The True King

Recently it was Ascension Day - when Christians remember the moment the disciples had their last resurrection encounter with Jesus. From this point 'he was taken up' and disappeared from their sight.

It is easy to just focus on quaint images of the risen Christ somehow floating up into the sky, eventually disappearing behind the clouds and saying 'that is Ascension'. Maybe it physically happened exactly that way, maybe it didn't - but either way there is more to it than that!

Through the cross, resurrection, and subsequent ascension Jesus was moving into his true and rightful place - as the Sovereign King of the whole earth, with all principalities and powers to be under Him. The physical ascension is therefore the final scene of the whole 'Ascent to Title' drama. It is the completing moment in a sequence from which springs the glorious message to the world: "There is a new King on the throne!".

The writer of Hebrews captures this key theological concept in chapter 1 verse 3: "... he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven".  

The apostles and initial believers who clung together immediately after his death and resurrection were given the task of 'sent messengers', to be witnesses to this new King (Acts chapter 1). They were to take the message far and wide (across the Roman empire and beyond) that there is this new King. The language used throughout the New Testament exactly matches the Greek/Roman language for announcing the crowning of a new king or emperor across the conquered lands. It is the root of the word 'evangelist' ('evangelion') - the one who brings the good news of the new rightful ruler.

Ascension is therefore not merely a somewhat romantic notion of the physical Jesus disappearing from view - it is a geo-political statement of cosmic proportions. All our witness to the world (in whatever form) stems from this new reality. It is good news, with good news ramifications for all the world down through the ages, today, and for ever.