Jesus said to him, “I am the only Way to God and the real Truth and the real Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (John 14:6 AMP)
Several weeks ago I felt the Lord highlighting Luke 24 for Easter. As you probably know, the Passion Week and Easter stories are in all four gospels, but each is slightly different. It’s as if we are listening to eyewitness accounts from four different perspectives. Each writer has a different point of view and a different purpose. If Matthew focuses on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and Mark as the suffering servant and Son of God, then Luke’s attention to real people – especially the marginalized and outcasts – and his casting of Jesus as the Savior of all – is a unique and beautiful portrait of our Messiah. I believe that God was highlighting these characteristics to show us how the post-resurrected Jesus appeared to everyday people – travelers, disciples, unbelievers and believers alike. Jesus did not come to overthrow the political systems of the day, but to show us a new and more beautiful Way.
I’ve thought several times that having to physically die twice wouldn’t be a fun experience. Those that Jesus resurrected – like Lazarus, for instance – eventually did die again. Jesus is the exception to this rule. He died once so that we, like him, could be dead to sin. Death is no longer our master, but we live now in and for God. Jesus died once, but then was spared from a second death when he returned to the Father through the Ascension.
Similarly to the resurrection stories, the accounts of the Ascension vary in focus. Mark, focused on expediency, says, “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” (Mark 16:19-21 NIV)
Dr. Luke gives us more detail:
“When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.” (Luke 24:50-53 NIV)
“After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’” (Acts 1:9-11 NIV)
Both authors focus on the reality that Jesus didn’t die again – he simply ascended to the Father. Because they saw this and were later empowered by the Holy Spirit, the disciples’ lives were forever changed. They stayed continually in the Temple, praising God, and then they went out and preached everywhere. The Lord worked with them and confirmed his word with signs of God’s power and love. They received his power and were witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the farthest reaches of the earth.
Some 2000 years later, our calling is still the same – to behold Jesus’s love, glory, and power, to praise and worship him, and to share the Good News with all the world.
Jesus,
Thank you for your ascension as the final statement that you are God. Help us to behold your love, glory, and power, to praise and worship you, and to share the Good News of you, the Way, Truth, and Life, with the world. AMEN and AMEN.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all time; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. (Romans 6:8-10 NASB)
But He said to them, “It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times which the Father has set by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and as far as the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:7-8 NASB)