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If Jesus left us, then we are to be pitied most of all men. If Jesus went away then we are truly orphans, on our own in a lonely, dangerous, and friendless world. If Jesus is "way out there," if His Body is enclosed at some distant "heavenly holding center" until the final Advent, then He is a bald-faced liar and we would be better off being Buddhists or Mohammedans.

Buddhists and other eastern mystics don't have a god, visible, invisible, here or there, so it doesn't matter; actually nothing matters. That's nonsensical nihilism at its worst. Muslims have a sovereign deity "off somewhere" in a distant paradise. Their so-called "Allah" doesn't come to them to help them, rather they must simply "obey" and "do" in order to someday win admittance to the distant land of reward.

But this is not so with the real and true God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This God, though the Father and the Paraclete are both spirit and truth, nevertheless deigned, willed, desired, to be with His people by coming directly into their sinful lives in miraculous and wonderful ways. God literally "tented" with His covenant Children by dwelling above their golden Ark in clouds of fire and smoke. The Hebrew Scriptures are replete with spectacular theophanies (appearances of the Divine) and direct savings and deliverances. This is no phony-Zeus, Shiva, Great Manitou, Brahma-baloney, but The Lord God creator of heaven and earth. The Lord Who then sent His only-begotten Son into the Flesh to be the Savior. Jesus wasn't just a God who saved, but He was the MAN-God Who lived, worked, obeyed, bled, died, and came to life again to save! And He stays the Man-God

If Ascension is about anything, it's about this, that the Incarnation, the wonderful Christ-Mass miracle; the Bloody Atonement & Resurrection, the wonderful Easter miracle, have their pay-out, their application, if you will, their contact with you in the ever present Ascended reality of Jesus Christ's presence.

Was Jesus really "present" when he stood in front of Jairus' dead 12-year old daughter even though she couldn't see Him? Was the Christ actually there in front of blind Bartimaeus even though the beggar didn't have him in sight? Seeing is vastly overrated, (hence a world of desert mirages, slight of hand and Vegas magic acts, and far too numerous UFO sightings) Any chimp can see, but it takes a converted heart to trust.

You have bold confidence that when Jesus said "lo I Am with you until the end of the age" that He meant it. You believe Him when He said "where two or three are gathered together In My Name, there I Am in the midst of them." You trust and rely that the same Word of God that says "this is My Body, this is My Blood," and thus makes what was only bread and wine the VERY Body and Blood of Jesus, has the same power and love to make Jesus present for you even when you can't see him with your sin-tinged and damaged field of vision. You can't see X-rays, gamma rays and ultraviolet rays but they exist. You can't see molecules, microbes, electricity or the wind, but they all exist.

Frankly, if one doesn't believe in Jesus because He can't be "gawked at" with the eyeballs, then that one is still sinfully participating in the unbelief of Herod and the Pharisees. They demanded constants "signs" and "proofs." Those today that follow in their footsteps require all sorts of modem verification: healings, tongues, successful lives, wealth, happiness, personal growth. To expect only glory and not crosses; to expect only spirit-filled "moments," and not long dark nights of seeming silence, is to be like the disciples Whom Jesus had to again upbraid for their dullness: "He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen." The disciples had not seen Jesus, and that's the point, they had not believed the Word about His rising. That's part of the point of Ascension, that He is present, really, really present, in the testimony, that is, the Words, of those who have seen Him. Jesus is actually present in Preaching. Hence, we see that in Saint Mark's Ascension pericope, the Lord again commissions the twelve to "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." In their preachment of the Living and Ascended MAN-God, He in fact would be present with all of His gifts. Christ instructs them to also baptize, that is, to cast out demons in His name. Wherever the Holy Sacraments are administered in accordance with the Lord's mandate, He is actually present Himself.

"But He ascended pastor; He floated up off the mountain, up into the clouds never to be seen again. "

He ascended yes. He went up because there are really only two ways of motion on this mortal coil (sideways doesn't count). To go down, would be to go in the direction of the ground, the earth, the grave. Jesus has already done that for you. He not only descended from heaven, if you will, He descended into the ground of death to be your replacement payment. Ascending, going up, is the opposite then of death. Jesus "ascended" Adam up out of the dirt; He "ascended" all of you up out of the watery tombs of your Spiritual + washings. Jesus didn't float up into the atmosphere, into earth orbit and then off into the cosmos. Jesus visually stepped off the stage of the Apostles-only eyeballs to step into their preaching, teaching, baptizing and communing. Now, Jesus is present for all His lambs wherever He is Named. He didn't ascend into a cumulous, nimbus or stratus water vapor configuration; He ascended into the sermons of pastors, the pens of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James, Jude and Paul; He ascended into eight-sided fonts and silver and gold (and stainless steel) chalices. He stopped talking to "two or three" back in the year 30 AD so that He might talk to "two or three" wherever they are gathered in time and space in the church which is catholic; universal. The same way a speaker at a meeting is asked to stand up so that he might be heard better, Jesus "stood up," ascended, so that He might fill all things with His love and mercy. What does the Ascension mean to you? It means that you have Jesus the same way the congregations of Peter & Paul had Jesus, indeed the same way all the Apostle's themselves had Jesus after His mountain top multiplication. It means Jesus isn't in Judea of two millennia ago but here at Augsburg in this very homily, really! It means that Jesus isn't a memory or a distant event but rather that He will be here with His Body and Blood to eat and to drink. It means that the Lord of Heaven and earth is just that, the Lord of earth. His Body is not enclosed in a plexiglass safety tube, reading: "Do not break until the 'end of time.'" He's here right now in this absolution, His absolution: "I forgive you all your sins and give you life and salvation"

In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost