Sermon Audio

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

What a strange text for this evening; today, we celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord, and today’s Gospel lesson mentions the Ascension only in passing: “So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” We get almost nothing with regard to what it meant for Jesus to ascend into heaven and sit down at the right hand of God.

I mean, we can extrapolate, as the first listeners did, that Jesus ascended to a position of power. We hear, as the first believers did, that Jesus returned to that from which He came, reassuming what was rightfully His before His incarnation. And we can tell from Mark that Jesus ascended bodily into heaven, where He now sits, fully man, at the right hand of the throne of God. However, Mark tells us so little about the ascension that we have to pull in texts from other inspired writers to “fill in the gaps,” so to speak.

So, Jesus ascends to the right hand of God in order to send us the Helper who convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. This is what we’ve been hearing these last few weeks on Sunday mornings in the 16th chapter of St. John’s Gospel; we’ll get more of it this coming Sunday. Jesus ascended to the right hand of God, where He sits eternally as our Prophet, sending men to preach the Gospel of redemption (cf. Ephesians 4:10-12), our Priest, interceding for us before God (cf. Romans 8:34; 1 John 2:1), and our King, governing and protecting His Church and as Her Head ruling the world in the interest of the Church (cf. Psalm 110:1; Matthew 22:44), things we get from various passage of Scripture, both Old and New Testament. And, of course, Jesus will return from His ascension to the right hand to judge the quick and the dead. (cf. Matthew 25:31; Acts 1:11; Acts 10:42; et al)

However, bear in mind that what the Ascension has done is remove Jesus’ visible presence from us. Jesus is still with His Church; He promised as much at the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel. (cf. Matthew 28:20) He promises to be among those where two or three are gathered in His name. (cf. Matthew 18:20) And we can’t forget His bodily and bloody presence in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. But, we cannot see Him despite His presence. He hides the sight of Himself from us, the hearing of His actual voice form our ears—even in the Lord’s Supper, we do not see the body from the bread or the blood from the wine. However, despite what our senses tell us (or don’t tell us), He is here!

Now, with that in mind, we can look at Mark as see all of this at work, though He doesn’t outright connect any of it directly with Jesus’ ascension. “And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them...” Right there, Mark tells us that Jesus was present with them, and we can hear Jesus filling His office of Prophet. He gave to His infant Church His disciples—apostles—as pastors and teachers. Through them, the Lord works to preach the Gospel of redemption. They went out, starting in Jerusalem, baptizing and teaching (cf. Matthew 28:19-20), breaking bread, and by Jesus’ guiding, making more pastors and teachers to carry on the ministry of preaching the Gospel of redemption. This cycle continued and continues to this day, as people are baptized and names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (cf. Revelation 21:27) and men are called from among the Baptized to be pastors and teachers. “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.”

What follows that is a bit tricky, though:

And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

Casting out demons. Speaking in new tongues. Taking up serpents. Drinking poison and living. Healing the sick by the laying on of hands.

Do these things happen today? Perhaps they do. Roman Catholics have rites of exorcisms, and demons do flee at the invocation of Jesus’ name. Christians do learn new tongues in order to speak the Gospel of redemption to others of different languages. I’m sure of all the snake handlers employed by zoos and pharmaceutical companies there have to be Christians among them. There are groups of Christians, in the Appalachians I know for sure, who practice the ingestion of strychnine and other poisons who have not died as a result of the practice. And we certainly have the opportunity to watch faith healers on television.

But, we must ask ourselves, are any of these things miraculous? Perhaps...perhaps not. Exorcisms are practiced in Jesus’ name, but not all of them are on the demon-possessed, and there are plenty done for show in order to rake in a lot of money surreptitiously. I know of no one who has arrived in a foreign country and immediately spoke the Gospel of redemption in the language of the people there. There’s really no point in handling serpents to prove one’s Christianity. For as many of those people who have drunk strychnine and lived, there are many more who have done so and died of poisoning. Do not, now, look to these signs as confirmation of the Word working among the people. Even if you want to look at this list of signs from Mark as being only a sample—that the miraculous is far more grand that what Mark told us to look for—signs and miracles are not now given to confirm the Word of God.

