Not quite a century ago, Louis Berkhof, Professor of Dogmatic Theology and president of Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, wrote his Systematic Theology, which remained influential probably even into the 1970s, if not beyond.  About the Ascension, Berkhof writes that, “the impression is often given [. . .] that the work accomplished by the Saviour [sic] on earth was far more important than the services which He now renders in heaven.”[1]  After the drama of the days leading up to the Crucifixion, and the drama of the Resurrection, the Ascension, not quite forty days later, while it doesn’t seem entirely anticlimactic, just doesn’t have the impactful feel of Easter.  That should strike us as regrettable.  The problem with the Ascension, I suppose, is that it is not so much dramatic as mysterious.  The empty tomb, the angels’ message, Jesus appearing?  Drama—the emotional roller coaster, screaming, crying, trembling, rejoicing, running.  The Ascension?  Jesus gently levitating up and up and up.  I mean, if there had been a fiery chariot or something, that would have been great.  Where’s the drama?  Oh, how we love drama.  We thrive on it.  We’re so good at it.

But the Ascension is just as much about power, grace, and glory as the empty tomb.  The joy of Easter is that Jesus was back.  The joy of the Ascension is that Jesus goes.  This is good news for us, just as Jesus had told them even before he went to the cross: “If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I am going to the Father [. . . .] And now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe” (Jn 17:28-29).  About a week before Pentecost there was the Ascension.  The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, some of the earliest statements of the very heart of Christian faith, both make sure to mention the Ascension.  We affirm the Ascension because this is what the apostles themselves witnessed.

The Ascension means Jesus is no longer with us, physically.  The Ascension means Jesus has fulfilled the purpose of his physical ministry on earth.  If his death on the cross may be understood as the fulfillment of his baptism, his rising to be with the Father may be understood as the fulfillment of his resurrection.  With the Ascension, Jesus turns the page.  We have the teaching.  We have the promise.  We have the saving death and the glorious resurrection.  Henceforth, we have ministry.  We also have one praying for us, for our blessing and the success of our ministry, even Jesus Christ.  Writes Berkhof: “the intercessory work of Christ [. . .] relates to our moral condition, our gradual sanctification.”[2]  Presbyterian pastor and former president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, William J. Carl III writes that “The ascension shows that Christ has been received into the realm of God, that unseen world that we will someday experience and that we know is as real as the unseen world of truth, friendship, and love.”[3]  With the Ascension, through Christ’s prayers, we are being refined, purified, perfected.  It’s a process.  It’s a prayer Christ is now always praying for us.

One of the things that boggled the apostles on Easter and thereafter until the Ascension was that it was Jesus himself, in his own, familiar body, once more alive among them.  They had seen Jesus raise the dead, those who had died of natural causes.  They had seen Jesus on the cross.  Who would raise the Raiser?  As we read Scripture, it becomes evident that, once Jesus knows he had achieved forgiveness of sins for those trusting in his name, he gave up his spirit—it wasn’t wrested from him by force or violence.  He didn’t die because he was no longer able to hold on to life.  And the wounds of his sacrifice were upon him.  We might think of a glorified body as one that is perfect, without blemish or scar.  In the case of Jesus, though, we are told the marks remain.  These are not marks of shame but of glory.  Shall our glorified bodies bear the marks of our faithful service?  The foremost theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, was of the belief that we’d all be seventeen again, as though that was the peak of perfection—not many marks on our bodies at age seventeen.  Why not thirty-five, or fifty?  No, not fifty!

Jesus returns whence he had come, to the Father.  He tells us he goes to prepare a place for us, Amen!  He goes also to take his place at the right hand of the Father.  He ascends to the throne.  We need not imagine that literally—God is Spirit after all.  God does not need some oversized, ornate gold chair in some big audience hall.  Symbolically, the victorious Son has been crowned with all glory—glory which he will return to the Father at the consummation of all things.  That is where we are now headed.  Peter speaks of “the time of restoring all things” (Ac 3:21).  Things are in need of restoration.—Amen?  Have you ever watched any of those restoration videos, like on YouTube?  They can be kind of fascinating; there are a lot of them!  We see an abundance of applied mechanical know-how, some cool tools, as well as tradition and craftsmanship, an eye to detail, and seeing what can be—potential.  Sometimes, the restorer is able to salvage every part of what is being restored.  Other times, he throws away the parts too far gone.  In the judgment of the restorer, these can’t be salvaged.  There may just be a spiritual lesson, there, though it’s not one we may like or want to think about.

There are those who do think about Christ’s return.  We can get to thinking about it, thinking it will be soon—I mean, how much worse can it get, right?  I’m not convinced: this world has been a sinful mess for a long, long time.  I’m afraid it will have to get even worse before it gets better.  Call me an optimist.  Whether soon or a very long time from now, Christ will return.  Our concern is not with the day.  Our concern is with the ministry Christ has given us here, employing now the life we have in Christ.  Christ arose to rise.  Let us rise to the occasion, the onward call of discipleship.

