The Joy of Ascension

Berlin, Ascension Day, May 25, 1933

Ascension Day is a traditional religious holiday in Europe, observed forty days after Easter, on the Thursday ten days before Pentecost. In Bonhoeffer’s time, schools and most workplaces were closed, and many faithful Christians went to church on that day. On Ascension Day 1933, Bonhoeffer didn’t try their patience with a long sermon, but gave them a cheering word to take away with them. He quoted the first line of the familiar German chorale “Jesu, meine Freude” (“Jesus, my Joy”) by Johann Franck, which we know as “Jesus, Priceless Treasure.” The refrain “Rejoice, o Christendom” that he repeats several times is from “O sanctissima,” another Christmas carol that was very familiar to his hearers as “O du fröhliche” (“O How Joyfully”). Mindful, however, that Jesus’ ascension had not been a joyful moment for his disciples—in fact, they felt abandoned!—Bonhoeffer recalled a story he had told to one of his first Sunday school classes in 1926—the parable in Luke’s Gospel about servants keeping watch by night for the return of their master.

1 Peter 1:7b–9: . . . when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you
have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see
him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable
and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith,
the salvation of your souls.

“Jesus, my joy”—that is what we have just sung, and to be able to say that honestly, from the heart, is the meaning of a life lived with Christ. If there is someone to whom it sounds very foreign, or who hears nothing in it but mushy enthusiasm, then that person has never yet heard the gospel. Jesus Christ was made a human being for the sake of humankind in the stable at Bethlehem—rejoice, o Christendom. Jesus Christ became the companion of sinners and sat among tax collectors and prostitutes—rejoice, o Christendom. Jesus Christ became a convicted criminal for the sake of convicts, on the cross at Golgotha—rejoice, o Christendom. Jesus Christ rose from death to life for the sake of all of us—rejoice, o Christendom. Jesus Christ, for the sake of his church, went from this earthly home to his heavenly kingdom—rejoice, o Christendom. Jesus Christ coming from God and returning to God—that is not a new world of problems, of questions and answers. That means it is not a new moral law, not a new burden added to the burdens people already have to carry. What it really means, above all, is the joy of God in the world, the joy of God catching fire in humanity, which is hungry for joy. In a thousand ways people today ask, where can we find joy? Church of Christ, you alone know the answer; say it out loud: Christ, my joy.

Christ’s ascension has two meanings. It is Jesus’s farewell to his disciples, to the world which he loved. It was a long and hard road they had walked together. He had told them many things, but now the time had come when he had to leave them alone. Now they had to be able to walk without always looking to him. Now the end of his time on earth had come. They had gone one last stretch of road together—then came the final moment; he laid his hands on them in blessing, and then he was taken from their sight. They were alone. The curtain had fallen. He had left this world of evil and gone home to his heavenly Father. Lord, have mercy on us. Rejoice, o Christendom; he has gone home to his Father; he is preparing a place for you, a home in his kingdom [John 14:2–3]; he will take you home when his time comes. Just wait—and rejoice. He will come again.

But how can people rejoice when they have been abandoned? How can those who are left orphans be comforted? How can those who are torn by homesickness be cheerful? You orphaned church, left alone in your homesickness for Jesus Christ and his ascension, your ascension, rejoice! For you are allowed to love him whom you cannot see; you are allowed to believe in him who is lost to your sight. And nobody can take your love and your faith from you. It is our church, the church living between Christ’s ascension and his coming again, of which our text says: although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him. It is the church that stands alone in its waiting, alone in its faith, and that finds its joy in faith alone. Lord, teach this church, which does not see you, the true joy in Christ. Without rejoicing, there is no church. Let us talk today about joy in Christ.

Luther once said something like this: While Christ was on earth he was far away from us, but now that he is in heaven, he is close to us. What does that mean? It means that now he is no longer king of the Jews but rather king of the whole world; it means that from heaven he reigns over his whole kingdom and is near, though not visible, and present to his whole church, wherever it is scattered, among Jews and heathen, through all the world. He is close to us in his church, in his Word, in his sacrament, in the love among brothers and sisters. Here he comforts us who are abandoned; here he soothes our homesickness ever anew; here he takes us who are estranged from God, who are in barren, empty places, who don’t know the way, who are alone, and makes us joyful in his Christly presence. Joy in the sermon, joy in the sacraments, joy in brothers and sisters—that is the joy of the believing church in its unseen, heavenly Lord.

