The Ascended King: Part 1 - The King Who Blesses
Notes
Transcript
The Ascended King: The King Who Blesses
Luke 24:50-53
Subject: Ascension
Theme: The Ascended King
Sermon Big Idea: Jesus ascends not to abandon His people, but to reign as the King who blesses them and receives their joyful worship.
Principle Statement: Because Jesus is ascended and reigning, we can worship joyfully as people blessed by our King.
Introduction
Introduction
Most of us know what it feels like when someone leaves.
Sometimes it is a child leaving home.
Sometimes it is a loved one driving away after a visit.
When someone is leaving physically, we know that life is about to feel different because someone we love will no longer be physically present in the same way.
There is a certain ache that comes with departure.
And because of that, when we come to the ascension of Jesus, it is often easily misinterpreted as a sad scene.
Jesus has been with His disciples.
They have walked with Him.
They have listened to Him teach.
They have watched Him heal the sick, welcome sinners, feed the hungry, calm storms, and raise the dead.
They saw Him arrested, crucified, buried, and then raised from the grave.
The got Him back from the dead!
But Jesus has to leave.
At first glance, we might think, “This is the moment Jesus leaves.”
Luke does not write this scene like a funeral.
He does not write it like a goodbye filled with despair.
He does not tell us the disciples walked back to Jerusalem heartbroken and confused.
Luke says they worshiped Him and returned with great joy.
They understood something we desperately need to understand.
The ascension does not mean Jesus is gone.
It means Jesus reigns.
Luke has spent his whole Gospel showing us the upside-down and inside-out nature of the kingdom of God.
The King comes in humility.
The Savior eats with sinners.
The greatest becomes the servant.
The innocent One is condemned.
The crucified One rises.
And now, the One who was rejected by men is exalted by God.
Luke closes his Gospel with one final picture: Jesus lifting His hands in blessing over His people.
And that final picture is important for us.
Because before we think about what we must do for Jesus, we need to see what Jesus has done for us.
Before we talk about mission, obedience, service, or witness, we need to see the posture of the risen Christ toward His people.
He is the ascended King who blesses His own.
So today, as we come to the final scene in Luke’s Gospel, we are going to see this truth:
Because Jesus is ascended and reigning, we can worship joyfully.
We can worship joyfully because the ascended King blesses His people.
We can worship joyfully because the ascended King blesses His people.
Luke brings his Gospel to a close with one final scene.
50 And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.
Jesus once again leads his followers.
He is still shepherding His people.
The period between Jesus' resurrection and His ascension was forty days.
During that time period 1 Cor 15:6
6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
Paul tells us that the risen Jesus appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time.
Luke does not tell us how many were present at the ascension exactly.
The key for us to see here is that Jesus was still personally leading His disciples.
He leads them out as far as Bethany.
Bethany was near the Mount of Olives.
This was near where Lazarus was raised from the dead, where Jesus was anointed with oil before His death, near where Jesus had gone with His disciples to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.
This had been a place of great sorrow.
And now Jesus brings them back near that same place to now connect it with blessing.
The house of bread - would once again be a place of blessing.
Luke says, “lifting up his hands he blessed them.”
In the Old Testament, lifted hands were often connected with priestly blessing.
Theologically, throughout Scripture the hand is considered deeply significant—it is the extension of the person himself.
The hand is the vehicle of blessing, and we lift our hands, extend our hands, and lay hands upon others, to communicate the blessing of God through us as a human channel.
Luke shows us here, Jesus, the great High Priest, lifting His hands over His people.
Luke ends his Gospel by showing us the posture of the risen Christ toward His people.
Hands raised as an extension of God Himself, giving a blessing upon His followers.
He blesses them.
And remember who He is blessing.
He is blessing disciples who had recently misunderstood Him.
He is blessing disciples who had argued about greatness.
He is blessing disciples who slept while He prayed.
He is blessing disciples who scattered when He was arrested.
He is blessing Peter, who denied Him three times.
He is blessing followers who were slow of heart to believe.
And yet, the risen Jesus lifts His hands over them and blesses them.
That does not minimize their sin. It magnifies His grace.
The blessing of Jesus is not given because the disciples have proven themselves strong.
It is given because Jesus has finished the work of redemption.
The Savior who died for sinners and rose from the grave now blesses weak, forgiven, restored disciples.
And then Luke tells us
51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.
Notice the wording there - While he blessed them.
Jesus ascends while He is blessing them.
The blessing continues during the ascension and when Jesus ascends, it is not the end of His blessing.
Jesus is not blessing them and then leaving them behind.
He is blessing them as He goes to reign.
This is where we need to understand the ascension correctly.
The ascension does not mean Jesus is now absent in the sense that He is uninvolved, distant, or unconcerned.
The ascension means Jesus has taken His rightful place as the risen and reigning King.
Sometimes we think of Jesus’ ascension almost like someone leaving on a long trip.
Maybe you have had someone you love drive away.
They pull out of the driveway, wave through the window, and then they are gone.
You know they still love you, but their presence has changed.
They are in a different place physically and you feel the distance.
If we read the ascension that way, we will misunderstand Luke.
Jesus is not simply going away.
A better picture would be a king returning to his throne after winning a great victory.
He has gone into battle.
He has defeated the enemy.
He returns in triumph.
And from the throne, he now rules, protects, provides, and sends messengers throughout the kingdom announcing the victory.
That is much closer to what Luke is showing us.
Jesus has conquered sin.
Jesus has defeated death.
Jesus has fulfilled the Scriptures.
Jesus has opened the way to God.
Jesus now ascends to reign.
