King Saint Erik’s death on the Feast of the Ascension in 1160 invites us to consider what kind of King Jesus is, and how that compares to the leaders we follow. Jesus is a different kind of ruler, and so his followers live a different kind of life.
Erik C. Nelson
Feast of the Ascension
14 May 2026
Texts: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53
—
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
—
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this church has a lot of Eriks. And while all of our parents had different reasons and inspirations behind our names, the popularity of the name goes back to one person, King Erik XIV, the patron saint of Sweden, who died on the Feast of the Ascension in 1160.
If there’s one thing to know about his life, King Erik was someone who clearly had an eye on his legacy. He wanted to make a name for himself.
He fought through a bloody civil war, eventually ending up on top. He wrote a new legal code for his domain.
He also launched the first Finnish Crusade, leading Swedish soldiers to Finland, to demand that the Finns became Christians or face death.
The chronicle of a prominent monastery recounts how he harassed the monks there, demanding they listen to him, pay him tribute, submit to their “good Christian king.”
As followers of the risen and ascended Christ, we know that these actions are not consistent with who we know Christ to be as our King. A godly king would not spend his time harassing monks and launching crusades.
On the Feast of the Ascension, 1160, King Erik’s violent reign finally caught up with him.
About halfway through the mass, in the Cathedral at Uppsala, he heard that a Danish rival had arrived to challenge him. Everyone expected Erik to get up and go fight him, but he stayed through the end of the liturgy.
I like to imagine that in hearing today’s Scripture lessons about Christ our King, the only one who reigns over all the nations, he started to get a glimpse of what Christ’s kingship really means.
It took him his whole life, but he finally, as he was facing certain death, he finally knew what it meant to be a king like Christ. It wasn’t about imposing his will over the people. It wasn’t about leading a crusade.
To lead like Christ means to serve like Christ … sometimes, to die like Christ, laying down your life for your friends. Sacrificing everything so that others can live.
After the mass was finished, Erik went out the door, met his rival, and was killed. The legend goes into too much detail about that, but I see in his choice, a change in him.
Instead of leading an army, instead of getting all the people there together to fight and die on his behalf, he went out and gave himself up for his friends, preventing greater bloodshed.
His attempts to claim a legacy for himself, especially the crusade, they’re now looked back upon with scorn and dishonor.
What he’s remembered for is that last moment, laying down his life for his friends.
In our first reading, the reading from Acts, we see the disciples acting like King Erik. They hear Jesus make this wonderful promise of the Holy Spirit, and they respond by asking him if this is the time he’ll restore the kingdom.
They’re hoping that this is finally the moment they’ve been waiting for, looking for Jesus to cast out the Romans and rule like King David, or like King Erik.
But he sees that they still don’t get it, and he gently redirects them, saying that that it’s not for them to know what the Father has in store, but reaffirms his promise that the Holy Spirit will come to them, to give them power and comfort as they go do the work of the reign of Christ.
This reign of Christ, they heard about again and again in Jesus’ teachings, is not about imposing our will on others or using violence to force people to say what we want them to say or believe what we want them to believe.
This reign of Christ is about Christ. And Jesus says that he came not to be served, but to serve. He is a humble king, who we are invited to emulate.
So today, on the Feast of the Ascension, it feels a little off with all the imagery of Jesus the King of the Universe, seated at the right of the Father.
And this is an eternal truth of him, and who he is for us.
But when we look only at Jesus reigning in glory, like the disciples who were stuck on the Mount of Olives, staring into heaven, we lose sight of what really matters.
The angels told the disciples. “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
Jesus is gone from them, from us, and it’ll be quite a while before he returns again in the same way.
But as we wait for his return, don’t just stay there, looking for him in the heavens, waiting for his glory.
Look for him where he promises to be.
Look for him in the bread and wine of communion, the body of Christ that makes us the body of Christ. And then we leave our Mount of Olives, to look for him elsewhere.
Go out and look for him in the faces of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the prisoner, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the outcast.
In Matthew 25, Jesus says that whatever we did for the least of these brothers and sisters, we did it for him.
Look for Jesus in the face of the outcast. Get down on your knees and wash some feet.
It took King Erik his whole life to realize that he was building the wrong kind of kingdom. The disciples, stuck on the hill, staring toward heaven, were looking for the wrong kind of kingdom.
We aren’t supposed to be looking for a Christian nation because Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is already here.
The reign of Christ has already come, not in an earthly government, but in the people of God, the ones who have inherited God’s glorious riches. Those riches aren’t gold or silver, but instead they are the knowledge, the truth, of God’s love.
The one who stretched out the heavens, who created the galaxies, and the seas, the one who now is reigning at the right hand of the Father, is our own brother, who loves and cares for each one of us.
Jesus Christ is the name above every name, and when we know how much he loves and cares for us, we’re free.
We’re able to take a breath. We’re able to loosen our grip. We can stop hustling and start trusting.
We’re freed from the need to get our own way. We’re freed from the desire to make our own name.
We’re freed to look for Jesus, not in the air, not in glory or power or majesty, but in the most unlikely places. In the face of the stranger, in the face of the outcast, in the face of our friends, in the face of our enemies.
We’re freed to love, not because of some demand from on high, some command from a king, but because we know that we are loved.
The immeasurable riches of God, given to us in Christ, means the only name we have that really matters is Beloved Child of God.
Thanks be to God.
—
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
