He’ll Be Back
Delivered by Rev. Jonathan Oh on Sunday, June 1, 2025.
英語のテキストの後に日本語訳があります。こちらはGemma2（ローカル大規模言語モデルAI）による機械翻訳であり、文法的な誤りが含まれている可能性があります。基本的な正確さを確認しております。
Passages:
Luke 24:44–53 (NRSV)
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 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, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
The Ascension of Jesus (Mk 16:19–20; Acts 1:9)
50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
Acts 1:1–11 (NRSV)
The Promise of the Holy Spirit
1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
The Ascension of Jesus (Mk 16:19–20; Lk 24:50–53)
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 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.” 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Sermon Text:
Opening Illustration: I remember the day when I moved away to university. I had freshly graduated from high school and had prepared during the summer to head off to the “big leagues”. I felt ready - with my bags packed, my class schedule set, and my dreams of college all ready to go. And then reality hit - I show up, get hit hard with a wake-up call through an orientation program, and then the reality that I am on my own. My parents and high school friends were no longer with me. I had to grow up. I look back upon my university years with great fondness and memories, but there was plenty of growing pain as well. These moments of separation were hard but necessary, and I am thankful for them.
Connection: We have been going through the season of Easter for the past seven weeks, and today is the last Sunday of this period - also known as Ascension Sunday. After Christ’s resurrection, our Lord spent time with His disciples - including the Eleven - and also appeared to many others proving that He had risen from the dead. Jesus spoke during this time about the Kingdom of God, and then He returned to Heaven to be in the presence of God the Father. Sometimes we tend to move quickly past these passages regarding the Ascension, but when we look at Scripture, we see that the Ascension is specifically mentioned in Mark, Luke, and Acts. Matthew also covers what happens right before Jesus returns back to Heaven. So there is something important about this historical event - Christ went up and left, and yet, Christ will return by coming back down, and He’ll be back. Today, I would like for us to consider the importance of Christ’s Ascension and why it matters to us today.
Context: Our first Scripture reading comes after Jesus showed Himself to the Eleven and the two disciples who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Jesus shows them that He is the same One who had been with them for the past three years, that He is truly alive, and that He has truly risen. In our passage, Jesus reminds them that all that was written “in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms had to be fulfilled” (v. 44), and the Messiah must suffer and rise again on the third day (v. 46). By this, repentance and forgiveness for sins is to be proclaimed everywhere (v. 47). Christ takes us from the past to the present, but then He moves from the present to the future. He opened the minds of those who had gathered in order to understand the Scriptures, and it was in this context that Jesus told them that He is sending them.
Illustration: I have heard from a lot of people who have joked, “I never understood why we had to learn about how to do long division or study geometry or read The Scarlet Letter in school because I would never use them when I grew up. Why don’t we only learn stuff in school that will actually be useful for us?” Truth be told, many classes that I took in university in terms of content aren’t really used in my daily life. I had to learn calculus as a part of my meteorology studies, but I’m not exactly solving differential equations each time I make forecasts. But the foundations of learning that take place in all of these courses do make a difference for us, even if we don’t necessarily see it.
Point: Jesus, before sending us, first laid the foundation for all that He will be doing on this earth in regards to the Kingdom of God. We see how Jesus was already in the plan the entire time throughout Scripture, even though the people might not have understood at the time. Even when Jesus was here, the religious leaders didn’t understand it at all - very few actually believed that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah. Yet even though people during that time didn’t understand it, Jesus carried out His work, beginning to do all that He would accomplish and teach. Jesus came to fulfill Scripture and to lay the foundation for what He was going to do. The good news is that Jesus knows what He is doing, and we can trust that He will love, care, and guide us through all of the work that He is doing today. He physically may not be here, but He is here in our midst, still working within us and with us.
Support and Transition: If you look at the second Scripture reading in Acts 1:6, the disciples had gathered together as Jesus was about to return into Heaven, and they asked Jesus if He was restoring the kingdom to Israel at that time. The disciples didn’t fully understand what Jesus had been saying - that the kingdom of God is not a kingdom of this world. The kingdom God is building is not one of dominion or conquest but of power of proclamation and witness.