The ascension is not Jesus’ retirement.
It is His enthronement.
The conquering king returns to His take His rightful place.
This is why the disciples respond the way they do.
52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.
If all they understood was that Jesus had left, they would have returned to Jerusalem grieving.
But they do not return grieving.
They return with great joy.
That is significant.
Luke wants us to know that they knew the importance of what Jesus was doing.
If Jesus were merely leaving them behind, grief would make sense.
But they return with joy because they are beginning to understand that Jesus has not disappeared; He has been enthroned.
The word joy has been important in Luke.
At the beginning of the Gospel, the angel announces “good news of great joy” to the shepherds.
Now, at the end of the Gospel, the disciples return with “great joy.”
Luke begins with joy because the Savior has come.
Luke ends with joy because the Savior reigns.
And notice one more awesome detail.
Luke’s Gospel begins in the temple.
In Luke 1, Zechariah is serving in the temple when the angel announces the birth of John the Baptist.
The people are waiting outside.
There is expectation. God is about to act.
Now Luke’s Gospel ends in the temple.
The disciples are continually in the temple, blessing God.
At the beginning, the promises are about to be fulfilled.
At the end, the disciples are praising God because the promises have been fulfilled in Jesus.
God has kept His word.
Everything Luke has shown us has been leading to this.
The child born in Bethlehem is the ascended King.
The One laid in a manger now reigns in heaven.
The One rejected by men has been exalted by God.
The One crucified between criminals now blesses His people from the throne.
When we compare this with the other Gospel accounts, we notice that each Gospel writer emphasizes something important.
Matthew ends with the Great Commission. Jesus says:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Matthew 28:18
Matthew does not narrate the ascension directly at the end, but he gives us the meaning of it: Jesus has all authority.
The risen Christ sends His disciples to make disciples of all nations, and He promises, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Mark, in the longer ending, says Jesus was “taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.”
That emphasizes His exaltation and His session — His being seated in the place of royal authority.
John emphasizes Jesus’ return to the Father throughout his Gospel.
Jesus speaks often of going to the Father, being glorified, and sending the Helper, the Holy Spirit.
Luke shows us specifically that the ascension is blessing.
He wants the final picture in our minds to be the risen Jesus lifting His hands over His people.
God is using this account He is writing through Luke to bring hope because God knows that His followers will face opposition.
They will be misunderstood.
They will be persecuted.
Some will be imprisoned.
Some will be killed.
The mission will be costly.
And before they are sent into the world, they need to know the posture of Jesus toward them.
He blesses them.
As Christians today, we need to know this as well.
Before we talk about our mission, before we talk about witnessing for Jesus, before we talk about obedience,
Before we talk about what the church is called to do, we need to see who Jesus is and how He relates with His people.
That He is the ascended King who blesses His own.
This ought to determine the way we worship.
Worship is not something we do to get Jesus to be gracious to us.
Worship is the response of people who have already been blessed by the grace of Christ.
Worship is not trying to work our way into His favor.
It is blessing God because in Christ, God has already shown us His favor.
When we gather as a church, we are not gathering around a memory.
We are gathering before a living King.
We are not singing to an absent Savior.
We are worshiping the ascended Christ.
We are not opening an old religious book to study history.
We are opening the Word of the living God so that the reigning Christ may speak to His people by His Spirit.
So as Luke closes his Gospel, he leaves us with this picture:
Jesus blessing.
Jesus ascending.
Disciples worshiping.
Disciples rejoicing.
God being praised.
This is not a sad ending.
It is the beginning of a new chapter.
Because Jesus is ascended and reigning, we can worship joyfully.
Conclusion
Conclusion
And now, after all this time in Luke, this is where Luke leaves us.
Not at a manger.
Not beside a fishing boat.
Not at a dinner table with tax collectors and sinners.
Not on a dusty road with the poor and the sick pressing in around Him.
Not at the cross.
Not even at the empty tomb.
Luke leaves us with Jesus ascended.
The crucified and risen Savior is lifted up into heaven.
And that is not an afterthought.
That is not just Luke's way of saying, "And then Jesus went away."
This conclusion shows the upside down, inside out nature of God’s kingdom.
The baby born in humility is the King exalted in glory.
The Son of Man who had no place to lay His head now reigns at the right hand of God.
The One rejected by men has been enthroned by the Father.
The One who was numbered with transgressors now blesses weak and forgiven disciples.
The One who blessed the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the hated now lifts His scarred hands in blessing over His people.
That is the kingdom of God.
It is upside down from what the world expects, and it changes us from the inside out.
All through Luke, Jesus has shown us a kingdom that does not operate like the kingdoms of this world.
The world says power belongs to the strong.
Jesus says, "Blessed are you who are poor."
The world says greatness is climbing over others.
Jesus says the greatest must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.
The world says sinners should stay at a distance.
Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners.
The world says the respectable belong at the center.
Jesus welcomes children, touches lepers, honors widows, restores outcasts, and tells stories where Samaritans show mercy and Pharisees miss grace.
The world says enemies must be crushed.
Jesus says, "Love your enemies."
The world says kings save themselves.
Jesus saves others by refusing to save Himself.
The world says death is the end.
Jesus walks out of the grave.
And now the world might say, "If Jesus ascends, He must be gone."
But Luke says, "No. He is not absent. He is enthroned."
So we do not close Luke as people who have finished with Jesus.
We close Luke as people who are called to worship Jesus, trust Jesus, and follow Jesus.
The ascension does not mean Jesus is gone.
It means Jesus reigns.
Because Jesus is ascended and reigning, we can worship joyfully.
