Luke 24:50-53--The Ascension

Luke 24:50-53
English Standard Version
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The Ascension
50 And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.

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This passage here ends Luke's biography on the life of Christ as far as his time here on earth during His first coming.  However, it's not the end of the story.  As mentioned yesterday, the Ascension kicks off the next phase of God's plan as we see Pentecost come ten days later and many, many Jews from all over the world are saved.  That is why this event is recorded in more detail in the book of Acts.

Jesus is still in Galilee with His disciples and He went up on a mountain,  the Mount of Olives (see Acts 1 where this mountain is specified by name).  The Mount of Olives has had special significance to Jesus during His ministry as He did some of His most important teaching there, this is where He often went to pray, and it is where His Triumphal Entry took place, and as we will learn from other books of the Bible, it is where He will return to one day when He comes back as the conquering King of Kings and Lord of Lords riding on a white horse.

As Jesus was with His disciples on the mountain, He lifted His hands and blessed them, and as He was doing this, He was taken up to heaven.  He was concealed by a cloud (maybe the pillar of cloud in the Old Testament that we call the Shekinah Glory, which we believe also veiled Jesus during His transfiguration).  We'll see when we go to the book of Acts next that the disciples stood there looking into heaven for a while and a couple of angels had to come and tell them to not just stand there and look up, because Jesus was going to come back again one day in much the same way that He left.  So, they went out from that place in spirit of worship and praise and they went into Jerusalem to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, but as they were waiting, they were continually going to the Temple every day to worship God.  We'll see that this remains their custom throughout the book of Acts.

I look forward to picking the story back up in the book of Acts with you next time.  We'll start off by talking about the promise of the Holy Spirit that was given to all the disciples (not just the Eleven).  Both Ascension Day and Pentecost are coming up soon on our calendars, so it will be good to study these events and know what the Bible says about them and why it was that all of Israel was once again gathered together in Jerusalem just like they were for the Passover.  Could it have been God's plan all along that all of Israel see the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and that they once again be gathered together to see the Holy Spirit come upon the believers when the Church was born?  I believe that was always the plan.  Just like any other historical narrative that we will study, let's remember that Luke is recording history as it happened and it is descriptive of what people did and is not always prescriptive in how we ought to do things (that doesn't mean that we shouldn't learn some lessons from the Early Church though).  Let's study to see what we can learn, because there is much that Acts tells us about the mission we are currently on--a mission that is not yet completed.