…” Then He leads them out to Bethany. He lifts up His hands and blesses them, and at that moment, with His hands raised in blessing, he leaves them and is carried up into heaven. They worship Him, then they return to Jerusalem, filled with intense joy, and they return again and again to the temple to celebrate God.”
Luke 24:50-53
“As He finished [the] commission, He began to rise from the ground before their eyes until the clouds obscured Him from their vision. As they strained to get one last glimpse of Him going into heaven, the Lord’s emissaries realized two men in white robes were standing among them. “You Galileans, why are you standing here staring up into the sky? This Jesus who is leaving you and ascending to heaven will return in the same way you see Him departing.” Acts 1:9-11
The evangelical church often neglects this crucial moment in history and rushes into the next part of the story. We should take time to think about, meditate on, the significance of Jesus’ ascension. “Through the ascension, we discover that the incarnation continues.”[1] Remember that God came to earth in the form of a human. When Jesus returned to heaven, he took that humanity with him. What an amazing thought! He did not remove his humanity when he went back into heaven. Jesus returned to heaven as man and will return again to earth as man in the same way they saw him depart. He carries the same humanity that is us with him into heaven.
“But we are citizens of heaven, exiles on earth waiting eagerly for a Liberator, our Lord Jesus the Anointed, to come and transform these humble, earthly bodies by the same power that brings all things under His control” Phil 4:20, 21.
By Jesus’ ascension, we may, in the power of the Holy Spirit, ascend to God as well. The Lord Jesus descended to earth to in order to gather us up and bring us with him to His Father.[2]
This incredible moment that Luke records in his Gospel and in Acts and the Apostle Paul reflects on as well should give us as believers in the Incarnate, Resurrected, and Ascended Jesus GREAT JOY!
Today in the evangelical church of America we spend a lot of our worship time celebrating the work of Christ on earth and how we need his presence to continue in our lives. We sing songs that focus too much on ‘us’ and not enough on him and the life we will live in eternity.
I am reminded of a song we used to sing in Sunday School, ‘This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through…’ Are we teaching our children (or adults) this concept?
One of the biggest problems we have in this era is that there is too much emphasis on ‘me’. Church and culture have collided, and culture has won. I think it is a sad state. The church has lost its distinctiveness. The world has nothing better to offer, so why does the church work so hard to reflect the culture around it? Unfortunately, this is viewed as evangelism.
Recovering a healthy doctrine of the ascension and Christ’s continuing incarnation can breathe freshness, vitality, and spiritual growth into our worship which will then result in a more proper and fruitful relationship with the culture that surrounds us.[3]
In these next few days of counting the Omer until Pentecost let us pray:
Father in heaven, may Your name be revered.
May Your kingdom come.
May Your will be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us food we need for tomorrow,
And forgive us for our wrongs,
For we forgive those who wrong us.
And lead us away from temptation.
And save us from the evil one. Luke 11:2-4
And let us remember - The Mystery of our Faith is this:
Christ has died
Christ IS risen
Christ WILL come again!
Shalom Shalom!
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