Where is Jesus' body? (May 13, 2010)
By Rev. Steve Bagnall

The Ascension is all about Jesus’ body, His flesh! In fact, the entire gospel has been about the body of Jesus. His birth is about God getting a body, God becoming a human being so that He can live the life, so that He can be the perfect Man in our place, as our Substitute.

The devil uses that body against Jesus, tempting Him to use His power to feed His body’s hunger. Jesus’ body gets tired. Jesus’ body is beaten and tortured on Good Friday; His body is nailed to the cross; His body is killed and His body is buried. Jesus took a body so that He could die for us, as the Sacrifice, so that He would have blood to pour out to pay for our sins.

And the Resurrection is about Jesus’ body. Its a strange thing that many people who call themselves Christians, including many preachers in many American and other churches believe that Jesus’ resurrection is not about His body. They claim that His resurrection is only in His spirit, or that resurrection means that his teaching lives on.

Impossible! The gospels are all concerned with one question on Easter day – where is Jesus’ body? Is it in the tomb where we put it? No! Did the disciples steal it – no! Did the gardener move it – no.

The body of Jesus is alive again – that’s the point – that’s the miracle. Mary Magdalene sees Jesus’ body and touches His feet, the Disciples see Him and He invites them to touch His physical wounds. He eats, chewing with real teeth and swallowing with a real throat. The body of Jesus died and the body rose again.

In His body Jesus appeared many times in the next forty days and now, at the Ascension, the body of Jesus (smack) the flesh and blood body is received into heaven.

Unfortunately, many Christians think of the right hand of God as a sort of storage bin for the body of Jesus. They think that since the body has done its work, Jesus stashes it in heaven and gets back to His “real” way of doing things: “spiritually.”

But Jesus didn’t take a body just so He could be our sacrifice. He also took on flesh so that He could touch us, and we could touch Him and through that touch people were healed and their sins were forgiven. Jesus’ body makes God accessible to us sinful humans. His body is the stairway to heaven that Jacob saw, the bridge between the Holy God and the broken world of us sinners.

Jesus did not go to heaven to put His body on the shelf; He ascended so that the flesh of Mankind could enter the presence of God. The ascension opens the door to heaven. Now God with a body sits on the throne. Now God with a body reigns over all things. Now God with a body, God the human being, God the Son has entered the Holy Place.

And the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that His flesh, His body is the doorway by whch we enter heaven.

How can that be? Because when Jesus took His body to heaven He didn’t lock it up. By ascending, Jesus freed His body to be present everywhere at all times. God’s eternal, ascended body is here at St. Luke to touch you with His blessing so that you can touch Him in the Sacrament and be healed.

And Jesus is present with His body in the countless hospital rooms where His people lie in pain and loneliness, in silent bedrooms where fighting spouses lie with their backs to one another. The body of Jesus, the mercy delivering, sin forgiving, peace creating, flesh and blood body of Jesus is wherever His people are in need, with you whenever your sins weigh on your heart, whenever this world’s attacks and disappointments weigh on you.

The risen and ascended Jesus touches you hidden in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, but also in the dripping water of Baptism. He touches your ears and eyes when you hear and read His Word. Jesus’ ascension is not about Him leaving the Church – it is about Him filling the church with His body – born for you, sacrificed for you, raised for you and ascended for you.


Brothers and Sisters, our Lord Christ is Ascended and the doorway to heaven is open. By faith in Him, in His blood, in His body, by faith let us go in to Him, let us draw near and enter the throne room of God. Come to the altar and be touched by Jesus, come and be touched and be healed. Amen.