Luke to Acts: The Mission Continues | The Glory of the Ascension - Luke 24:50-53 | February 2

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Last week we talked about the last chapter in Luke, Luke 24,

and we're going to be there again as we're preparing for getting into the book of that.

There we go. So last week, we talked about how Jesus had that amazing Bible

study with his disciples, how he fulfills all the Old Testament.

And we looked and we saw how all of the Old Testament, all of the scriptures

point to Jesus, and it's through the Christ event that we are able to understand all Scripture.

And we talked about how Jesus opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.

And we kind of, I personally was like, oh man, I wish I was there for that.

But then we talked about how we have the Holy Spirit who is our intercessor,

and he's the one who now opens our understanding to understand the Scriptures,

to see Christ as the culmination of of all scripture.

So today we're going to finish the last three verses, last three sentences of the book of Luke.

So I'll start by reading that and then we'll explore what it means.

And he led them out. This is verse 50, Luke 24, verse 50.

Luke 24:50

And he led them out as far as Bethany and he lifted up his hands and blessed them.

Now it came to pass while he blessed them, that he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.

And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually

in the temple praising and blessing God. Amen.

Father, this is your word. We want to see you rightly.

We want to know you. We want to be near to you.

God, I pray that as we study your word today together for just a little bit,

that we would have a clearer picture of who you are and who you've made us to be. Amen.

So, we're talking today about this very important event and idea and staple

of the Christian faith, which is the ascension.

In our tradition, we often highlight, we have maybe the birth,

the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.

But the ascension, I would say, is on the same level.

It it should have the same value in our understanding of who Jesus is and what he's done today.

In his life and what he's done for us and for the glory of the Father.

And I want to this week look at just a little bit applying what we did last week.

Last week, we learned that all scripture is pointing to Jesus.

So this week, I want to see how all scripture points to Christ in his ascension.

And so if you have your Bibles, if you could turn to 2 Kings 2.

We're going to read a good chunk of scripture here, so we'd love for you to follow along if you can.

2 Kings 2, and we're going to start in verse 1.

This story that we're about to read, as you'll come to grasp,

Sammy and I watched a movie last night, and we did not read the description

of the movie before watching it.

And so it was like seeing a movie for the very first time, and Sammy kept saying

how stressed, not stressed, but how she just wanted to know what was going to

happen in the movie, right?

She just was like, well, tell me at least the idea so I know what can come.

We didn't have that, but today I'm going to give it to you for 2 Kings 2.

And that is that this is when Elijah is ascending into heaven.

And so already we see maybe how this relates to Jesus's ascension into heaven,

but I think it can be instructive for us even more than the first surface level.

So verse one, and it came to pass when the Lord was about to take Elijah up

into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

Then Elijah said to Elisha, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Bethel.

But Elisha said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave

you. So they went down to Bethel.

Now the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said

to him, do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?"

And he said, yes, I know, keep silent.

Then Elisha said to him, Elisha, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to Jericho.

But he said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho.

Now the sons of the prophets who are at Jericho came to Elisha and said to him,

do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?

So he answered, yes, I know, keep silent.

And then Elisha said to him, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me on to the Jordan.

But he said, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.

So the two of them went on. This is a Jewish tradition of a way of telling stories

is you have three events and the first two are the same and the second or the third is the departure.

Just so that's, it's kind of like a storytelling technique. Let's keep going.

And 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance

while the two of them stood by the Jordan.

Now, Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up, and struck the water,

and it was divided this way and that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

That should be activating in our minds stories of the past, right?

We have Joshua's entrance into the promised land. We have Moses's crossing of the Red Sea.

And so it was when they had crossed over that Elijah said to Elisha,

ask, what may I do for you before I am taken away from you?

Elisha said, please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.

So he said, you have asked a hard thing.

Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken up from you, it shall be so for

you. But if not, it shall not be so.

People will sometimes say that Elisha was being arrogant in this place,

that he wanted to be as doubly powerful as Elijah, probably a more.

