Ascension Hope - Sermon for Ascension Sunday (May 17, 2026)

Scripture Readings: Acts 1:1–11 | Psalm 47 | Ephesians 1:15–23 | ​Luke 24:44–53

​“While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” (Luke 24:51-53).
 
Today starts off the final week of the season of Easter, when we celebrate Ascension Sunday… the enthronement of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord at the right hand of the Father. As we heard in our readings today, forty days after His resurrection, Jesus was taken up into Heaven… not to leave us to fend for ourselves, but to take up His rightful place as the glorious King of all creation. At its heart, the feast of the Ascension is a day of hope: celebrating the wonderful truth that our Saviour King Jesus is the One in charge, and the One on the throne.
 
But many in our world today see very few reasons to celebrate, and find hope harder and harder to hold onto.
Looking around, lots of things seem to be on the rocks: our societies are fractured, and keep clashing over all sorts of issues that show no signs of resolution. So many don’t seem to have what they need, while others exploit the system, and end up with far more than anyone can use.

Our planet is facing a time of unprecedented, and unpredictably shifting climate, and we don’t really know the best ways to repair the damage done, or prepare for an uncertain future.
 
And on top of all this, the Church (at least here in Canada) is in decline. More and more pews sit empty each week, and after centuries of playing an active role in our country, more and more we’re just watching from the sidelines… or worse, when we get swept up into political movements that bear no resemblance at all to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
Yet it is precisely now… in times just like these that we are given the hope that we need. Not a hope for a return to the glory days gone by, but a real hope for today, and for every tomorrow: the hope of Christ’s good Kingdom, which our Scriptures this morning help us to explore.
 
In our second reading this morning, from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we hear some of the apostle’s opening words to this community of Christians in what is now Western Türkiye. This church family was facing its own challenges. Like many of the Christian communities that St. Paul founded, the Ephesian Church was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles… people with very different histories and ways of life, now learning how to follow Jesus together, and to live as brothers and sisters in God’s family… while being surrounded by a world that saw them as out of sync with what really mattered… and with neighbours preoccupied with things like status, honour, prosperity... and staying in the gods’, and the Emperor’s good books.    
 
Being a Christian back then, like today, wasn’t easy. But the Ephesian Christians seemed to have been on the right track, as St. Paul commends both their faith in the Lord Jesus, and their love for the saints… their fellow believers. But in one area, the apostle senses that they needed some help: they seem to have been struggling when it came to holding onto a Christian hope.
 
Ephesians 1: 15-18, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…”
 
Notice that St. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was not that God change their circumstances… taking away the challenging situations they were facing. No, St. Paul prays for a change of their own hearts, and minds to help them receive the hope that was already available, and would be regardless of any difficulties they might experience. A change within was needed for them to recognize and respond rightly to the hope Christ gives to us… which St. Paul refers to as the hope of “the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and… the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. (Ephesians 1:18-19).
 
The hope of a shared inheritance as one of God’s holy and chosen children, experiencing even now the greatness of God’s power. Sounds pretty good to me.
 
The inheritance part seems pretty clear: we’ve been adopted into God’s blessed and eternal family. No longer cut off from God and neighbour, but united to one another forever.

But what kind of power are we talking about here? The power that Emperors back then and today use? The power exercised through violence, coercion, and amassing wealth?
 
Far from it. When it comes to the greatness of God’s power that is the source of our hope, Paul points us to the cross, and to the empty tomb. That is, to the resurrection and the royal ascension of Jesus Christ.
 
Ephesians 1:20-21, “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”
 
At the cross, Christ Jesus was crushed by his foes and those in power… apparently put in His place, and proved to be a complete failure. But His Father in Heaven raised Jesus up, and completely vindicated His faithful Son, lifting Him up not only from the grave, but to His own right hand... to rule on high above every other contender… completely without rival as the King of all God’s creation.

And His good Kingdom will not only extend into the age to come… Christ’s unending reign has already begun! It’s fulness is yet to be seen, but our Saviour King already reigns as the risen Lord of Lords.
 
The hope that St. Paul prays for the Ephesians to experience, along with all of God’s people, back then and today, is that there is no stopping Christ’s Kingdom! There are no rivals who are able to threaten or end His reign, and there is no waiting necessary: Christ’s good Kingdom has already begun. 
 
Now St. Paul knew full well that most of the world didn’t see things that way… yet. The Apostle spent his days trying to share the Good News that Jesus is Lord with those who still lived under Caesar’s thumb, and he continually faced opposition, hardships, and persecution… and was eventually put to death by those who refused to recognize the claims of Christ’s Kingdom. But despite all of this, St. Paul, and all those like him, who served the true King even under incredible pressures, helped so many others to come to know and be transformed by the same hope, serving as signs of Christ’s Kingdom at work here on earth.