Joy in the sermon—how hard that is for us people of today. That’s because we are listening to the preacher and not to Christ. We turn our own joy sour because we confuse earthly joy with heavenly joy. Our poor Protestant church doesn’t offer us much earthly joy. Don’t come looking for it here. But heavenly joy Christ can give us, even through his frail church, and we should look for it only from him, not from the preacher. In the sermon it is Christ who wants to visit us and wants to be himself our heavenly joy.

Joy in the sermon—joy in the sacraments—how much more we have lost of the latter than of the former. Joy in the sacraments—one might say that sounds Catholic. Maybe it does sound Catholic, but mainly it sounds archetypically Christian. Here the sacrament, the Lord’s Supper with our heavenly Lord, is inexpressible joy in his presence; here the sacrament is the feast of joy for which a congregation of redeemed sinners gathers together, in the midst of this world of evil, and prays for the return of its heavenly king. Here the sacrament is the communion among brothers and sisters whose joy is in one another. Joy in the sacraments—that is the joy of the heart full of longing and desire for its God whom it has found; that is the anticipation in the hearts of strangers and homeless people, as they look forward to their eternal home and pray that it may come.

King of the church, Master of joy beyond compare, give us great longing and desire, a mighty homesickness for you—and then come and comfort us with your ascension; make us certain of your promise, that one day the curtain that separates us from you will fall. We cannot see you, but we love you; we do not have you before our eyes, but we believe in you; we have plenty of sorrows and troubles, but your sermon and sacraments make us joyful. Lord, give more joy to your church; without joy in the sermon and joy in the sacraments, there is no church. Without the church, the whole world is joyless and miserable, and there is no end to hunger and thirst.

Joy of Ascension Day—we have to become very quiet inwardly before we can even hear the soft sound of this word. Joy comes to life in the quiet and the mystery. Indeed, this joy cannot be comprehended. But it is never what we can understand that brings us joy—it is that which we cannot understand but is true, real, and alive, that sets us alight with joy. That is why real joy itself is always somewhat incomprehensible, both for others and for the person who feels it. Joy is simply there; the joy of Ascension Day is simply there, where the church speaks of Christ being exalted over all the world and of his return, where he himself meets his joyfully expectant church in the sacraments. That joy is there, not loud but soft and subdued, fearful of the world, fearful of sin—but it is there like the heavenly joy of servants who are up at night watching by candlelight until their beloved master comes home [see Luke 12:35–40]. All our joy in Christ in this world is joy of anticipation—and who will admit out loud that he or she is looking forward to something? And yet what joy is stronger than the joy of anticipation?

Joy of anticipation—in expectation of what? In the expectation of the last things. For the Lord of heaven, who stills the hunger and thirst, the longing of his church-community, through the sacraments by faith—this Lord whom we cannot see, but whom we love nonetheless—he will come again. The curtain is opening. We shall see him face to face [1 Cor. 13:12]. He will come back once again to this earth on which we are strangers, and he will lead the homeless, who in the church, through faith, have been hoping in God’s new land, home to our heavenly Father. “. . . when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him . . . and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Then the church’s time of waiting will be over, then the end of the time of faith will have come; then joy will no longer be veiled in fear and holding back; then will come the time of fulfillment, the time of everlasting seeing, when blessedness breaks in. Then he will appear, our brother the Lord, and his church will fall down before him in holy joy. “You . . . rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.” Then the world and the church will fall away, and Jesus himself will be our joy. For here we have no lasting city [Heb. 13:14], but we are looking for the city that is to come.

Christ’s ascension—the curtain falls, the church of faith waits, and its joy is the sacrament. Christ’s coming again—heaven opens up. Home at last, our thirst is slaked—the community of the blessed sees the incomprehensible mystery. Its joy is Jesus Christ, none other than God. At present we are still strangers, wandering in the time between his ascension and his second coming, waiting long in hope and fear. But the ransomed of the Lord shall return with singing, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads [Isa. 35:10]. Rejoice, o Christendom. Amen.