Jesus in heaven

[AI translation] I know very well that even many people of faith are confused about the event we are commemorating today. After all, we all live in the world of natural sciences, and from this point of view, the fact that Jesus "ascended into heaven" is as inconceivable and inexplicable as the fact that he "was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary". This ascension to heaven does not fit in at all with the worldview of the modern mind. Long ago, when the world was still imagined in the form of a storey, and the heavenly world of God was sought by human faith somewhere above the starry heavens, the miracle of one ascending to heaven was more plausible. But we now know that even the most modern rocket would take about 162,000 years to reach the nearest star to us. At what unimaginable speed would Jesus have had to ascend to heaven?Well, this kind of idea of ascension is obviously wrong. Just look at the description of the event itself, it is not some flamboyant apotheosis [glorification] as in pagan myths, but the whole scene is nothing more than a very modest and simple reference to Jesus being with the Father! As our Word says: "We have an Advocate with the Father, the true Jesus Christ" (1 John 2:1) He was lifted up, but not far away, not high up, but only as it were separated from this visible world of earth, and immediately "a cloud caught Him out of their sight". You remember that on the mount of transfiguration, when Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah, two heavenly beings, "a cloud came up and overshadowed them, and they were afraid when they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, "This is my beloved Son, listen to him! (Lk 9,34-35) In the Old Testament there is also mention of such a cloud: when Moses receives the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai, God speaks to Moses from the cloud: the Old Testament people wandering through the wilderness are also guided by God in a pillar of cloud.
The cloud, then, in the language of the Bible, is not the cloud from which rain or snow falls, but a symbol of the presence of the invisible God. So when Jesus was hidden from view by that cloud, it does not mean that He travelled great distances through the clouds that were flying high above until He finally reached the Father in heaven. No! The disciples only perceived that the One they had just seen was no longer visible! But it was not because of distance that they could not see Him, but because He was hidden from their sight by a cloud of divine invisibility. The "cloud hid him from their sight" (Acts 1,9) is a symbolic expression of the fact that Jesus has entered the invisible world of God, heaven, which cannot be expressed in any other human words. He has passed through, entered eternity, the world of the pure here and now, the unlimited here-and-now. Into the divine existence of the eternal "here" independent of the space and the eternal "now" independent of the passage of time. So, by his ascension into heaven he fulfilled the very promise he made as his last words on earth: "I am with you always, even to the end of the world" (Mt 28,20). But only a symbol! For it is written that God cannot be received even in the heavens of heaven. (1Kir 8,27) For the Father, to whom Jesus "ascended", is a Spirit, and as such is not bound to a place. So when we speak of ascension, we must disregard any spatial concept.
So the so-called ascension is the expression, within human conceptual possibilities, of our faith, of our happy and triumphant faith that Jesus is with the Father, that Jesus in His glorified post-resurrection body is now in heaven. In this respect, therefore, His ascension does not represent a new turn in comparison with His resurrection from the dead. For look: where was Jesus during the forty days after Easter, when he appeared here and there to the disciples? Did he live alone somewhere in some unknown place in Palestine, from where he sometimes visited the disciples? No! Even then he was with the Father, and "from there", from the Father, from heaven, he made himself visible to his disciples from time to time. So, in fact, he had already gone up to the Father with his resurrection. What happens on this fortieth day after Easter is that the risen Jesus, by a symbolic gesture, the raising up, let his followers know that this was his last visible appearance on earth.
What is new, then, what begins now, what begins on this fortieth day, is that a new age of communion with Him is about to begin: an age of the deepest spiritual communion instead of the bodily communion of the past, an age of faith instead of sight, until this earth will see Him again, coming on the clouds of heaven - the clouds again! - in great power and glory. So we are now living in between two times: behind us is the time of seeing (the disciples saw His glory), - before us is also the time of "seeing" (we will see Him as He is), and in between, that is, now: the time of walking in faith is for us. Now we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes: in the faith that Jesus is with the Father. I said at the very beginning that Jesus' ascension is just as confusing as His virgin birth. Well, the two are indeed closely related. The virgin birth is the miracle of the beginning of the divine revelation in Him, and the ascension is the miracle of the end of the divine revelation in Him. The virgin birth expresses that Jesus is "from above", from the Father; the ascension confirms the same: Jesus is "above" with the Father. Jesus is Someone who is from God and with God: He came from heaven and returned to heaven. Jesus, the Jesus of Whom Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote as an eyewitness, the Jesus who walked the earth, the Jesus who died crucified on the cross on the hilltop of Jerusalem called Golgotha. This Jesus is indeed a heavenly One, a heavenly phenomenon, a divine being, an eternal God! If this wonderful heavenly Someone suffered and died there on the cross for our sins, then we are saved! Then all our debts are paid, then all the powers of Satan-hell-sin-death are defeated! Then all things are truly "finished" that are necessary for one who believes in Him not to perish but to have eternal life!
