ark is described earlier in the same chapter, “the
ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned
on the cherubim” (2 Sam. 6:2). As an
“enthronement” psalm, it’s appropriate that we sing it tonight as we celebrate
the ascension of our Lord Jesus forty days after he rose from the dead. A cloud received Jesus from the sight of the
apostles, and he takes his place at the right hand of the Father, his divine
royal throne. Not a literal place in the
heavens, but the position of all rule and authority in the universe.
GOD HAS
GONE UP WITH A SHOUT
God has gone up with a shout. He was enthroned upon the ark of the covenant
as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The
psalm presents him as the King of the Jews.
It refers to the conquest of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. “He subdued peoples under us, and nations
under our feet.” It also refers to the
“Promised Land” and how the land was apportioned to each of the tribes. “He chose our heritage for us, the pride of
Jacob whom he loves.” And the point in
all this is that Israel did nothing to deserve any of of this. They were not superior to any other nation. They had done nothing to earn God’s favor. It was all a gift of his grace.
But he is not merely the King of the Jews. He is the King of the Nations. “The Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a
great king over all the earth … God reigns over the nations; God sits on his
holy throne.” Not just Jerusalem. Not just the Promised Land. He is King over all, whether the subjects
realize it or not. He sets up leaders
and nations and brings them down according to his will.
Think of all the nations and kingdoms that have
come and gone over time. Egypt was once
a great world power, but not longer has the same authority it once did. Babylon was mighty, but its territory has been
divided. Even the discovery of massive
oil resources has failed to restore any of the nations in that region to
dominant positions on the world stage.
Greece and Rome, once wonders of mankind, faded away and fell to other
conquering states. In more recent
history, the Soviet Union seemed to topple overnight. And even our own United States, though at the
pinnacle of its power, is in serious moral decline and may not escape the
divine law of history, as recorded by King Solomon, “Righteousness exalts a nation,
but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).[1]
There’s another way of looking at
this phrase, “God has gone up with a shout.”
It could refer to the lifting of the cloud of glory from the ark in the
tabernacle. When they were camped in the
wilderness after the Lord rescued them from Egypt, they were led by a pillar of
cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
When the cloud lifted from the tabernacle, it indicated that God was
leading his people forward. It was time
to set out for a new place of encampment on their way to the Promised
Land. When the cloud settled down once
again over the ark and the tabernacle, the people were to settle down (see Exodus
40:36-38). God always went before his
people to lead them. As long as they relied
on him, it was the Lord who fought the battles for them and was victorious for
them.
JESUS HAS
GONE UP
Jesus went before us. From his baptism and temptation in the
wilderness all the way to the cross, he fought the battle with Satan, sin, and
death for us … and won. He was
victorious for us. Now, he has gone
before us in his Ascension. His Ascension
is his enthronement as King of Kings. He
is still present with us, as he promised, “I am with you always.” He is present with his Church through the
preached Gospel and the Sacraments. And
he continues to lead us forward. We head
out to new places of encampment, to ventures unknown, all the while knowing
that the Promised Land in eternity awaits us … the new heaven and new earth
that God has promised to all who are baptized and who trust in Christ as
Savior. In the Ascension of our Lord, we
get a preview of what awaits us. This is
how one of our Ascension hymns puts it, one that we’ll be singing on Sunday:
On Christ’s ascension I now build
The hope of my ascension;
This hope alone has always stilled
All doubt and apprehension;
For where the Head is there as well
I know His members are to dwell
When Christ shall come and call them.
Since Christ returned to claim His throne,
Great gifts for me obtaining,
My heart will rest in Him alone,
No other rest remaining;
For where my treasure went before,
There all my thoughts will ever soar
To
still their deepest yearning. (LSB 492:1-2)
We can rest in the grace of Christ
now. Confident in his care. Confident in his control. Confident in the power of his Gospel to save
us. This is why “repentance and
forgiveness of sins [are] proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). This is why we support our congregations where
that message is proclaimed and our missionaries who bear that message near and
far.
We will rest once and for all when Christ
returns. He will return just as he departed,
as the two men in white robes said to the apostles, “This Jesus, who was taken
up from you in to heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into
heaven.” He will come on the clouds,
just that cloud of glory in the wilderness, a sign that all who are baptized
into his death and resurrection and who trust in him will finally be able to
settle down in the eternal Promised Land.
On that day, everyone will bow before him. Some in joy.
Some in terror, if they have stubbornly resisted the truth of
Jesus. But ultimately, there will be
people from all tribes and nations gathered as “the people of the God of
Abraham.” Toward the end of the psalm,
we hear that “The princes of the people gather as the people of the God of
Abraham.” This was foretold all the way
back in Genesis. The Lord told Abraham,
“in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). We are all children of Abraham by faith in
the Messiah, as St. Paul says in Romans 4, “the promise [rests] on grace and
[is] guaranteed to all his offspring – not only to the adherent of the law but
also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all”
(Rom. 4:16) … the faith that trusts God’s promises and which is counted to us as
righteousness.
So, clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! God has
gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! And Christ has ascended and now rules and
reigns for the good of his Holy Church.
Amen.
[1] Thoughts
in this paragraph adapted from Boice, J. M. (2005). Psalms 42–106: An
Expositional Commentary (p. 396). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
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