Different scholars think different things, but many would say that this is actually

an act of humility for Elisha, that he saw himself as doubly weak to Elijah

and needing an extra portion of the spirit of Elijah going forward.

So just a little note there.

Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of

fire appeared with horses of fire and separated the two of them.

And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

And Elisha saw it, and he cried out, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen.

And he saw him no more, and he took hold of his clothes and tore them into two pieces.

He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him,

and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan.

Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water,

and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah?

And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that,

and Elisha crossed over.

And when the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him,

they said, the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.

And they came to meet him and bowed down to the ground before him.

And they said to him, look now, there are 50 strong men with your servants.

Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the spirit of the

Lord has taken him up and cast him upon some high mountain or into some valley.

And he said, you shall not send anyone.

But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, send them.

Therefore they sent 50 men and they

searched for three days but did not find him when they

came back to him for he had stayed in Jericho he said

to them did I not say to you do not go I think there are a number of things

as we're reading the book of Luke and thinking about the ascension of Jesus

that this story activates in our minds one you have a a master and a a servant

or a disciple and the master is taken up, right?

We see that very clearly in the book of Luke as Jesus ascends.

We see a desire for nearness from Elisha to be near Elijah.

And so we see the disciples desire to be near to Christ as before his ascension.

And then Elijah asks, what may I do for you? And Elisha, he asks for a double

portion of the spirit of Elijah.

And we see the ascension of Jesus, what happens is we're preparing our hearts

to look at the book of Acts.

We see that Christ ascends and then his followers, his disciples receive the spirit.

And then Elisha, he goes with the mantle of Elijah and he strikes the water.

And this is what was stumping me this week as I was kind of meditating on this passage.

I, you see some of the ideas clearly relayed, but this idea of splitting the

water, I was having trouble finding that in the book of Acts.

And I was thinking about it and you guys in the audience are probably a little bit smarter.

And so you're already there, but I didn't see any of the disciples go out and,

I don't know, split the Jordan or the Sea of Galilee.

I didn't see much walking on water in the book of Acts.

But then I thought, you see the disciples, the Spirit of God rests on them,

and then they go and they baptize.

And so this idea of splitting waters, it traces back, like I said,

from Elisha to Elijah, from Elijah to Joshua, from Joshua to Moses.

And then from Moses actually to Yahweh. Yahweh splits the waters.

And the Hebrew or the New Testament authors, they often looked at Israel's passing

through the Red Sea as their baptism, their new birth.

It was the birth of the Jewish nation.

And so for us, as we're stepping into preparing and understanding Acts,

I think it would be good for us to be seeing and meditating on this idea of

baptism as the splitting of the waters.

And I don't have much more there. I think as a church, we can be thinking about that.

Like, what does that mean for the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ to rest

on His church, and then for them to go and split the waters through baptism? I think there's a rich.

Rich well of knowledge that we can tap into together as we meditate on that.

And here we see in the book of 2 Kings, we see Jesus fulfilling Old Testament

scripture, but it's not so much the fulfilling of Old Testament scripture of,

direct foretelling prophecy, but it's a typological fulfillment.

And so as we read scripture as a church, we want to be seeing Christ as our

lens for understanding scripture.

We want to even understand Christ as the fulfillment of all types.

He is the one in whom all fullness is found.

I think moving on from 2 Kings, when we look at verse 50 of Luke chapter 24,

Luke 24 · chapter mention

it says, and he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them.

I think Luke, when he says that, he's meant to activate in our minds this priestly image.

This actually hyperlinks directly back to Leviticus chapter 9,

Leviticus 9:22

verse 22, and it says, Then Aaron lifted his hand toward the people and blessed them.

I think scholars will look at the book of Luke and they don't see Luke using

the priestly type much through the book, except when it gets to right here.

Luke is very clear in highlighting that Christ is the fulfillment of Aaron and

he desires to bless his people.

And it's Christ's desire is so powerful.

Axiomatic. It's so central to his character that not only does he bless them,

but his blessing continues even as he's ascending to his throne.

