What Happened at the Ascension?

/ Sandra Bivens Smith
This week our daily devotions sill be from a Truth For Life article entitled “Risen and Ascended: 5 Ways Jesus Is Still Working”.

The Gospel story doesn’t end with a distressed Christ. It doesn’t end with a crucified Christ. Nor does it even end with a resurrected Christ. It ends with an ascended Christ, who is Lord and King, reigning on high from heaven, awaiting the appointed time for His return.

Nevertheless, the ascension of Jesus into heaven is arguably the least-considered aspect of His work. The average person in the street will probably know something about the birth of Jesus. They will probably know something about the death of Jesus. But if you were to ask them where Jesus presently is or what He is currently doing, they would probably give you a blank stare.

Still, the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ is of paramount importance, and the Scriptures encourage us to focus on the fact that He is, indeed, an ascended Christ.

The Gospel story doesn’t end with a distressed Christ. It doesn’t end with a crucified Christ. Nor does it even end with a resurrected Christ. It ends with an ascended Christ, who is Lord and King, reigning on high from heaven, awaiting the appointed time for His return.

Nevertheless, the ascension of Jesus into heaven is arguably the least-considered aspect of His work. The average person in the street will probably know something about the birth of Jesus. They will probably know something about the death of Jesus. But if you were to ask them where Jesus presently is or what He is currently doing, they would probably give you a blank stare.

Still, the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ is of paramount importance, and the Scriptures encourage us to focus on the fact that He is, indeed, an ascended Christ.

What Happened at the Ascension?

In order to begin to grasp the significance of Christ’s ascension, we first must understand, even very simply, what happened at this event. The Gospel of Luke offers this account:

And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God. (Luke 24:50–53)

In a sense, the ascension marks the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end. It is, as Luke puts it in his second volume, the end of “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1, emphasis added). Christ finished His earthly ministry but was only just starting His heavenly work.

J. I. Packer illustrates the ascension by saying, “It is as if, having travelled successfully in the firm’s interest, the Son was now recalled to headquarters to become managing director.”1 The Son had traveled on the Father’s business and had completed the task He’d been given; now He was going back to heaven to be the Father’s right-hand man.

Jesus departed from His disciples with His hands raised in blessing upon them. Is that the picture you have of Christ in your life: able, ready, and willing to bless?

1 J. I. Packer, Revelations of the Cross (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), 56.

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