Luke 24:44-53

Luke isn’t hyper detailed from the resurrection to the ascension because he is going to recover some of these events in volume two (Acts). We need to be careful about presumptive reading. Not all of these things happened in the same day. 

Jesus is verbally explaining while supernaturally illuminating the scriptures. We need both. Jesus is showing them that the cross and resurrection weren’t a side detail. They were the plan from the beginning. All the way back in the garden God tells them that the son of humanity will be bitten by the serpent, but he will crush the serpent’s head. But even before that, from before the foundation of the world, the Son of God was set aside as our salvation. He explains that their involvement is also the plan from the beginning and is more than just understanding and believing. They are part of the plan to bring the Kingdom to the world. Forgiveness for the nations has always been the plan. 

Gen 22:18

Psalm 22:27-28

Psalm 86:9

Isa 2:2

Isa 42:6

Isa 49:6

What is happening isn’t for Israel at the exclusion of everyone else. It is for everyone through Israel. God has always had in mind a covenant people. That started as national Israel only, but it would be redefined as everyone who believes. It is meant to be personal witness; testimony. 

Jesus says, “Go and wait.” The person who has been the bearer of the Spirit is about to become the giver of the Spirit. Jesus could have done all of His ministry on his own, but Luke emphasizes over and over that Jesus did things by the power of the Spirit to accentuate our need for the Spirit. The command to wait is hard. 

“It is only as we lay aside our tasks and wait on God that we are strengthened for the tasks we have laid aside.” -Williams Barclay

Waiting:

Often when God intends to do something great there is an extended period of waiting. 

15 years between anointing and crowning of King David. 25 years after the promise before Isaac was born to Sarah. Acts 9 Paul is converted and “many days had passed” before he went into ministry. That was between 3-17 YEARS. Galatians 1:15 says Paul went away for three years and still the Jews were scared of him. After 14 more years he was taken to Jerusalem with Barnabas. 

Times we are called to wait on God are never wasted. When we try to move without God instead of waiting it doesn’t go well. We can’t work just on the power of being amped. We need the life of God himself living in us. 

Jesus breathed on them and gave them the Holy Spirit. Then He tells them to go and wait for more. Everyone who is saved has the Spirit living in them. There is more. 

Jesus gives them a summary of the evangelistic mission of the church:

1. Rooted in scripture

2. Based on personal witness

3. Empowered by the Spirit

It was usually the unexpected ones who were far from God that got it while the ones who had access and would be expected didn’t get it. The ascension is the first time in the book of Luke that we see the disciples worshipping Jesus. 

If we get too locked into heaven being a place “up there.” Location is an accommodation for our limited human minds. A more accurate understanding is that heaven is in a different plane of reality. The “return” of Christ is actually the APPEARING of our glorious Lord. The veil will be removed between us and heaven. 

The ascension was necessary because the disciples would realize that things had transitioned. Jesus wasn’t going to be with them anymore physically. It was the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another.