30 May 2025
Jesus didn’t travel thousands of miles like a space rocket. He rose up a
little way above the earth and a cloud received Him out of their sight. All
that was gone was the sight of Jesus. The cloud means that He is no longer
within our ordinary limits. Jesus is now present and does things the whole
range of God’s way of being present and doing things while remaining a man, but
a man fulfilled and glorified. We confess this when we say that “He sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” The right hand is not some
particular place as we think of, but the exercise of the whole power of God,
which is now in the hands of Jesus.
So the ascension does not mean that Jesus has gone away. Quite the
opposite. He is with us now even more powerfully than when men saw Him. We
live, then, in the presence of our ascended, ever-present Lord. Because He is
with us, we cannot be destroyed. Jesus has made the way to victory for us. He
leads us that way, gives us strength and courage for it, and finally brings us
to the bright cloud of heaven. We go on, then, from the ascension as did the
first disciples “with great joy” (Luke 24:52).
Norman Nagel
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