Point: Jesus, in sending us, chooses to empower us to continue doing the work that He has been doing all along. The kingdom of God is one of power - but not the type that we would usually assume that is connected to a kingdom. Christ says in Acts 2:8 that the disciples would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. This word power in Greek is the root for the word dynamic. It is not a power that just exists but rather moves, changes, shifts, impacts. The Holy Spirit comes not just to be the Comforter as mentioned in the Gospel of John but as the empowering Spirit in us. It will drive us out from our comfort zones, drive us to declare the Good News, and drive us to tell the story of God that is happening in our own lives. And this is only made possible if Jesus physically leaves us.
Illustration: I started this message with my entry into university, and I’m going to continue with one aspect of my growth during my time in university. I had rarely done anything in the kitchen when I was growing up in terms of cooking. The closest thing I ever cooked was using a box of Hamburger Helper or Tuna Helper. You just follow the directions, and 30 minutes later, you have dinner. Sure, that’s a way to do it - as an amateur. The first couple of years at university, I didn’t have to cook because I lived in a dorm, but during my third year, I was in an on-campus apartment, and there was a kitchen. Our meal plan scaled back so that we would have to cook more often. And that was… interesting to say the least. I realized that learning to cook was a requirement now. If you think about it, if I had never left my parents, and if I was not forced to do things in the kitchen, I would have been a really hopeless case for self-sufficient survival. I am not saying that I learned how to cook overnight, but at least I knew how to make breakfast without creating smoke throughout the apartment. (Though my attempt to make Turkish Delight ended up creating a horrible, sticky, gooey mess.)
Support Point: Christ’s departure was necessary because without His departure, His disciples would have never learned to carry out His mission. Without His departure, the disciples would have never departed from Jerusalem into all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Christ could have done it all Himself. And yet, for our sake, He chose to send us. For our growth, He chose to depart from us. God’s great plan of love included our physical separation from Christ so that we can move with the power of the Holy Spirit to the end of the earth, being salt and light, and growing deeper in our faith. Just as a mother bird has to push their babies out in order to make them fly, we also needed that push by Christ’s Ascension - His departure from Earth.
Point: And yet, that’s not the end of the story. Jesus, while sending us, promises that He will be back for us.
Illustration: I remember when I first got on the plane leaving the United States to move to Japan. It was hard. I cried. My mom cried. Apparently my dad was depressed for days after I had left (though he would not admit it - being an older-generation Korean man, he doesn’t exactly wear his emotions on his sleeves, but he apparently was quite sad). Yet I remember telling them something as I left… that I will be back in less than two months in order to be at my brother’s wedding. And that’s how we were comforted - that we will be reunited together soon.
Point Continued: Christ promises us that He will be back. Now, this was over 2000 years ago, and so people might wonder when Jesus will actually come back. But consider this - that Christ continues to work in this world through us, and that work is not yet done. More people need to hear about the love of Jesus, the need for repentance, and the forgiveness of sins. It is Christ that we proclaim wherever we go, whatever we do. Just last week, we had Youth Sunday and heard some incredible testimony from our younger members. The world needs to hear from us as followers of Christ the Good News that He brings, the Kingdom of God that continues to come upon us. We testify to what Jesus is doing, and until that work is done, we proclaim Christ, and we wait with hope that He’ll be back.
Summary Point: Jesus, by leaving us, entrusts us to carry out the Great Commission, and we endure with hope because He’ll be back when His work is finished through and within us. We observe Ascension Sunday because Christ, who began His work, started the process of entrusting us to continue carrying out His work. Because of Ascension Sunday, we also have Pentecost Sunday, which is what we will be observing next week - also known as the birthday of the Church. As we go into the world this week, let us live as followers of Christ, not as people without a Savior or a Leader but as redeemed people of faith who are empowered to be witnesses of our Lord Jesus Christ to those around us and beyond - until the day when He’ll be back. Amen.