So Jesus is in heaven with the Father. But our Word says even more than that. It says: "we have an Advocate with the Father"! That is, Jesus is in heaven with the Father as our Advocate. So he didn't go to heaven like someone who finally retires after doing a lot of work. Jesus in heaven is our Advocate, our advocate, our representative, our defender. On earth we know very well what it means when someone is well connected, when someone wants to make a case in some office or university admission, and they may think, I have a good man there, an influential advocate, I'll tell him. He'll certainly get it done! Well, just think what it means to have a good man in the highest place where our fate is decided, where the ultimate verdict on our lives is pronounced, in heaven! A wonderful protector. A loving Friend! Jesus! The Jesus Who died here on earth from the wounds He received in the struggle for us. If anyone can do something for us, it's Him! And He does it all for us!
So says our foundational hymn, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father"! And who does not sin continually? For that is precisely why we need that Advocate in heaven.
Surely you too have wanted to go to God with a request, but you felt that you could not! You have not settled your old lawsuits with Him, you cannot turn to Him with a request in the hope of being heard, to One who has a complaint against you, whom you have so often wronged and despised. You may have tried, but you felt at once that your prayer would not reach Him, for a prayer from such an unclean heart cannot reach the most holy place, heaven! To the Father! Well, remember: in heaven there is Jesus, who died for you on Calvary. You have an Advocate! You have a mediator! So dare to pray in peace, for there is Jesus, Who lifts up our backsliding, weak, faltering prayers and carries them on as His own to the Father! If you already feel that you alone cannot come before the justly judging, omnipotent God, because His holiness is being burned: seek courageously Jesus, Who with the blood of His heart defends and clears your case before the Father! The apostle Paul once wrote to Philemon, the slave's former master, on behalf of a runaway slave, and wrote, among other things: "But if he has done anything against you, or is in debt, charge it to me, ... I will repay". (Philemon 1:18-19) This is what your Advocate in heaven says. He takes your case so much upon Himself, if you trust Him, that He will stand before the holy Lord God and say this to Him: 'Forgive him, Father, for what he has done against you, and recompense him to me, and I will repay him. I, your Son Jesus, will pay for it with my blood. Whoever accepts this wonderful mediatorial ministry of Jesus will already receive the acquittal, the mercy, the forgiveness of his sins. And thus our supreme litigation with God is settled.
So, "we have an Advocate with the Father"! This same great fact is expressed by the writer of Hebrews: "He is able to lead all who come to God through Him, for He lives to make intercession for them". (Heb 7:25) The believer is not free from the troubles of life: he may find himself in a perilous situation; he may be stricken with a deadly disease; he may lose a loved one; he may be struck by misfortune, so that he does not know what to ask for, what to pray for; or he may not understand why it has happened, and his soul may cry out, "How long, Lord? Even in the life of a believer, there can sometimes be periods of low ebb when he feels abandoned, forgotten. On several occasions I have had a soul in such a state ask me to pray for him, because, as he said, God hears my prayer better than his. Well, I know very well that praying for one another is worth a great deal, but I also know that my prayer is no more worthy just because I am wearing a cloak than any other believer. But I also know that there is one prayer that is worth much, much more than yours and mine: that of Jesus! Our Advocate, Who intercedes for His own in heaven!
Think of this when you are at a loss. Not with His prayer replacing yours, of course, but with Jesus praying with you! And then you see your own problems from a different perspective, from a different angle: a little from above, from where Someone has prayed for them. Because having an Advocate in heaven is also a mystery, that within the divine Trinity everything that I have to carry as a burden has been negotiated well and with great love. It is not blind fate, nor the play of chance, that I live in, but predestination! Or: grace! And from this perspective, the problems of the moment are different from those of close-up. Without the knowledge that we have a dear Advocate in heaven, we often get entangled in the problems of life on earth, unable to find a way out, and become desperate or despairing. But if I know that Someone - Who sees farther from heaven than I see from here on earth - is pleading for me, I can then walk more calmly along the path I am on, because the thread of my destiny is woven with omnipotent wisdom and power by the greatest Love!
Discouraged, weary, ever-sinning people, hear the great consolation and encouragement of the Feast of the Ascension: "If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, the righteous Jesus Christ!"
The Lord lives, his promise stands:
The devil and all the wiles of the world
The devil and all the world's world shall be ashamed of us!
The Lord, we trust in him,
His power is infinite:
We must have victory.
Christ, help us, do not abandon us,
You'll be our ally till the end:
Protect us by your name,
That as thy faithful flock, to thee,
May we sing your praises,
With merry, happy thanksgiving!
(Canto 393, verse 2)
Amen
Date: 23 May 1968.