Why did Jesus leave?
It’s a question we don’t ask ourselves very often, because 2,000 years
after the Ascension we just take for granted that things had to be that
way. But imagine for a minute that you
are one of Jesus’ disciples. You have seen
the man you thought was the Messiah nailed to a cross; you have grieved the death
of not only your friend, but also your dream of a restored Israel; and then seemingly
out of nowhere your friend is returned to you from the grave, having conquered
death itself. Things seem as if they are
finally going to work out the way you had hoped, and after a forty-day strategy
session with the man you now know is
the Messiah he tells you that…he has to leave??
There are a few things about the Ascension that we
must grasp in order to understand how all of this fits into the plan. First of all, unless Jesus leaves, the Holy
Spirit will not come and descend upon Jesus’ followers. He has told them this before, but not until
now does the meaning of Jesus’ words sink in.
Back before his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and then resurrection, Jesus’
mentioned in his farewell speech that his departure was actually a good thing
for the disciples:
“Nevertheless,
I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7)
Jesus physical presence was necessary for a certain
stage of God’s redemptive plan. Jesus
had to be physically present to live among us, to teach us, and to go to the
cross on our behalf. However, in the
next stage it is the Holy Spirit, or Helper as Jesus’ refers to it, that takes
over as the active force in God’s redemptive drama. For the next stage to begin, the Holy Spirit
has to arrive, and for the Holy Spirit to arrive, Jesus must leave…at least
physically.
This brings us to the other aspect of the Ascension which
is crucial we understand: Jesus physical absence does not mean he is not
present. In our minds we often limit the
discussion of “heaven and earth” to geographic terms, but Jesus’ farewell to
the disciples implies that divine presence is not limited to physicality. When he gives them the great commission, Jesus
also utters words of great hope:
“And Jesus came and
said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
The disciples had spent forty days with Jesus
post-resurrection, just like Moses spent forty days on the mountain with
God. Moses was being prepared to form a
nation of God’s on choosing, complete with laws to govern their relationship
with the Lord, and with one another. The
disciples are being prepared not to form a nation, but to take back a world
that has rebelled against God. And so it
is comforting that Jesus describes his own ascension not as an upward movement
through the atmosphere, but rather a transferring of himself into the heavenly
realm which is always close at hand.
Jesus ascension was not something that NORAD could have tracked, much as
they track Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve.
Consider what comes after the aforementioned passage from John:
“And when he
comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and
righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go
to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.” (John 16:8-11)
Just as Jesus comes to us by appearing in the womb
of Mary, so he leaves us by disappearing if you will, but only in the physical
sense. The apostles understood this, and
often referred to Christ return as his appearing. In writing to the church in Colossae, Paul
would say that “when Christ who is your life appears,
then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:4) John would write to Christians and encourage
them with the following words, “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (I
John 3:2)
As odd as the ascension might seem to modern minds,
it made perfect sense to the people of Jesus’ day. When a Roman emperor died, their soul was
often said to be seen ascending into heaven.
Usually some sorcerer or magician was paid to give testimony to the fact
that he had seen the spirit of the recently deceased ruler ascending into the
heavens like a comet, to join the pantheon of the gods. It sounds familiar, but there is a very
crucial difference between what was claimed to have happened to the emperors,
and what happened to Jesus. Jesus
upstages the emperors by ascending into heaven not just as a soul, but in a
fully embodied state. The Romans had to
say they had seen the emperor’s soul, because everyone knew that his body had
been cremated. But Jesus ascends both
body and soul, because his body is no longer in the tomb. Though he has ascended he remains accessible,
and the disciples continue to commune with him through prayer and worship,
which connects them to the reality of heaven.
So when we speak of Jesus’ Ascension, we speak not
of Jesus leaving us as if he is now far removed from the world in which we
live. While Jesus does sit enthroned in
heaven, heaven is not as far away as we think.
Indeed, heaven is within reach whenever we see the Helper that Jesus
promised, the Holy Spirit, at work in our world.
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