| Andrew Lim
13 July 2008 - Luke 24:44-53
We come to a line in the Creed that sounds a little strange to us
if we would admit it
It talks about our Lord / being taking up physically in a cloud
becomes enveloped by it
and disappears from the sight of the disciples
as he ascends to heaven / and he goes on to where the Father is
and is today sitting at the Father’s right hand
It does not sound normal
It sounds rather strange that anyone should have to be doing that at all
We have a lot of questions here
- how far up did He had to go / before He reached the Father
- is that a physical place that He’s gone to?
- if His ascended body was a physical one
and we have no reason not to believe so / why then do we go on
to say that heaven is not so much a physical place
and if not / how is His physical body accommodated in heaven
I don’t pretend to have all these answers / neither do the theologians
but it remains so that the ascension is a clear teaching of the Bible
and it is placed here in the Creed for our affirmation
which should tell us that this is a pivotal teaching of Scripture
The story goes this way
After the death of Jesus / or the murder of Jesus as John MacArthur calls it
He rose from the dead / We call that the resurrection
40 days after / He ascended in to heaven / We call that the ascension
Then He sits at the right hand of God / we call that the session
So we have the three movements Resurrection / Ascension / and Session
The average Christian / for that matter the average non-Christian
has heard of the resurrection
but as for the other two movements / ascension and session
fewer Christians have any real understanding
We no longer celebrate Ascension Day in our Church Calendar
- if churches still observe a Church Calendar
We don’t preach about it / Theology books mostly bypass it
Most commentaries don’t cover it sufficiently
But this was not always so
The early church celebrated the ascension of Jesus
as much as Christmas (His birth) and Easter (His resurrection)
Why has Ascension slipped into obscurity? / We don’t know the real reason
Perhaps it is because it occurred forty days after Easter
which always puts it on a Thursday
And people today are reluctant to come out to church on a Thursday
Perhaps Ascension Day competes with Mother's Day
guess which celebration easily takes precedence
We need to do better
I mean / you think of what was perhaps the greatest crowning moments
of human history / say the coronation of Charlemagne
often called the greatest of the medieval kings
After years of struggle he established his empire
Through war / legislature / education / and various other dealings
he was able to rescue the world from barbarism / violence and ignorance
and to begin to develop the dream of civilization
And He gave his empire
the prestige, sanctity, and stability of Imperial Rome
And today / he is regarded not
only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies
but also as the father of Europe
On Christmas Day / the year 800, he was crowned supreme ruler
over what is known as the Holy Roman Empire.
An incredible coronation! / An amazing recognition!
What a moment that must have been!
It was a coronation that would have results for the next thousand years.
But as great as that may have been / it does not even begin to compare
with the greatest crowning triumph of all
the Ascension of Jesus Christ to the right hand of the Father in Heaven
The Bible tells us that Jesus was raised form the dead on Easter morning
And over the next 6 weeks / or a 40-day period
He had made numerous appearances to his disciples
He would appear before them quite suddenly
and just as suddenly He would vanished from their sight
He simply disappeared and reappeared from time to time
Finally He led them out to Bethany / and lifting up his hands
he blessed them / While he was blessing them
he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven
The disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy / Lk 24:50-53
We could also say that the ascension provides a natural way
for Jesus to exit physically from our planet earth
If we just had the resurrection of Jesus without the ascension
we would still be left with the question
of what was to become of the body of Jesus
The gospels are clear that the resurrected body of Jesus was a real body
not a phantom / or a hallucination
Jesus said / “Look at my hands and my feet / see that it is I myself
Touch me and see / for a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you see that I have” / Luke 24:39
And He prepared an intentional final deliberate departure
so they might know that now / He has decisively left them
Now / upon reflection we are glad
that our Lord didn’t ascend to heaven immediately after His resurrection
If our Lord had ascended to heaven immediately
after his Resurrection / the disciples would be left
with a sort of blurred impression of His resurrection
And if they should be asked years later
“Are you sure you didn’t dream this up?”
they might say “Well / I don’t think I did
but of course it wasn’t all very clear after all these years”
It was important that his disciples should be left with no doubt
that He rose from the dead
that He stayed for a while to confirmed for them His resurrection
Jesus deliberately wanted to be seen / and touched and spoken to
He delayed His ascension for forty days
so they will be absolutely sure of His resurrection
Further / it is hard to imagine / how apart from the ascension
will the disciples ever get to understand / that He was going to the Father
He could not tell His followers that He was going to the Father
by appearing to sink into the mud!
He performed this miracle of the ascension to convey the lesson
that He is now going to the Father in Heaven
He wanted to show them that He is now the risen exalted Lord
So His ascension is needful
This is exaltation / not levitation
Further / He was sensitive to the fact
that it would be good for His parting to be gradual and not sudden
There is a story that is not well translated in the Bible
Remember when Mary Magdalene met our Lord in the garden
she fell at His feet / and immediately wanted to touch Him
Matthew 28:9 records the other women doing the same thing
when they saw the resurrected Christ
Most translation tell us that He said to her
“Don’t touch me because I have not yet ascended to my Father”
But why should He not be touched just because He hadn’t yet ascended?