And I think when we think about this, we can be thinking all the way back actually to Genesis 1.

In Genesis 1, we see God, it says, let us make man in our image.

In the image of God, he created them, male and female created them.

And then the first thing God does with humans, he doesn't give them a command.

He doesn't give them instruction.

He doesn't say, go fend for yourselves. It says that he blessed them. And then he said to them.

And so the first thing God does with humans is he blesses them.

And then the last thing, the historic body of Jesus, when he was here on the

earth, last thing he did was he blessed his disciples.

I think sometimes I myself can try and reject the falsehood of maybe the prosperity

gospel that would say, it's all about our blessing. and I then begin to believe

things like God isn't for me. He's distant.

He doesn't know me or want me or want my good.

Yet I think what scripture is indicating is that blessing humanity is so central

to God's character that it was the first thing he said and it was the last thing Jesus did on earth.

And I think it would be good for us as we're stepping into the book of Acts,

as our church is continuing to grow, to receive that blessing.

And we're going to talk about this in communion.

And we don't know what that blessing was that Jesus gave.

We just know that he blessed them as he was ascending. But I think it would

be fair to look at some of the Aaronic blessings.

And there's one Aaronic blessing that is quite familiar to us,

and it's been spoken to the Jewish

people and then now to Christians for thousands and thousands of years.

And it's actually the oldest fragment of scripture that we have dating back

27 centuries, the oldest fragment

of scripture we have is Numbers chapter six, starting in verse 24.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Jesus' desire for his disciples is that they would be blessed.

And he blesses them. And then in Genesis one, we see Yahweh bless Adam and Eve.

And then he says to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

And then what is it that the church does in Acts?

They are blessed and then they are fruitful and they multiply and they fill the earth.

And so I think these are also things that we should be thinking about meditating

on as we're stepping into the book of Acts.

There's two more ideas that I want to highlight. And one of them is quite familiar to us as we.

Spent a long time in the book of Daniel. The ascension of Christ is his enthronement.

In Daniel chapter 7, it says, I was watching in the night visions. This is Daniel 7, 13.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven,

he came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

Then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples,

nations, and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.

His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed." The ascension of Jesus

is the enthronement of Christ over the cosmos.

He's given authority. He's given a kingdom.

And in Acts, we'll see Luke, he describes the ascension of Jesus as,

he ascends until the clouds hit him.

That Luke is very intentionally inviting the reader to think of Daniel and think

of Christ sitting at the throne next to the Ancient of Days.

I think one thing that I would want us to ponder and wonder about is when I

think of the ascension of Jesus, or when I thought of the ascension of Jesus,

I thought of him going and passing, and then it says through the heavens or through heaven.

And I thought that meant he went beyond the stars, outside of the universe,

and that we know that the whole world is in his hand, right?

And so I think of God in this cosmological worldview, it's distant.

The kingdom of God and the throne of God is distant, unintentionally perhaps.

And yes, it is true that God does have the whole world in his hand and that

it spans between his hand, right? What's that?

Anyway, I believe all of that to be true. But I wonder if the biblical authors,

the New Testament authors, are actually inviting us to think of the throne of Christ in the skies.

When Stephen, the martyr, the first martyr is stoned, he looks up into the sky

and he sees Christ standing.

When Ezekiel sees the throne of God coming in chapter one, he sees it coming in the sky.

And I think what this has done for me in the last couple of weeks is it's reshaped

the way I see the realm of heaven and the realm of the land,

the realm of God and his divine counsel and the realm of humanity in the physical.

And they're not separated and far from each other, but they are intimately related and near.

These ideas might be familiar to you and they might be comfortable for you, but if they're not,

I think it might be worth it for us as we're stepping into Acts and as we're

seeking to obey Christ and be His servants kneeling before His throne to have

that more near understanding of His throne. And this actually,

leads us to where we'll begin our initial descent for today,

and that's in the book of Hebrews.

In the book of Hebrews, the author is seeking to highlight the kingly and priestly nature of Jesus.