日本語の翻訳：
**イラスト:** 大学生になったあの日を思い出します。高校を卒業したばかりで、夏の間に「ビッグリーグ」へ進む準備をしていました。自信に満ち溢れていました - 荷物は全部準備済み、授業のスケジュールも確定済み、そして大学での夢が頭の中いっぱいです。それが現実の突きつけよう！オリエンテーションで目を覚まされ、一人になった現実を突きつけられたのです。両親や高校時代の友達はもはや私のそばにいませんでした。私は大人にならなければなりませんでした。大学時代は、多くの思い出と愛情を持って振り返っていますが、成長の痛みもありました。あの別れの時が辛かったけれど、必要だったんだと今は思います。感謝しています。
**つながり:** 過去7週間、私たちはイースターの時期を過ごしてきました。そして今日、この期間の最後の日曜日 - 通称昇天の日です。キリストの復活の後、主は弟子たち - 特に11人 - に時間を過ごし、また死からよみがえられたことを証明して多くの者に現われました。イエスは、この間、神の王国について語った後、天国へ戻って神父と共にいるのです。時折私たちはこれらの昇天に関する章を素早く読み飛ばしますが、聖書を見ると、マルコ、ルカ、使徒行伝に昇天が具体的に記されています。マタイもまたイエスが天国へと戻る直前の出来事を記述しています。つまり、この歴史的な出来事は重要なのです - キリストは上がって出て行ったけれど、そして彼は再び降臨して帰ってくるでしょう！今日は、私たちにキリストの昇天の意味とそれが今日どのように重要なのかを考えてみましょう。
**文脈:** 最初の聖書朗読は、イエスが11人とエマウスへの道を歩んでいた2人の弟子たちに現れた後です。イエスは、彼らに見せました - 彼が過去3年間共に過ごしたのと同じ人であり、彼が本当に生きていること、そして本当に復活したことを見せてくれます。この箇所で、イエスは彼らに、「モーセの律法、預言者たち、詩篇すべては成就する必要があった」（44節）と教え、メシアは3日目に苦しみ、再び立ち上がるべきである（46節）と述べています。これによって、悔い改めと罪の赦しがあらゆる所に宣べ伝えられるのです（47節）。キリストは過去から現在へと私たちを導き、そして現在の状態から未来へと進みます。彼は集まっていた人の心を解き放ち、彼らが聖書を理解できるようにしました。この文脈の中で、イエスは彼らに自分が彼らを派遣していることを告げました。
**イラスト:** 多くの人が冗談で言うことがあります。「なぜ高校で長除算や幾何学を勉強したり、不必要な小説を読まなければいけないんだ？ 大人になってから使うことないでしょ。役に立つものだけ学校で教えてほしい！」と。正直に言うと、大学で受けた多くの授業の内容は日常ではあまり使われないかもしれません。気象学を学ぶために微積分をしなければならないこともありましたが、天気予報を作るたびに微分方程式を解くわけではありません。しかし、これらの授業を通して得られる学びの基礎は、必ず私たちにとって役立ちます。
**ポイント:** キリストは私たちを送る前に、まずこの地上で神の王国に関わるすべてのことを始めるための基盤を築きました。聖書全体を通して、キリストが常に計画の中にいたことを私たちは目にすることができます。もちろん、その時には人々が理解できなかったかもしれません。イエスがここにいる時も宗教指導者は全く理解していなかったし - ほとんどその人がイエスこそ約束されたメシアであると信じていなかったです。でもイエスは、人々が理解できなくても、働き始めました。そして聖書を成就させ、これから行うこと、教えることを始めるのです。素晴らしいことは、イエスは何を自分がなさろうとしているかを知っていることです。彼が愛し、大切にケアし、導いてくれると信じることもできます。イエスは物理的に私たちにいないかもしれませんが、私たちのそばにいて、今も私たちと一緒に働いています。
**裏付けと移行:**使徒言行録第1章第6節の2番目の聖書朗読を見ると、イエスが天に戻ろうとしていたときに弟子たちが集まり、その時イスラエルに王国を回復しているのかどうかイエスに尋ねました。弟子たちはイエスの言葉、すなわち神の王国の概念を完全に理解していませんでした。それはこの世界の支配や征服ではなく、宣べ伝える力と証の力を中心とした王国です。
**ポイント:** キリストは私たちに送り出して、彼が今まで行ってきた働きを続けられるように私たちを選びます。神の王国は力を持っていますが - 私たちは通常王国に関連付けるようなものではありません。使徒行伝2章8節では、「弟子たちは聖霊が臨むときに力を得る」とキリストが言っています。ギリシャ語でこの力の単語は英語で「動的な」という言葉の根源です。