The Meaning of Ascension

Read Luke 24:44–53

The ascension of Jesus has puzzled people from the very beginning, and since the Enlightenment it has been the subject of disdain on the part of Christianity’s “cultured despisers.” When it comes down to it, though, all the speculation about where Jesus went when he ascended, all the sarcastic remarks about his rocketing through the atmosphere and into outer space, all the nitpicking about chronology and geography and everything else are beside the point. The ascension finds its meaning within the broader context of the resurrection. Jesus is alive, then he is dead, then he is alive again. He is present with the disciples before his death and (briefly) after his resurrection, and now he is no longer present, at least not in the same way. But his going away, however that manifests itself, is not the end of the story. The Spirit is soon to come to inhabit the community of disciples and empower them to carry on his work. Jesus is gone, but not really, because the Spirit of Christ abides with us, comforting us, challenging us, convicting us, and motivating us to be ambassadors of Christ, and proclaimers and enactors of the commonwealth of God.

One of the things Jesus does for his disciples before ascending is to “[open] their minds to understand the scriptures” (v. 45). Luke may be offering us a subtle hint here at the end that we are to go back to the beginning. Jesus’s opening the scriptures to them for the last time should remind us of the first time he opens them. Back in chapter 4, at the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus introduces the motifs and purposes of the ministry he is about to begin by taking the scroll of Isaiah and reading, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19).

In this inaugural sermon in his hometown, Jesus lays out a strategy that he will pursue all the way to his death in Jerusalem. He has come to bring good news to the poor, oppressed, and marginalized. He has come to do works of compassion and liberation. He has come to shatter the barricades the powers have set up to keep people alienated from each other and from God. He has come to build a community based on sharing of resources and mutual concern. His message is confrontational and controversial, religious and political. It gets him into a lot of trouble—right there in the Nazareth synagogue and later before the judgment seat of Pontius Pilate. But he holds unswervingly to the vision God has given him, even in the face of death. As a result, he is able to pass through death and humiliation to life and vindication on the other side, and now he is ready to forge a path for his friends to follow.

That path, however, entails his leaving them for a while. Luke says that Jesus instructs the disciples to remain in Jerusalem “until [they] have been clothed with power from on high” (v. 49). He is referring, of course, to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, which we will celebrate ten days from now. But for the Spirit to come, Jesus must first cross that final boundary, out of this world and into that dimension where God reigns unopposed and God’s will is done perfectly. He must go away, but as he says in John’s gospel, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate [i.e., the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

No longer bound to the earth, Jesus has gone into the heavenly places, as the writer of Ephesians 1:20 says, and now fills the universe. Now that Jesus has ascended, he can send us the Spirit, who will empower us to do the same things Jesus came to do: to bring good news to the poor; to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to let the oppressed go free; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

That is the meaning of ascension.

Grace and peace,
bob