What is it about the ascension that He mustn’t be touched before then?
We know He could be touched before His ascension
He told Thomas to insert his finger into His nail-pierced hand
Elsewhere He told the disciples to touch Him
so they could be sure it was indeed His resurrected body
So this translation “Don’t touch me” seems rather odd
Knowing a little Greek helps us here / In the Greek the word
that’s translated “touch” here in John 20:17 / is the word haptou
It does not mean to touch / as in touching with the tip of a finger
Rather it means “to cling to / to lay hold of” / “to seize’"
Only one translation got it right / Weymouth New Testament
Jesus said to Mary / “Do not cling to me
for I have not yet ascended to the Father”
So Mary was not just touching Jesus
she was holding on to Him / clinging to Him / in worship
In Matt 28:9 / He is asking the women
to stop clinging to Him by His feet / and worshipping Him
until he has ascended to the heavens
What seems to be happening here?
Jesus is teaching them / that He didn’t rise from the dead
just so He could permanently hang around them
on this earth / in this bodily form
He is teaching them / that He will have to ascend and be with the Father
He is telling them / Then / when I have ascended
and seated at the right hand of the Father
only then / can you accord me the kind of worship
you are wanting so much to give me now
He is telling them / Not yet
Don’t cling to me in worship like you now do
Don’t satisfy yourself with this partial completion of my full mission
So for those reasons our Lord stayed forty days on earth
mostly in Galilee before moving back to Jerusalem
and finally to the mount of Olives
where he was taken up into heaven
and a cloud received him out of their sight
But we still haven’t yet answer the question
about the true significance of the ascension
Why the need for an ascension?
There are some crucial reasons why the ascension is important
First / There were people who’d been lying dead for centuries
lying there quietly / but waiting for this very precise moment
when in His ascension / He set them free and lead them into heaven
Now you might be thinking / what on earth is he talking about
But let me say it again / there are people
we cannot know the precise number / but there are people
lying dead / in a place where the dead lie waiting
waiting for this moment / when He would ascend
so they too would be set free as ascend with Him
We are explicitly told that the One who first descended
into the depths of the earth / is now ascended into the heights of heaven
Ephesians 4 tells us / that to say that Jesus ascended
meant that He first descended
I am aware that there are scholars like Wayne Grudem
who do not believe that Jesus descended into hell
Grudem says that this “descent” is His “descent” from heaven
when Christ came to be born as a man
and not of a descent into hell
I believe there are good biblical grounds
to believe that Jesus did descend into hell / as the Creed says He did
But after His descent / came His ascent
And when Jesus ascended / He took along with Him
invisible to us / a whole host of people who lived and died
centuries before He ever came down to earth to doe for us
These were believes
who’d been laying still and cold and dead for long years
waiting for the resurrection of the dead
Old Testament people who believed in God / died before the time of Jesus
They did not get to go to heaven immediately
They went to a place called Hades
Hades was divided into two parts / Luke 16 tells us
The righteous went to the side called Paradise / or Abraham's bosom
The unrighteous went to the side called Gehenna
When Jesus was on the cross / He told the repentant thief
“Today / you shall be with me in Paradise” / Lk 23:42-43
This is where righteous people who died / lay waiting
This is where Jesus was / when he told his disciples / that he would be
“three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” / Mt 12:40
Eph 4:8-9 says Jesus descended into the “lower parts of the earth”
He descended to the place called Paradise to go to those righteous ones
those who’d been dead / long before Jesus ever appeared on earth
those who waited / in faith / in Abraham's bosom
for their sins to be removed
When Jesus ascended into heaven
He led these “captives” out from captivity / on into heaven
- all those whom He rescued from the dead
Eph 4:8 / “Therefore it says / “When He ascended on high
He led captive / a host of captives”
This is the first reason / why there had to be an ascension
Second / strange as it may sound / the ascension
does not spell the absence of Jesus / but the presence of Jesus
We believe the apostles must have grasped this
because they did not show grief at His ascension
but instead they “returned to Jerusalem with great joy” / Luke 24:52
They seem to have understood that the ascension
far from removing Jesus from them / was to assure them of a presence
that’s an even closer presence than His physical presence
For thirty-three years when He walked on earth
He was near only to a few
But now that He has ascended / He is near to us all
He is not only near your hearts / He is near you
He is not only near you / He is in you
Don’t conclude
that because He sits on the right hand of God in heaven
that He is far removed from us
We could say that Jesus He left us on Mount Olive / at Bethany
so that he might be with us in Auckland / Vancouver / Rome / Shanghai
The ascension / enables Jesus to be universally omnipresent
So His last words should come to us as no surprise
“Remember I am with you always to the end of the age” Mat 28:20
We all know that He is very much present here with us this morning
and it is the ascension that ensures us this
So for those significant reasons / Jesus ascend into heaven
But the Bible teaches us that after He had ascended
He sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty
This is the only present tense in the Creed / “sits”
He is still sitting today
And He will remain there until He returns / to judge the world
This is called “session”
But what’s this “right hand of God”
It symbolizes a place of the highest honor
Not even the angels are allowed to sit where Jesus sits
Sitting there / His crown of thorns / has been replaced
with a glorious crown of glory and power and majesty!