それは単なる存在する力ではなく、移動し、変化し、変容し、影響を与える力です。聖霊はヨハネによる福音書で述べられている慰めとなるだけでなく、私たちに力を与える聖霊として現れます。私たちは私たちの快適ゾーンから飛び出し、良い知らせを告げ、自分自身の体験を通じて神が起こしている物語を語るように導きます。そして、これはイエスが物理的に去らなければ不可能です。
**イラスト:** 大学進学について話し始めましたが、大学での成長過程の一面を続けて話したいと思います。幼少期は、料理をすることはほとんどありませんでした。作ってみたことがあるのは、ハンバーガー・ヘルパーやチューナ・ヘルパーといった箱入り製品くらいです。説明書に従えば30分で夕食の完成です。まあ、アマチュアにはそれなりの方法でしょう。大学最初の2年間は寮に住んでいたので料理する必要はなかったのですが、3年生になるとキャンパス内アパートに引っ越し、キッチンが使えるようになりました。食生活費が減額されたため、頻繁に自分で料理しなければならなくなりました。それは…興味深い体験でしたと言えるかもしれません。料理をすることは私の義務になったことに気づきました。もし両親の元から出ていかなかったら、キッチンで何かをしたりせなかったら、完全に自立できずに大変な目に遭っていたでしょう。一夜にして料理が完璧にできるようになったわけではありませんが、少なくとも、部屋全体に煙が充満するような朝食を作らずには済んだことは確かです。（ただし、トルコ風お菓子を作ろうとした結果、ひどいベタベタした混乱状態になってしまいました。）
**裏付け:** キリストの去ることは必要でした。彼が去らなければ、弟子たちは彼の使命を遂行することはできませんでした。彼が去らなければ、弟子たちはエルサレムからユダヤ全土、サマリアそして地球の果てまで行くことはなかったでしょう。キリスト自身がすべてを成し遂げられたかもしれませんが、私たちの成長のために、彼は去ってくれたのです。神の愛の偉大な計画には、キリストが物理的に私たちと離れることによって、聖霊のパワーと私たちと共にこの世へと行き、塩と光となること、そして信仰をより深くすることという目的が含まれていました。母鳥が雛鳥を飛び立たせるためには外へ押し出さなければならないのと同じように、私たちもキリストの昇天、つまり地球からの旅立ちによるその押し出しを必要としていました。
**ポイント:** しかし、物語はこれで終わりではありません。イエスは私たちを送る際、再び戻ってくることを約束しました。
**イラスト:** アメリカから日本へ飛行機に乗った最初の日を覚えています。それは大変でした。私は泣きました。母も泣きました。父親は私が去ってから数日間深い悲しみに暮れていたようです。(まあ、彼はこの気分のことを言わなかったです。 - 韓国人男性では感情を表に出さないのが慣習けど、彼はかなり落ち込んでいたようです)。でも私は出発する前に両親にこう伝えました。「弟の結婚式のために2ヶ月以内に帰ってくる」と。それが私たちの慰めとなりました。私たちがすぐに再会できるという保証があったのです。
**ポイント:** キリストは再び戻ってくると約束しました。 これは今から2000年以上も前の出来事であり、イエスが実際にいつ戻るのか疑問に思う人もいるでしょう。しかし考えてみてください - 基督の働きはこの世ではまだ続いており、その仕事は終わっていません。より多くの人がイエスの愛、悔い改めの必要性、罪の赦しについて聞く必要があります。私たちはどこに行っても、何をするにしても、キリストを宣べ伝えなければなりません。先週は青年の日曜日であり、若いメンバーから素晴らしい証を聞いたばかりです。世界は私たちクリスチャンの信者たちからの良い知らせ - 彼は続く神の王国をもたらすことを聞いてほしいのです。私たちはイエスの働きに証しし、その仕事が終わるまで、キリストを宣べ伝え、彼が戻ってくることを願いながら待ち続けましょう。
**要約:** キリストは私たちを去ることによって、偉大な使命を託してくれました。そして私たちは彼の帰還を期待しながら耐え忍びます。私たちが昇天祭の日を祝うのは、ご自身の働きを始められたキリストが、ご自身の働きを継続するよう私たちに託すプロセスを開始されたからです。また、来週を観察するペンテコステの日もこの機会に考えます - これこそ教会の誕生日です。今週、私たちは世に出て行くにあたり、キリストに従う者として生きましょう。救い主や指導者のいない者としてではなく、救い出された信仰の民として、周りの人々、そしてその先の人々に主イエス・キリストの証人となる力を与えられた者として生きましょう。主が再臨される日まで。アーメン。