Daily Devotion

 

This short passage leaves us face to face with two of the most difficult happenings in the New Testament.

First, it tells of the Ascension. Only Luke tells this story. He has already told it in his Gospel (Luke 24:50-53). The Ascension was an absolute necessity for two reasons. One was that there had to be a final moment when Jesus went back to the glory that was His. The forty days of the resurrection appearances had passed. That time was unique and could not go on forever. Equally clearly, the end to that period had to be definite.  

 

 

For the second reason, we must transport ourselves in imagination back to the time when this happened. Now, we regard Heaven as a state of blessedness when we will be forever with God. But every man - even the wisest - in those days thought of the earth as flat and as heaven as a place above the sky. If Jesus was to give His followers unanswerable proof that He had returned to His glory, the Ascension was absolutely necessary. But we must note this. Luke says this in his Gospel: "They returned to Jerusalem with great joy" (Luke 24:52.) In spite of the Ascension, or maybe because of it, the disciples were quite sure that Jesus was not gone from them but that he was with them forever.

 

THIS BRINGS US FACE TO FACE WITH THE SECOND COMING. About the SECOND COMING, we must remember two things. First, TO SPECULATE WHEN AND HOW IT WILL HAPPEN IS BOTH FOOLISH AND USELESS. Jesus said that not even He knew the day and the hour when the Son of Man would come (Mark 13:32).  

 

Second, THE ESSENTIAL TEACHING OF CHRISTIANITY IS THAT GOD HAS A PLAN FOR MAN AND THE WORLD. We are bound to believe that there is some divine far-off event to which the whole creation moves and that when that consummation comes, Jesus will be Judge and Lord of all. The Second Coming is not a matter of speculation or for illegitimate curiosity; it is a summons to make ourselves ready for that day when it comes.