“He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”
Ninth Sermon on the Apostles’ Creed
Ordinary Time III; January 22, 2006
Revelation 1:9-18
That’s quite a description, isn’t it? Did you form a picture in your mind as the Scripture was read, to see what the Seer saw? There are a lot of contrasts in the picture itself, as well as contrasts with our ordinary images of Jesus.
I think I’ll use “contrasts” as my theme for this sermon: to contrast the Ascension with the other things we have said about Jesus, especially recently, and to consider the contrasts in this picture. Let’s start with the Ascension.
Talking about “ascending into heaven” is a relic of an old way of viewing the world, one that I expect none of you considers to be a serious exercise in spatial location. You can’t enter “Heaven” into Mapquest and have it direct you to go up. Pictures of Jesus rising majestically into the skies are simply silly. In the days the Apostles’ Creed was formulated, people honestly believed that hell was down toward the center of the earth and heaven was up, beyond the stars. They had good reason to believe that; if you stand outside at night and look up and around you, it makes sense. So “descended into hell” and “ascended into heaven” made literal sense then; they still make figurative sense.
When I was in fourth grade and my mother was helping me memorize the Apostles’ Creed, she had to keep reminding me to get those words right; I kept trying to say “descended into heaven.”
Jesus was translated from the realm of ordinary experience into the immediate presence of God. Part of the significance of that belief has to do with glory and sovereignty; I’ll say more about that in the next part of the sermon. Right now let’s talk about that as a contrast with Christmas.
I trust you remember that one of the names given to the infant is “Immanuel:” “God with us.” As Jesus lives and moves among his disciples and the authorities of religion and government in his time and place, he is the presence of God before them. His presence forces them to make a decision about their attitude toward God. We celebrate Christmas and call it the Festival of the Incarnation; we sing:
Veiled in flesh the God-head see;
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased in flesh with us to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the new-born King!”1
The Ascension completes the transaction; now Jesus has become not only “God with us” but also “Humanity with God.” That is, a human being is present before the Almighty; part of what he is doing there, we are told, is interceding on our behalf.
It really cannot hurt to have God’s own Son praying for us. I do not claim to know what Christ is praying for, although I suspect that his prayer in the Gospel of John (chapter 17) is a good clue. He is probably praying variations of “Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as in heaven.” You can find another clue in Jesus’ commandment to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44); he is not likely to tell us to do something he is unwilling to do himself. In fact, Luke shows us Jesus praying for his enemies, when he says of those crucifying him, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) So Christ, ascended into heaven, is praying: praying for us, praying for his enemies, praying for the Kingdom of God. That’s not all he is up to, of course, but that is enough for this morning: Jesus Christ is God-with-us; he is also humanity-before-God.
The picture of Christ in Revelation 1 is only one of the many visions of Christ that John the Seer has, but it should be enough to hold our attention for now. Consider this contrast: this is a pretty scary picture. The one at the center of it is big and loud (“his voice was like the sound of many waters”), and he has a face to cause you to bow your head in fear (“His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire”). Yet when John – naturally enough – falls at his feet, stunned, this figure bends down, gently touches him and says, “Do not be afraid.”
The latter part of the picture comes to us easily enough: we imagine Jesus holding little lambs, cuddling children, hugging us when we hurt. That’s good. But John reminds us that he does so not because he’s a sweet, nice guy. There’s nothing nice about a Savior with eyes like a flame of fire and with a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth. He isn’t nice, but he is good. He comforts those who need comfort, says, “Do not be afraid” to those who rightly fear God. The two-edged sword – What do people who take the Bible literally do with that picture? How does someone talk and eat bread and fish with a sword coming out his mouth? – the two-edged sword reminds us that the words of Jesus cut to the heart, expose what’s really inside.
You don’t think so? Since we have already talked about Jesus’ command to pray for our enemies, I’ll go with that first. When he says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” does that not get inside to how you and I really feel about our enemies? I know what I keep wishing would happen to those who have persecuted me; the words of Jesus cut into my heart and expose that wish to the light of God. When Jesus says, “[D]o not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25) does that not cut right into the sorts of things you and I fret about? Just as the words of Jesus can comfort – “Do not be afraid” – they also cut to the heart. Christ is Lord, Christ is awesome and terrifying; Christ is gentle and comforting. Both are true.
That contrast came from his face. Now look at his hands in this picture; John sees him holding seven stars. Apparently he is also holding the keys of Death and Hades (v. 18). From the ancient point of view, Christ controls what is highest – stars – and what is lowest – the realm of the dead. I’ve said plenty about Christ and the dead in the last couple of weeks, so you should be able to see immediately the significance of his holding the keys of Death and Hades. But consider this: by contrast, he also holds seven stars in his hand. That may be a reminder of the sovereignty of Christ over the creation, that Christ exalted to heaven is Lord of the cosmos. When you are presented with the choice of whether to throw in your lot with Christ or not, John’s vision urges us to remember that despite the claims of nations, corporations, and institutions, Christ holds the stars in his hand.
Consider that the next time you’re tempted to think of Jesus as just a nice guy that we remember fondly on Sunday mornings.
Then consider the contrast when John sees the Figure’s feet: they are like burnished bronze. Remember your Sunday School lessons: when else does someone see a great figure in a vision and notice its feet? Here is one that comes to mind: When Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar his dream, in which the King sees a figure of gold, silver, bronze and iron (Daniel 2:32-33). That’s the composition of most of the figure; what were the feet made of? Clay. Yes, that’s where we get our expression, “feet of clay.”
The dream would be easier to take if Daniel did not explain it. The empires of earth may be grand; they may have pretensions of gold and bronze. There may even be leaders and periods that shimmer as silver and are strong as iron. But they have feet of clay. If you go to Madrid and visit the Palacio de Oriente, the royal palace, in the throne room you will see furnishings that are representations of the four corners of the earth, the four seasons and the four elements,2 since the Spanish Empire circled the globe. You have heard the saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” What of their empires now? And what of our empire, that we have built for ourselves? Look at the feet of clay.
John looks at the feet of Christ and sees not clay, but burnished bronze. This is more than just a good tan; this is a theological point.
We’re getting near the end of the second article of the Apostles’ Creed; only one sermon to go before we turn to the part about the Holy Spirit. This second article is the part that is explicitly about Jesus. It is also the longest part, longer than the other two articles put together. That seems right to me, for the heart of the Christian Faith is not a set of doctrines, not a code of behavior, but a Man: a man with a lot of appeal to him, but who is also pretty scary. He is God-with-us; he is also humanity-before-God. His word cuts to the heart; it also says, “Do not be afraid.” And though empires fall, though “the American way of life” may fail, Christ will endure, and he holds the keys of Death and Hades and he holds the stars.
Let us pray. Trembling, we come before you, Lord Jesus Christ, fearing your word and yet hungry for it. You comfort and you command; we are yours and we will follow. Amen.
Robert A. Keefer
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Clarinda, Iowa
[1] Charles Wesley, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” altered; 2nd verse; Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) #31.
2 www.arsvirtual.com