What astounds the apostles is that Jesus, in his glorified body, ascends.  He doesn’t go like some ray of light, a flash of lightning, a flame.  Scripture gives us descriptions like that.  Christ, his glorified physical body, rises into the clouds.  They could touch his body, watch him eat.  Our bodies don’t rise.  How can a body of itself rise?  The glorified body rises.  Sure, Jesus could, being Jesus and all.  What about us?  Beloved, we rise with Christ as we love and serve, doing the ministry God has given us while we await Christ’s return, soon or late.  We rise with Christ and, as Christ in his body is now ascended, we can have all the more confidence that, in Christ, our resurrected bodies shall, likewise, rise.  It’s not the case that only our spirits will be in heaven with the Lord.  At the resurrection, we, in our glorified bodies, will be with the Lord forever.  We will live physical, albeit glorified lives upon a new earth.  God will be with us, and we shall be with Him in a way we cannot as yet conceive.  No wall of separation.  No sea of clouds veiling Him from our sight.

Jesus had already demonstrated the power of the Spirit while he was among them.  Physically, he had accomplished all he came to accomplish.  It was no longer necessary for him to be among us physically.  We might well plead with him not to go, to stay with us, abide with me, for the hour is late, and I am afraid and lonely!  As children, we had some favorite thing to which we clung—a bear, a rabbit, a doll, a blanket, a jacket.  Some physical, tangible object that provided us with a sense of security, safety, peace, comfort.  We grew up.  Beloved, we must grow, up; let us rise and arise.  Seeking our security in things will not help—they all too easily become idols.  We each had to leave home at a certain point in our lives.  Maybe someday I’ll tell you about the day I left home.  For many of us, our parents were still there for us.  It’s time to build confidence, spread our wings, fulfill our ministry.

We do not go alone.  The Ascension is a reminder for us that Jesus, absent physically, remains spiritually.  The power of Christ remains, at work with us, in us, among us.  If seeing is believing, then look prayerfully, look with faith-guided eyes, Spirit-guided eyes—and see Christ with us still: your faith—Christ with you; your heart for what is above—Christ with you.

The apostles looked up at the Ascension.  That’s where we also ought to direct our attention, prayers, and devotion: where God is.  This world can talk in very sophisticated, cultured ways about values, but what this world actually values is whatever enables the free and full indulgence of the drives, desires, and endless appetites of the flesh.  The high-minded rhetoric, at heart, is rarely so principled.  Let’s lift our eyes.  Let’s turn our eyes upon Jesus.  Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.

But how can we turn our eyes upon Jesus when he isn’t here?  Beloved, who said he wasn’t here?  He is here!  That’s the point.  No longer with us physically, he now is always with us spiritually.  He is with us, spiritually, because we are now in the time of the work of the Spirit.  The Spirit works when, where, and as the Spirit pleases.  The Spirit is at work in the Church; let the Church remember the work of the Spirit.  The Spirit is not with us to introduce novel, strange notions, to call light dark and dark light, to affix a religious seal of approval to whatever the “Enlightened” of our times tells us is the way.

The Spirit is with us to lead us into all truth.  I’m sad to say that we are all of us often more reluctant than is good for us.  Theologian and historian Carl R. Trueman recently lamented what might be called the modern Gospel—or, better, the postmodern Gospel—that you and I can hear from many a pulpit and official denominational organ across contemporary mainline Christianity: “a gospel with no apparent purpose other than decrying traditional Christianity and affirming the fluid identities of autonomous individuals.”[4]  Trueman goes on to say, “One reason for the dying of the churches is that God’s truth died in so many of them many years ago.”[5]  Dying of the churches?  Some congregations are adding to their numbers, yes.  Most are in a time of contraction.  We know.  We aren’t the only one.

The Babylon Bee recently posted a meme, “Satan joins Episcopal Church.”  “I feel like I really fit in here,” the quote tells us.  Substitute just about any mainline denomination for Episcopal.  Beloved, the Ascension is yet another call from Christ to remember that the truth lives in him, for he is the truth, the way, and the life.  The Church lives only in and by God’s truth—without the radical editing, censoring and reimagining demanded by contemporary values.  To live by any other supposed truth is to cease to be the church.  Know the truth and live—to do that, we’ve got to stay in the habit of reading this book, we’ve got to remain calm and steady when we’re told we have bad theology or that we aren’t truly following Jesus, that we’re using “Christian speak” to wrap hate, fear, and bigotry.  What opposes Christ will always, first, browbeat us with their fundamentally incomplete and too convenient, so permissive version of Jesus.

The apostles set the theme for us after Christ has left them to remain with them: they worship, in truth; they rejoice, in truth, and they continue to gather, praising God (24:52-53).  They do so in Jerusalem, the place of hostility and reception, rejection and salvation: their mission field.

[1] Louis Berkhof.  Systematic Theology.  Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1941.  401.

[2] Berkhof, 403.

[3] William J. Carl III.  Preaching Christian Doctrine.  Philadelphia: Fortress P, 1984.  79.

[4] Carl R. Trueman.  “Lessons from the Decline of Protestant Churches”  First Things.  20 March 2025.  https://firstthings.com/lessons-from-the-decline-of-protestant-churches/

[5] As above.