The Rising After the Rising

Luke 24:50-53

Introduction

What were the most theologically significant events in Jesus’ life? That’s easy, just follow the holidays. What are the two biggest holidays for the Christian Church? Christmas and Easter, representing Jesus’ birth and his death and resurrection. Those are the events we really need to know. But what about the ascension? The ascension? What is that? It is the day that Jesus returned to heaven.

Not only is that day theologically important, it does have its own feast day. It is called the Feast of Ascension or Ascension Day. While Baptists don’t tend to make a big deal of it, traditionally it has been an important day. In fact it is very likely that Ascension Day was celebrated before people started celebrating Christmas.

Ascension Day is normally celebrated forty days after Easter, because according to Acts, Jesus spent forty days on earth post-resurrection before returning to heaven. Ascension Day was actually two days ago but many churches, at least those that recognize it, celebrate it on the Sunday after. Which is today.

I don’t normally feel the need to preach an Ascension Day sermon but today I am wrapping up a series on the Gospel of Luke that I started over four years ago. And Luke ends his Gospel with the description of the Ascension, an event I have always found interesting and overlooked. 

The Ascension

The ascension is extremely important, I would say almost as important as the death and resurrection. And yet we rarely talk about it, at least in Protestant circles. Why is that?

The ascension is only described in two books of the Bible and both of them written by Luke. I would suggest that it is referenced in other books but it is only Luke that describes the actual event.

That is not to say that Matthew, Mark and John didn’t believe in the ascension. These Gospels were written some time between twenty and sixty years after the events. But you don’t get the impression that they saw the possibility that any of their readers could just bump into the risen Jesus, as he was still just hanging around Jerusalem. The assumption is that he is gone. And the Apostle Paul, when he describes his encounter with the risen Jesus after the ascension, comments that it was a unique experience because of its timing. Jesus was not still around in the way he was, even for those forty days after his resurrection.

We also see in the Gospels that Jesus often predicted his second coming. He would say “And when the Son of Man comes” and by that he meant himself, that would require that he be gone. If we were having an hour long conversation and in the middle of it I blurted “I’m back!” you would be surprised because I hadn’t gone away. The fact that Jesus is described as coming back at some time requires that Jesus would leave before that event. That is the ascension.

Luke doesn’t give much detail about what happened. He simply says that Jesus was carried up into heaven. What does that mean? If we had a high powered drone that could travel through space, what would it have seen? Imagine that Jesus, after leaving our atmosphere, was able to travel at the speed of light. He would have travelled approximately 2000 light years by now. There is a planet called Einstein’s planet, a planet bigger than Jupiter, that orbits the star Cygnus. It is about 2000 light years away, and theoretically Jesus could just be arriving there.

Except that’s not what we believe. Jesus is not still flying through space, he is at the right hand of the Father. 

So what actually happened? We must remember that heaven has at least two meanings. One is the sky and one is the place where God is. Some ancients probably thought they were the same place. So Jesus did rise into the sky, but at some point he shifted into the realm where God dwells. This is not a planet on our universe, but an entirely different dimension. The disciples may have thought it was just beyond the clouds but it is both farther and nearer than that.

What Does It Mean?

This is all very interesting but at some point we have to ask what this means. What actually is going on here? I have attended quite a few rock concerts in my life. At some point in the concert, it seems to end, the band says goodbye and they leave the stage. It looks like it is over. But we all know that it isn’t over. They will just stay backstage for a few minutes while we stand and clap and shout the name of the band. Then, as was already planned, the band comes out and plays a few more songs as their encore.

Is that was the ascension is all about? Is it about Jesus going back stage for a couple thousand years before he comes out and performs his encore? His return is important but I don’t think that is all that is going on.

We are not given a lot of details but it looks as if Jesus’ ministry is still continuing, just in a different form. When Stephen is being killed for his faith in the book of Acts, he sees a vision of Jesus in heaven. Jesus is standing at the right hand of God. Standing not sitting. If his work was done, we would expect him to be sitting but he is standing. Jesus still had some work to do. In 1 John, we are told a bit more about the ongoing ministry of Jesus. We are told he is our advocate with the Father. We don’t fully know what that means but it looks like Jesus is still active.

And we can pray to Jesus as well. Sometimes people say that the only option for prayer is to pray to the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit. That is a fine formula but there are examples in the New Testament of people praying to Jesus. Plus praying in the name of Jesus doesn’t mean tagging “in Jesus name” on the end of the prayer. It presumes a more active role for Jesus. Finally, if the Son is just as much God as the Father, why couldn’t we pray to Jesus?

Basically, the picture we are given is that we have a good friend on the inside and he is actively working on our behalf. This is good news, especially in these troubled times.

Conclusion

What in the world, or what out of the world, is Jesus doing right now? Is Jesus on vacation? Did he find his thirty-three years on earth so exhausting that he needs a couple thousand years of rest? Not likely.

The best explanation that I can give, is something that many people during this pandemic can identify with. Jesus is basically working from home right now. He is in heaven at the right of the Father, but he is working and not resting. He can’t fully understand what he is doing, but he is working on our behalf. 

One day it will be time for him to stop working from home and go back to the office. The office is planet earth. He will return and begin the next chapter of his ministry. 

The ascension of Jesus Christ is important and we need to give it the due it deserves. Jesus in heaven provides blessing for us beyond what we can imagine.