He Ascended and is Seated

by Dave Wilkinson

Acts 1:1-11

October 6, 2002

If you stand on the west slope Mount of Olives and look across the Kidron Valley you can see all Jerusalem spread out below you -- Mount Zion to the south, the Temple Mount to the north, the modern city toward the setting sun. The Old City with its twisting alleys looks as if it was carved from a single layer of golden sandstone.

Spires and domes of ancient churches and mosques rise above the collage of roofs. Out of sight below a silver dome is the Western Wall, the surviving portion of the Jewish temple -- the focus of Jewish longing during the years of exile. The thousands of graves that spread across the valley right beneath you look like endless stacks of marble slabs in a quarry. They attest to the belief of many medieval Jews that the resurrection will begin first at the Mount of Olives. They want to be on hand when the Messiah comes.

Well the Messiah has come. And at least for now, has left. In fact, somewhere behind you at the top of the Mount, Jesus gathered His disciples around Him after His resurrection and was taken into heaven before their eyes.

Scripture clearly says that Jesus left this earth in an unusual fashion. But, frankly, the ascension of Jesus is not usually a part of our conversation about our faith.

I think that part of this is because we just don’t know how to picture it. The literal images are almost too literal.

One of the funniest stained glass windows I’ve ever seen (if stained glass windows can ever be funny) was in a cathedral in England this past summer. Each window in the series showed an event from the life of Jesus. They were beautiful and moving. But then I came to the last window which showed a group of amazed men looking up -- at a pair of feet sticking out of a cloud. At first I thought the artist had misplaced a panel until I figured out that he was trying to depict the ascension.

This might make a great scene for special effects in a movie, but it appears sort of absurd to the modern imagination. After all, does anyone today really think that heaven is a place "up there" to which we could travel if we only had the coordinates and the right vehicle?

But the ascension doesn’t imply heaven is up. It’s simply that Jesus had to withdraw somehow, and going up, going down, going sideways, or suddenly vanishing are the only possible ways.

But why the ascension? I mean, why didn’t Jesus just disappear one day -- maybe with a note for His disciples to tell them that He’s gone home?

Well Jesus couldn’t just disappear. For Jesus promised us, "surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." The disciples need to know that He has not deserted them but had commissioned them to continue His work. A decisive parting keeps the disciples from wasting time looking for Jesus in India as some Hindus teach or in Central America as the Mormons teach. The two angels who are there tell them where Jesus has gone.

But when you think about it, you realize that actually there was actually little fanfare when Jesus went home. There were no trumpets. There were no angelic choirs -- just two angels. There was no chariot of fire like Elijah rode.

Today there not even a decent church to mark the probable spot. All there is at the top of the Mount of Olives now is a little domed building made out of plaster that can hold maybe thirty people. Inside this little building is a place where the topsoil has been scraped away so you can see the rocky tip of the Mount. Next to this is a beat up tin tray where you can leave a dollar for whoever manages the site. It’s not impressive.

It could have been much more impressive. Think of what Jesus could have done.

He could have walked into the Temple, made a speech, and then leapt up to the sky from a pinnacle of the Temple in full view of the assembled populace of Jerusalem. Think of how spectacular that would have been. Think of the electrifying impact on the people who saw it.

Or maybe He could have gone back to Mt. Calvary, climbed up on to His empty Cross and, before the astonished gaze of thousands, mounted to heaven.

But He didn’t do it. He just went out from the bustling, busy capital to the comparative quiet of the Mount of Olives. He went there with His closest followers. When it was time to leave, He left.

But as Charles Swindoll observes: "I might have been terrified if I had been Elisha walking with Elijah when the horses of fire and the chariots of fire came to take him away. But there was nothing terrible about the ascension of Christ. He was not a prophet of fire; He was gentle, meek, and lowly, and there was nothing to inspire terror in the way He ascended into heaven.

Swindoll observes, "It is, to my mind, very beautiful to think of there being no medium employed in connection with His ascension, no angels’ wings to bear Him upward, no visible arm of omnipresence to lift Him gently from the earth -- no eagle of Jupiter to steal away this choice and chosen One. No ... He rises by His own power and majesty; He needs no one to help ... He proved the innate power of His Deity, by which He could depart out of the world just when He willed ...And "A cloud received Him out of their sight," for I suppose the disciples had then seen all that they ought to see. Perhaps, behind that cloud there were scenes of glory which it was not possible for human eyes to gaze upon, and words which it was not lawful for human beings to hear."

But from this end it wasn’t spectacular. It wasn’t meant to be spectacular. But the impact for us is spectacular. The ascension is the vital link between Jesus’ ministry on earth and His heavenly ministry. The ascension isn’t the curtain falling on the last act of the play and the audience rising to leave. It is the beginning of the role of the church and Jesus’ rule in power on behalf of His church.

In His death and resurrection, Jesus had completed His earthly ministry. It was time to hand over to His Church what we have been called to do -- what we celebrate this morning in our Mission Fair. And Jesus had a new ministry to undertake – a heavenly work in which He continues to minister to us as, Hebrews 4 says, "our Great High Priest who has passed through the heavens."

The ascension doesn’t signal simply a return to business as usual between God and humanity. No. The Son of God did not come down in order to stay. Nor did He come to us in order to slum for thirty-three years before shedding our skin and returning to the splendor of heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ descended to us in order to gather us up and bring us with Him to His Father in heaven. He went back still wearing our flesh.

Jesus has gone up. But He has not gone away from the church but gone up to be the empowerment for the church.

What all this means is that when things go poorly for us, when the world falls apart, things come loose, and chaos threatens, that we know who is in charge, who rules. "Seated at the right hand of God" in the Apostle’s Creed means that Jesus has come into His throne as the sovereign ruler of the cosmos. In His place of highest dignity, a royal diadem has replaced the crown of thorns.

He also knows what’s going on with our lives. When the world threatens to swirl out of control, He is still in charge. It is not the powers that be, not the political leaders of the day, not the genetic engineers, not the tyrants who brutalize their own people, not the forces of the world markets or the international corporations; Jesus governs all things.

And this means that no matter how stupid and foolish human actions appear to be, however senseless human life can appear to be, however poor the church’s performance, with all it’s dissension and indifference, however, confused and diabolical the development of human history, nevertheless, everything serves the reign of Christ.

The ascension and reign says to us that, though we cannot see Jesus, we still share in intimate communion with Him. We still enjoy His gifts of the Holy Spirit and the inner assurance of our future with Him. Because He reigns in glory, we can count on God’s protection from every enemy. And we have the assurance, that everything it costs us to keep true to Jesus, He will repay us one hundred times over.