No persecutor can avail over the victory of Christ for His people. Even if death separates them from this world, it cannot separate them from the love of God and the redemption accomplished through Jesus Christ.
This pericope has law and gospel, as well as principles of Christian ethic. The effective preacher rightly distinguishes them but also confidently preaches them.
If Easter is about Jesus as the prototype of the new creation, then the Ascension is about His enthronement as the One who rules forevermore on Earth as it is in Heaven.
The Son is the rock or, put differently, Jesus is the Temple of God and, therefore, our one true hope, no matter the persecutions or hardships we may endure.
Peter admonishes every soul baptized into Christ Jesus to strive for the new life by the Spirit, resulting in a radically new morality, the ethic of Christ’s Kingdom. That is the new normal.
This is the account God has been directing to accomplish the recovery of His global Kingdom and reestablish its rule through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
In prayer, hymns, and readings we hear the great paradox of our faith: Christ is proclaimed the mighty King who reigns, not by way of the so-called “triumphal entry,” but from the cruciform tree of life, the Cross of Calvary.