Today is Ascension. Tucked away 40 days after Easter is the Ascension of Christ. Easter we get. Pentecost we get. But the ascension is a little harder to grasp. Let God arise and his enemies be scattered? The Lord said to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool unto your feet? When he ascended on high he led a host of captives in his train and gave gifts to men….that he might fill all things? Yes! Yes to all of those things.

The ascension of Christ is key because had Jesus not ascended to the Father, he could not send the Holy Spirit to be with us. He would not be reigning at the Father’s right hand. He would not be in that place of immediacy with the Father interceding on our behalf. As the theological maxim goes, because Jesus is absent from us, he can be truly present to us.

These 40 days have been marked by the strangeness of the coronavirus. The virus and its effects have ravaged much of what we would call normal, and everyone of us is experiencing it differently. So much so, that there are vastly different opinions on what is actually happening right now in the world. To say this is a confusing time would be an understatement.

Though the events of recent days may be equal parts disconcerting and confusing, the reality of Christ’s ascension and coming again in glory are not fuzzy at all. As Jesus disappeared into the clouds, angels appeared to announce that “this Jesus , who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). To be sure, friends, Christ is coming, and his enemies will be made a footstool to his feet. Those enemies include disease, devastation, and death. I pray this Ascension Day we will set our hope fully in Christ and the glorious hope we have in his sure return.

Jay+