He was taken up to heaven (2)

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. Acts 1:9

In yesterday’s blog I encouraged us to think about the remarkable event we call the “ascension” - the moment, forty days after his resurrection, when Jesus was taken up into heaven. I suggested a couple of answers to the question, Why did Jesus give his disciples that strange forty day period?

But I had in mind another question too. So...

2 Why did he give them only forty days?

We reflected yesterday that Jesus might well have returned to heaven immediately after his resurrection - perhaps within the next few days. But of course it could have been the other way too. He gave them roughly six weeks. But why not six months? Why not a year? Obviously, the final answer can only be, Because that’s what was right in God’s eyes. But it’s true also to say that Jesus needed to embark on the next phase - the heavenly phase - of his work.

I have thought of five things he was in effect saying to his disciples as he took his leave in this very dramatic way.

First, “You must get used to being without me”.

On the cross as he was about to die Jesus cried out “It is finished”: the work of salvation was accomplished. And after his rising, forty days was presumably just the right time for him to demonstrate beyond doubt the reality of his resurrection, and to give some final teaching - the things we thought about yesterday.

But it was now important for the disciples to realise that they really had seen the last of him as an earthly figure. They loved him deeply, and must have been immensely sad at the thought of him no longer being there. But there must be no clinging to him!

God is always on the move, and while it is sometimes painful to let go of the past, it is something we as Christians must do. What possible sense can there be in standing still when God is on the move?

Is God calling you to move on in some area of your life?

Second, “I must make way for the Holy Spirit”.

Jesus had told his disciples earlier “Unless I go away, the Counsellor [that is, the Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

I have spoken about Jesus leaving them, of him no longer being there; but of course that is wrong really. Yes, he leaves them bodily, but he remains wonderfully with them through the Spirit. 

It may seem strange, and I must admit I don’t fully understand it, but the disciples gained far more than they lost by the departure of Jesus: he says in John 14:12 that anyone who believes in him will do “even greater things” than he has done “because I am going to the Father”.

 

Is it time for you to recognise the presence of the Spirit in your life, and to claim his power?

Third, “I am going to prepare a place for you”.

In John 14:2 Jesus makes this wonderful promise: when our early lives are over we go not into some vague, gloomy after-life, but to a dwelling place, a resting place, which Jesus has personally made ready for us. 

Is this a comfort you need today?

Fourth, “I have a ministry of prayer to exercise for you”.

This is another great truth that, I must confess, I understand only very slightly. But never mind! It’s right there in the New Testament: “Christ Jesus... is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). And the writer to the Hebrews says that Jesus our great High Priest “always lives to intercede for” those who come to God through Jesus (Hebrews 7:25).

Why not pause for a moment to dwell on this thought: Jesus is even now in heaven praying for me!

Fifth, “I’m sending you out!”

It would be wrong to say that Jesus is telling his disciples “Right, off you go - you’re on your own!” No, he promises to be with them always, as we have said.

But there is a sense of the disciples being like young birds pushed out of the nest: “There is a work for you to do - so once the Spirit has come, get right out there and get on with it”. To put it once again in the words of Acts: “You will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (1:8).

Is it time you took Jesus at his word and plunged yourself headlong into the work of the Kingdom of God?

Heavenly Father, please help me not to hanker after the great days of the past but, like the first disciples, to throw myself into your work by the power of the Spirit. Amen.