He ascended into heaven

He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty

At the end of the Gospel of Luke, the resurrected Jesus lifts his hands up and blesses his disciples. Luke doesn’t tell us what blessing Jesus used. Perhaps it was Aaron’s blessing from Numbers 6: 

“The Lord bless you and keep you,

the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. 

The Lord turn his face toward you, and give you peace.” 

Jesus’ resurrection greeting in John’s gospel is simply, “Peace be with you.” And then he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In Acts 1, Luke gives us a few more details of Jesus’ last meeting with his disciples. Similar to John 20, he promises them the Holy Spirit. Then Luke tells us, “after he said this he was taken up before their very eyes” (Acts 1:9). 

Jesus ascended. 

Luke tells us, he ascended while he was blessing them. (Luke 24:51) The blessing is one of my favorite moments in the service. Not because the service is over. But because it is a reminder to the congregation, and to me, that the same Lord that we just worshipped during the service promises to be with us until we meet again.

I have regularly been using Aaron’s blessing the past several years at Union Park Presbyterian Church. I preface it by saying, “We will meet again next Sunday, but until then, “May the Lord bless you and keep you…” When I was a kid we used to sing a short chorus at the end of each service that started and ended with the line, “God be with you till we meet again.” As a kid it was just a song. As a pastor, the blessing is a reminder of the wonderful truth of my own limitations.

I can’t watch over the whole congregation. I can’t be with them always, or even often. I won’t be there for most of their heartaches or moments of anxiety or arguments with their teenagers. I won’t be there at 2am when insomnia and fear is overpowering their need for sleep. I won’t be there in the doctor’s office when the diagnosis is given. Or when they wake up the first day their house is empty of kids and they wonder, “What am I supposed to do now?”  

The good news is God is with them in all of those situations. Keeping them. Turning his face toward them to shine on them. And extending his grace. I remember reading a short commentary on the Psalms by Alec Motyer, the Psalm I was studying mentioned the “shining face of God,” and Motyer in one of his brilliant offhand remarks, quipped that there is the whole gospel in short - God smiles on us.  

I often use Psalm 121 with members in the hospital. It reminds us that God neither slumbers nor sleeps. He is constantly watching over us. I will often pray something to the effect: “Lord we know that our family members get tired, our friends and church family need sleep, the doctors and nurses cannot be here in the room every moment, but we rest in the promise that you are with us always. You have no need for sleep. May John (or Jessica or Carolyn or Steve) know your presence now, but also when no one else is here in the room with him.”  

The ascension of Jesus is the truth that Jesus, the risen Lord, the one true human is watching over us, always. I like to think of Jesus' “blessing” at the end of the gospel of Luke as his promise that somehow he will be with us, even when he is physically absent, till we meet again. 

The Heidelberg Catechism asks the question, “How does Christ’s ascension into heaven benefit us?” (Question 49).

The answer begins, “First, he is our advocate in heaven before his Father.” 

Jesus is not merely watching over us with curiosity. “How are they going to get out of this one?” He is not spying on us. He is not waiting to catch us slipping up. He is not looking for reasons to tell the Father, “See, I told you she was no good, there she goes yelling at her kids, again.” It is just the opposite; Jesus is advocating on our behalf.

Romans 8, one of the high points of Paul’s prose, puts it like this:

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  (Romans 8:31-34)

No one is in any position to bring a charge against us. No one can condemn us. Why? Because Christ died for us. Christ was raised for us. Not only that, Christ is at the “right hand of God…interceding for us.” Right now, the risen Lord is advocating for us.

It is an amazing list. Christ died for us. Christ was raised for us. And Christ is, right now, interceding for us. He wants us to flourish. He wants us to overcome sin. He wants us to experience love, joy, peace and patience. Not in the abstract but in the reality of the circumstances of your life right now. The saying goes, justice is blind. Or at least it should be. Thankfully, Jesus isn't. Jesus looks at us and sees us as perfect. Not because we are but because he is, and our lives are hidden in his life. In him, we've already died and already been raised to new life.

He will come again. We will see his smiling face in the flesh. This is our future hope. Our present hope is that he is currently praying for our good. And he won’t cease until we meet again.  

I believe he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father, Almighty.