Exhortation, Ascension Sunday, 2004

Thursday was Ascension Day. It is celebrated to mark Jesus’ ascent to heaven that occurred forty days after His death and resurrection at the time of Passover. Though Ascension Day is rarely emphasized in the church calendar, it is essential to the whole of Jesus?Elife and ministry and to the work and worship of the church. Let me expand each of these points.

First, the ascension is the climax of Jesus?Elife and ministry. If we look at Jesus?Eministry as the ministry of the Last Adam who re-establishes humanity on its original trajectory and path toward glory, then the Ascension marks the completion of that task. Adam was created to have dominion over the animals and birds, to fill and rule the whole creation. In his vision of the Son of Man, Daniel saw the fulfillment of that Adamic mandate, when he saw the Son of Man ascends on clouds to the Ancient of Days to tame and subdue the beasts of ancient empire. Adam was originally created to ascend from the garden of Eden to higher ground in the land of Eden, and the Son of Man fulfills the Adamic mission in His ascension.

Paul gives a twist to this when he writes that Jesus is exalted far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named. This is clearly a reference to Jesus?Eascension, because Paul mentions that Jesus is exalted in ?heavenly places.?E And Paul is alluding to the Adamic commission, because he goes on to say that Jesus not only rules all things but ?fills?Eall things. The original commission to rule and fill the earth is completed by Jesus.

Second, the ascension is basic to the work and, especially, the worship of the church. Throughout Scripture, ascension is a precondition for worship. Worship always takes place on the heights: Yahweh placed Adam in a sanctuary-garden on a mountain in the land of Eden; Abraham ascended Moriah to offer Isaac on the altar; Moses appeared before God on Sinai, and the elders of Israel also ascended to eat and drink in the presence of God; the sanctuaries of Israel were literally placed on hills and moving into the sanctuary involved a symbolic ascent into heaven into the presence of God. Every time an Israelite went to worship God at the temple, he was ?going up?Eto Jerusalem, ascending to worship.

Jesus?Eascent is pictured in Scripture as a fulfillment of this liturgical pattern. This is clearest in the book of Hebrews, which describes a heavenly prototype of the earthly temple, and tells us that Jesus has ascended to that sanctuary: ?when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.?E For ?Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.?E And, since the high priest has entered, breaking down the boundaries between earth and heaven, we too are invited to draw near and enter into the heavenly places to offer ourselves in Christ to the Father. Our worship, our ascent in worship, is our participation in the ascent of Jesus.

For ?you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which wound was such that those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them.?E But ?you HAVE come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.?E