That begs the question, what is it to you that these things happen? What is it to you if these things happen now or not? What is it to you that someone else experiences that which we would classify as being miraculous. Rejoice in the result if you like, but these thing should have no bearing on your faith.

You see, there is an element out there that would seek to use the presence of the miraculous as the proof that God is present and active among them, and especially emphasizing that these signs mark true faith. This is most certainly true of that group who like to drink strychnine and other poisons during worship services. That they drink these and live is proof that they have true faith (but what of those who drink and die as a result?). They like to use this portion of St. Mark’s Gospel as proof that miraculous signs accompany faith; after all, Jesus did say, “And these signs will follow those who believe...”

What’s neglected is what is said at the end of tonight’s lesson: “And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.” (ESV) The word which they, the apostles, preached was confirmed by the signs that Jesus mentioned. It happened then with them—this is what the text says; the ESV and AAT translations work well with the Greek text to convey this meaning. Today, we don’t need signs to confirm the proclamation, because today’s proclamation is supposed to be the same as what the apostles proclaimed—the Gospel of redemption—which has already been confirmed by those signs, and recorded for us.

Throughout the books of Acts, we can read of these miraculous signs accompanying the apostles’ proclamation. Right from the day of Pentecost, we read of the apostles miraculously speaking the Gospel of redemption in many new tongues. Throughout their ministry, proclaiming the Gospel of redemption, they cast out demons and healed the sick. Luke even records for us a time when a viper bit St. Paul on the hand, and yet he lived and proclaimed the Gospel of redemption to the people of Malta. (Acts 28:1-6) Legend also has it that St. John was given a goblet of poisoned wine, which though he drank, yet he still lived.

These all proclaimed the Gospel of redemption as Jesus had sent them to do. For them, the proclamation was confirmed by the signs that Jesus said would happen. The signs no longer serve as confirmation of the proclamation, but the proclamation remains. We can say that because heaven and earth will pass away, but the Word of God will remain forever (cf. Mark 13:31) The signs came and went, but the proclamation of the Gospel continues, and it is the same proclamation that was already confirmed by those signs. The proclamation can easily be summed up by what Jesus said in tonight’s text: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved...”

By proclaiming the Word of God, many who heard the apostles preach received faith and were baptized. Their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. The same thing happens today, as the Word of God is proclaimed by those whom Jesus as Prophet sends to pastor and teach. Jesus works with them, for it is His Word, and in the hearing of the Word, receiving baptism, people believe and are saved. “[F]aith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) The signs that happened and could still happen by the grace of God are unimportant to your faith and salvation, and are certainly no longer necessary to confirm the Word proclaimed.

The Word of God is what is important for you, dear hearers, and this is why it was good for you that Jesus returned to the right hand of the throne of God. Now, He has sent the Helper to you to bring to you the Word of God that you may have faith to believe it, and that by believing, you would have life in His name.

For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:22-24)

If you want the signs and miracles, they are recorded for you to marvel at in the Scriptures. What you need, as what ever person ever needed, is the Word of God—the preaching of Christ crucified. Before being received into heaven, Jesus instructed His apostles—His pastors and teachers—to preach the Gospel to every creature so that He who believes and is baptized will be saved.

This they did, as have and do many after them, as they preached Christ crucified. They told of the Son of God who was incarnate by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and died for the sins of the world. He took on flesh and was born under the Law that He would bear the burden of the Law in His flesh and the consequences thereof, and die as a fulfillment of that Law for you and for all mankind. Jesus took your sin and sins into His flesh and died with them and gave you His righteousness in return. This is what you are baptized into, and by the grace given you in Holy Baptism, this is what you believe. By that same grace through faith you are saved!

Jesus was buried, and on the third day rose again. He ascended into heaven, where He now is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. From thence, He will come to judge the quick and the dead. On that day, as He was raised from the dead, since you are baptized into His life, death, and resurrection, you will be raised from your grave and given eternal life.

For now, though you do not see Jesus, but He is present, and He is present for you. Yes, Jesus crucified, risen, and ascended comes to you and is present in Word and Sacrament, but also as plainly as you and I are now here. And since Jesus is here for you, He is here to give you His gifts of life and salvation, because you are baptized and believe. That is to say, you are forgiven for all of your sins—that is the Gospel of redemption!