323 Ascension-Day. EPISTLE. HEARTS DIRECTED HEAVEN WARD. "YE MEN OF GALILEE, WHY STAND YE GAZING UP INTO HEAVEN ?" (Acts i. 11). LIKE the disciples on this day, let us with our hearts follow our ascended Lord. I. To heaven uplift a BELIEVING HEART. GOSPEL. THE MEANING OF CHRIST'S ASCENSION (Mark xvi. 14-20). I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S ASCENSION FOR HIMSELF. It was a solemn hour when Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives on the day of the ascension: before Him Jerusalem and the Temple, at His feet Gethsemane and Bethany, beside Him the disciples, above Him heaven and the glory of the Father. The disciples little imagined what was about to happen; but their commission to the world, the promise of the Holy Ghost, the institution of the sacrament of holy baptism, all raised them to a tension of expectation like that of Elisha persistently following his master (2 Kings ii. 5). But what was the meaning of Christ's ascension as regarded Himself? Here below was less the home of Jesus than it is ours, who are called "strangers and pilgrims." If we have here no abiding city, still less had He. His home was most certainly not on earth. 1. It was for Him, therefore, the return to His Father's house. How strange must He have felt on earth, the All-pure among godless sinners, when He heard and saw sin and wickedness! How must He not have desired the day of return to the region of purity and holiness! Thirty-three years had He abode in this region of evil; once more His spirit had returned for a brief space, but now, after a short sojourn to put the last touch to His work and to prepare the apostles for their apostolical calling, and then, this purpose accomplished, He was about to return from earth. How does a child feel when it has been separated for a long period from loved parents, and now once more returns with winged feet to rest in the arms of love! Now our Lord returns home. What a day! All speech fails to realise that ascent; for as the eyes of the earthly members of Christ's Church on earth fail to see Him through the dim distance, crowds of angels and archangels and saints of God look down upon the ascending Redeemer, and give Him hearty welcome. But this is not merely a return home of a stranger in a strange land, but 2. The entrance of a Victor in a woeful fight into the inheritance He has won (Ps. xlvii. 6). 3. The eternal session of Christ as the Head of the Church. Now He rules all nations from His throne; all events of the world's history are the developments of the kingdom of God (Phil. ii. 9-11). II. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S ASCENSION FOR HIS KINGDOM. Jesus is not to be separated from His work, the King from His kingdom. His ascension is not only, therefore, significant for Himself, but for His kingdom. It is clear from this ascension that it is no worldly kingdom. Had it been, He must have stayed longer upon the earth, in order to lay its foundations as widely and as broadly as possible. The duration of His stay was dependent upon His own will. As the heaven is higher than the earth, so should His kingdom be exalted above all the kingdoms of the earth. As the heavens canopy the earth, this kingdom is designed for all men and people under its vault. The conditions of this kingdom are invisible realities, spiritual humility, faith, self-denial, even as heaven is invisible. As heaven is the throne of God, and that throne as eternal as Himself, this kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. 1. The view, therefore, of those who would make the kingdom of God a kingdom of this world, as the Romanists, is erroneous. 2. The plan of those who would subject the Church of Christ altogether as an engine of state, and simply an organ of its purposes, is wrong. One word more on— III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST'S ASCENSION FOR US. 1. Without this ascension we should be robbed of the sacraments of grace. They could no longer have any meaning. 2. Because of this ascension our thoughts are continually to aspire heavenwards (Col. iii. 1-3). (Mark xvi. 14-20.) WHAT blessings we are to expect from the ascended Christ may be gathered I. FROM HIS LAST COMMAND. They are blessings for all men. will give power for its fulfilment. "Go ye into all the world." He who gave the command II. FROM HIS LAST PROMISE. "In My name," &c. This is a promise conferring special powers on the apostles and them that believe. III. FROM HIS ETERNAL SESSION. He is "sat on the right hand of God." What for? It is to rule the world and the Church. THE BLESSINGS OF CHRIST'S ASCENSION AFTER the words which Christ, according to this Gospel, addressed to His disciples, "He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God;" and the words themselves refer to the great fact of His ascension into heaven, as they receive by this their full meaning and completion; so much so that we can regard the discourse of Christ in our text as the statement of the blessing His ascension brings to the Church and the world. I. BY THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST OUR FAITH IS COMPLETED. We believe in Christ as our Redeemer from sin and our reconciler with God. In order to redeem us from sin He must Himself be free from it. No side of His nature must, as is the case with sinful man, be in resistance to the will of God. He must stand in perfect union with that will. In order to reconciliation He must hold the most intimate fellowship with the Father. In the human life of Jesus the whole fulness of the Godhead must dwell, and be filled with the power of the invisible God. This divinity must penetrate and glorify His nature. In a word, He must be the God-man. There have been times