The One Who sits at the right hand of God
is that One the Father accords the highest honor and power
And true to that / our Lord now sits there at the Father’s right hand
having full sway and control over all the universe
From His throne / His power and influence permeates the whole earth
Like yeast in a blob of dough that continues to work on the dough
Christ’s influence will continue to permeate human lives
until that time when He shall be all in all
until all things are put under his feet
Abraham Kuyper the Dutch theologian is right when he said
“There is not a square inch / in the whole domain
of human existence / over which Christ
who is Sovereign over all / does not cry: / ‘Mine!’”
Everything rightly belongs to the ascended Christ
Luther wrote 500 years ago “The right hand of god is everywhere!”
There is not one square inch of ground on this earth
where you can place the heel of your foot
where He is not with you and in complete control
Wherever you may go / He is there / and He is Lord
Further the fact that He sits at the Father’s right hand
also speaks of His absolute total victory over the devil
The Word of God says / “He was put to death in the flesh
but made alive in the spirit / who has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God / with angels / authorities
and powers made subject to him” / 1 Peter 3:18, 22
Invisibility / rather than diminishing his power / increases His power
The fact that He now sits on God’s right hand / is evidence
that our Lord has overcome all the hostile powers that opposed Him
Christ has risen and ascended
Satan is defeated / Sin has lost its power over you
Death is doomed / Eternity is ours
By sitting at God’s right hand / Jesus asserts the place of ultimate authority
He is enthroned at the Father’s right hand
He sits enthroned in the pinnacle of glory / honor / and dominion
He is the transcendent Lord of all
Sitting there / He rules the world
He sits there / as the Universal King
And as He sits there / His kingdom will continue to expand
until He comes a second time
to reign over the new heaven and the new earth
Now for the “so what” question
If Jesus ascended to heaven / and sits at the right hand of God
what does this mean for us today?
what difference should His ascension make?
One clear evident response is this
If Jesus ascended to heaven
then heaven is our true home / Not this world
And we need to beware about being carried off by this world
We need to watch that we not become dizzy by the lures of this world
We must live above the world and not like the world
We are not to love the world / neither the things that are in the world
for it is passing away
We are not to lay up treasures here on earth where there is corruption
We are not to be conformed to this world
And its not just about material things
its about worldly living / petty competitions / petty power plays
Instead / we must measure everything by heavenly standards
Secondly / because He is ascended / and now at God’s right hand
it tells us that He is there to intercede for us
Christ Jesus died / was raised / and is now at the right hand of God
interceding for us / on our behalf / Rom. 8, 34
I don’t think we have meditated sufficiently on this teaching
That Jesus is now at God’s right hand interceding for us
Have you ever paused to think / and imagine what it must be like
to have Jesus Himself / not any priest or prophet or king
but to have Jesus / interceding for us
This must be huge!
Could this be the reason / why you and I are still alive today
Could there have been dangers unknown to us
that we have been delivered from
because Jesus is there beside the Father praying for us?
Surely we would all be less worried and anxious than we are
had we been conscious that Jesus is praying for us
There are mighty evil forces out there / that try to have us in their grip
they discourage us / accuse us / molest us / temp us / grieve us
But because of the ascension / we can have the power available to us
Paul wants us to know how very great is His power
at work in us who believe / Eph 1:19
Perhaps you come to church this morning
worried about something in your life
- your family / your child / your parents / your studies / job / bills
finance / future / fears / and a bunch of other things
Remember / Jesus sits at God’s right hand in heaven
interceding for you
But not only is He interceding for you
He also has the power to deliver you from your grief
He promised / just before the ascension
“I will be with you always / to the end of the age” / Matt 28:20
when we dread what the doctor will say
when we stand at the grave of a loved one
when a child gives us one heartache after another
when we worry about finances / retirement / and the bills
when we toss and turn at night / with every kind of fear and anxiety
spinning around in our head
we need to be reminded that the ascended Jesus
is far greater that any trouble that distresses us
when our sin upsets us
when our guilt plagues us
when we fear what will happen to us when we take our last breath
Jesus / our ascended Lord / is here near you / to hold you
He has defeated the power of sin to condemn us
He has beaten down Satan
He promises to forgive you
He has overcome the power of death
God says Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you
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