And we see in chapter 4, a direct reference to the ascension.

It says in verse 14, Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed

through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

The author of Hebrews sees the ascension of Jesus as the thing which allows

us to hold fast our confession of hope and faith in Christ.

But then he actually, he continues. He says.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy

and find grace to help in time of need.

The idea of ascension is meant to call back on the theme of mountains.

And if you're interested, the Bible Project just did a long study into what

is the theme of mountains. They have a great podcast on it or a video.

But it's this ascending the mountain. And we see in Mount Sinai that the people were at the base.

And then Moses and a few others went up the mountain. And then it was Moses

who went all the way up where heaven and earth met.

Where he met the presence of God.

And that was one person ascending to be the intercessor for us.

And then we see that same model recreated in the tabernacle, right?

You have the court, then you have the inner sanctuary where the priests could

go, and then you have the Holy of Holies.

And in the Holy of Holies, you have the Ark of the Covenant on which is the throne of God.

What the author of Hebrews says is that since we have a great high priest who

has passed through the heavens, he's ascended, then he actually says that we may come boldly.

And he says that we can come boldly, not to the outer courts or to the sanctuary,

but into the throne of grace.

Another word for that throne of grace is the mercy seat.

And the mercy seat is what was on top of the Ark of the Covenant,

surrounded by the cherubim, where the hottest hotspot of God's presence was.

Christ's ascension allows us to make the same ascent to God.

We are no longer, no longer is it just one person who can enter the hotspot

of God's presence once a year, but we all are called by the ascension and blood

of Jesus that's been sprinkled and sacrificed for us.

We are called into the hotspot of God's presence, the Holy of Holies, the throne of grace.

And so when we think about the ascension of Jesus, us, we are meant to also

be thinking about our ascension, that we are on a process of sanctification,

of being made more like the image of Christ, and we are being brought up in ascent.

But the author of Hebrews also has a very interesting way of thinking about this in chapter 12.

In chapter 12, verse 18, he begins to reference Mount Sinai,

and I'm going to read it, and then we'll talk about it.

For you, his audience, and us today,

have not come to the mountain that may be touched and burned with fire,

and a blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the

voice of words, so that those who hear it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore,

for they could not endure what was commanded.

And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.

And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and

trembling. So that's where we're not.

Thank goodness. That is the, if you read the narrative of Exodus,

that is exactly what the author of Hebrews is highlighting.

This narrative of Exodus where the people are waiting at the mountain of Sinai,

where Moses will go up and receive the law from God.

And the author of Hebrews says, that's not where you are. But he says,

but you have come to Mount Zion,

to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,

to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven,

to God, the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,

to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.

And to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

The author of Hebrews doesn't say you will come to Mount Zion.

He says you have come to Mount Zion.

And so as we think of the ascent of Jesus up the mountain or into his throne

room where he sits at the right hand of God, we are meant to think of it as

the ascent, but we also are to understand it that we have come.

That we have come to Mount Zion.

We have come to the city, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Revelation talks about how there will be no more need for sun or moon,

for Christ will be the light and his light will permeate the city.

We are meant to understand the ascent of Christ as our process of ascension,

but we also are meant to understand the ascent of Christ as in him we are already ascended.

And I would encourage us this 22 through 24 of Hebrews 12, there's a lot present

And it's been helpful for me to kind of meditate on it this last week.

And it might be helpful for us to just think of the fulfillment of Christ in

those verses that, yeah, I would just encourage us to meditate on that.

But for us to land the plane as we're stepping and we're going to worship and

reflect on these truths, I think sometimes I can grow discouraged.

I can grow tired on the ascent, right? If we think of hiking,

there's many great hikes here around us.

When we see Christ in his ascension, when we see him coming to his throne,

we are meant to see and meant to be encouraged and meant to be encouraged to

press on to the hope of our ascension and union with God.

Thank you for listening to Mountainside Church's podcast. We hope you found

inspiration and encouragement in today's teaching.

To learn more about our church, stay connected or partner with us, visit mcboon.com.

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