in the Church when the divine side of our Lord's person has been made unduly prominent, so that His human personality has been in danger of entirely disappearing from view. Therefore it is well that this has been more insisted on. But there is the peril of disrobing Him of His divinity, without which we have no ground for distinguishing Him as the Being who alone has the power to redeem us. The phrase "Son of Man" is dwelt on as proof that the Lord did not Himself claim divine dignity and prerogatives; but in truth this designation (quoted probably from Dan. vii. 13, 14) is of one who should come in the clouds of heaven, to whom God gave power, honour, and dominion, that all peoples, nations, and tongues should serve Him. And so our Lord represents Himself as the true Son of Man, and He implies by it not that He is truly man, but that He possesses the divine dignity which Daniel represented; and so He says (Matt. xii. 8), "The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath" (cf. also Matt. ix. 6, xxvi. 64; John v. 27). The titles Son of Man and Son of God are in this respect precisely the same. To doubt our Saviour's divine dignity is in reality to doubt His whole work. He ascended to heaven to complete our faith in His dignity, and thereby in all other parts of His redeeming work for us; and this doubt merits the rebuke of Christ: He upbraided them "with their unbelief and hardness of heart." Indeed the hardness of our hearts is the proper ground of such unbelief. It is when our hearts are weak in the feeling of our sinfulness and need of salvation, in sincere repentance and earnest desire for reconciliation with God, that they are closed to the glory of the only-begotten Son of God; and if we have experienced the redeeming, reconciling, and saving power of God by living faith, something would still be wanting if He, whose divine purity the power of sin could not touch, had not also in the power of His divine life conquered the might of death, which is the origin of sin, and if He who came down from the glory of heaven to redeem us from the bonds of sin and death had not after the completion of His work ascended again to the possession of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was; if He had not ascended up far above all heavens that He might fill all things. II. BY THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST THE PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD IS RENDERED EFFICACIOUS (cf. Eph. iv. 10). This is a further blessing, that the proclamation of the gospel in the Church of God is awakened, vivified, and rendered influential in the salvation of men. Following the command to have complete faith in His resurrection is the commission, "Go ye into all the world," &c. Faith comes by hearing, but preaching in its turn springs from faith (cf. 2 Tim. i. 12; 2 Cor. iv. 13). He who has living faith will preach what he himself has experienced (Acts iv. 26). Preaching is more than teaching. It will embrace this element as an explanation of the facts of the gospel, but it consists essentially in the statement of these facts, especially of the great love of God, the fact of our redemption and reconciliation by the work of the Lord. Now the circle of facts is completed by the ascension. Certainly the Lord said on the cross, "It is finished." The work of the humiliation was complete; the work of the exaltation still remained; and the Lord has set His perfect seal on the work of the humiliation in that He is risen to heaven. Only by this is the full message to be delivered to man brought to perfection. With great confidence can we now use the words of St. Paul to Timothy (1 Tim. i. 15). With great confidence can the message of the gospel now be delivered, because it refers not merely to a long-past occurrence, to a Saviour who two thousand years ago lived and worked, but to a Saviour who now at this present moment lives and works. He has not left His Church orphaned (cf. Rom. viii. 34). He has sent His Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray with unutterable groanings. He teaches us what we are to say; puts words into our lips and warmth into our hearts. May the breath of the Living God breathe life into His Church, His ministers, and His people! III. BY THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST OUR LIFE IS TRANSFORMED. That is its purpose-our salvation. "He that believeth and is baptized," &c. He who through holy baptism is received into God's covenant of grace and joins himself to Christ by living personal faith, his life becomes transformed into an image of the heavenly life of Christ. His ascension is to be followed by signs that the powers of darkness and evil are overcome. "These signs shall follow them that believe," &c. "Cast 1. The prince of this world shall be overcome by Him. out devils." He who exorcises by the power of the cross conquers the might of Satan in him. "He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world." 2. The cunning wiles of the old serpent are frustrated by faith. "They shall take up serpents." As St. Gregory says: "Ecclesia quotidiæ spiritualiter facit quod hinc per apostolos corporaliter faciebat." All outer miracles are only signs of the wonders which take place in the spiritual sphere. The serpents taken up and destroyed may represent the poison of evil literature, of its scorn, flattery, or enmity. 3. And he who believes in the power of the risen Lord is enabled to overcome all that may threaten his outer life. Sickness works for his glorification in its teaching as a disciplinary and punitive power under the hand of grace, and the prayer of the Saviour is answered (John xvii. 22). Let us therefore realise the blessings of Christ's ascension in |