Dear Members and Friends of our ELS:

Lift up your heads! May 5 marks an important day: the Festival of the Ascension of our Lord. On Good Friday Christ was engaged in the battle against our enemies. On Easter we observe His victory over death. Ascension Day is the day of His coronation, the day when the Heavenly Father crowned Jesus with honor and majesty for the war and victory that He waged and won against Satan, sin, death and hell.

Although Jesus is fully God from eternity, He willingly chose not to make full use of His majesty and power as God when He came to this earth in order to redeem us sinners. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Since He so thoroughly accomplished His work at the cross, God the Father exalted Him and crowned Him with the highest glory, as St. Paul declares: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

Ascension means that believers in Christ have every right to be joyful and confident. Christ’s ascension is all Gospel. As we daily confess our sins and acknowledge our unworthiness to partake of even an ounce of God’s goodness, we look daily to Jesus Christ’s ascending to the throne on high as one more resounding proof that He has redeemed us sinners and that He has the gift of eternal life awaiting all who by God’s grace believe in Him. Christ has risen from the dead.

Jesus rules the world for the advantage of His believers, the church (Ephesians 4:20-23). Jesus will come again (Acts 1:11) to take us to be with Him (John 14:1-3). He has ascended in bodily form, so we also will one day ascend in bodily form (Philippians 3:20-21).

Lift up your heads! See where Jesus is sitting now! His coronation means that we too through faith in Him will receive the crown of life!