And the Church, despite all our challenging circumstances and host of struggles is to be a living sign of Christ’s Kingdom today. We are His witnesses, pointing our world to the One that’s really in charge. And even though we may face our own hardships, and opposition… surrounded by  those who don’t yet understand the hope we have at work in us, we are those who already share in Christ’s reign right now… co-members of His One body, a communion uniting Earth and Heaven in Him. 
 
This kind of Christ-centred hope transforms us into a new kind of people, reshaping our imaginations and priorities, as our Saviour King is pursuing a very different agenda from what the world around us is used to.
 
He’s not preoccupied with the economy… but with setting us free from greed, and filling us with the Father’s generous love to care for our neighbours in need.
 
And He’s not preoccupied with politics… but with setting us free from pride and fearmongering, and filling us with Christ’s own humility, and courageous service.
 
And He’s not preoccupied with waging war, or erecting borders… but with freeing us from all our hatred and prejudice… and filling us with the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, forging us into one world-wide family… one body, made up of diverse yet interdependent members, and with Him alone as our head.
 
Because Christ Jesus has risen, and ascended to the Father’s right hand to reign forever… we know the ultimate fate of our world rests in His hands. And this hope sets us free from all these other power trips, and pitfalls, and distorted ways of seeing and treating those around us. Because Christ Jesus reigns, we don’t need to despair when things don’t go our way… or desperately scramble to seek other sources of security and control when we get scared.
 
Instead, we can turn our minds and our hearts to Him in prayer, knowing that whatever hardships or trials we may face, today or tomorrow… He will not abandon us, but will give us the help we all need to remain faithful to the end… and raise us up with Him to share in the blessings of His good Kingdom… the only Kingdom with no end. []
 
As Jesus told His eager disciples who longed to see Christ’s Kingdom arrive all at once in their own time and place, the timing for the Kingdom’s full arrival is in the Father’s hands, not ours. We can certainly anticipate and pray for Christ’s Kingdom to come in its fulness, but in the meantime our Saviour King’s got work for us to do... the work of being His witnesses. Of showing others the truth of the Gospel in our words and our actions… and in all times and places, including right here in Gondola Point.

Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
 
There truly is a universal scope of the Kingdom of Christ. It’s not just a destiny for certain countries and nations to pursue… especially on their own terms. No, we are to be Christ’s witnesses, living signs of His good Kingdom which knows no borders. And which can only be accomplished by the power of God’s Holy Spirit… whose fruit in our lives looks like: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23). This is the power at work in Christ’s Kingdom. Without this Spirit at work in us, were just playing games. 

And as we heard in our Gospel reading, the path of Christ’s Kingdom is not an obviously successful one, but rather the path of suffering. The Risen Lord Jesus tells His disciples that the cross had always been a part of God’s plan to rescue the world… that the whole Old Testament, the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, had all pointed in this same cruciform direction.
 
Luke 24:45-48, “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
 
The Messiah must first suffer… crucified… definitely defeated in the world’s eyes… before rising from the dead… not to seek revenge on His enemies, or to rallying an army to overthrow the other Empires of this world. But to send out His apostles, His royal ambassadors, His witnesses with the message of repentance and forgiveness… the summons to turn around and leave behind the ways of life that lead us and those around us to death… and in their place to receive God’s forgiveness… God’s mercy and grace… His saving love offered to us all in Jesus’ name. 
 
Our Saviour King ascended to God’s right hand after first descending to the depths of the grave. The path to God’s glory first of all called for faithfulness in the face of great suffering… and this is a path that Jesus Christ calls us all to follow Him on, taking up our own crosses along with Him as well… trusting in His victory over all the powers of sin, and death, and the evil one… and leaning on His forgiveness and grace, and His Holy Spirit to see us through.
 
The ascension of Jesus, the crucified and Risen Lord reminds us that our hope is not founded on how things look from where we stand, but on the One who is seated at God’s right hand.
 
So even when we face real challenges, and hardships, and times of discouragement, may we always remember who’s really in charge. With the Holy Spirit’s help and power at work in us, may we face today and all tomorrows as Christ’s faithful witnesses… pointing those around us towards His Good Kingdom.

And may we be transformed inside and out by the hope that our Saviour King has given us… refocusing our lives on His Kingdom’s priorities, and empowering us to share the Good News of repentance and forgiveness for all in His holy name. Amen.