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The End
“When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.”
Luke 24:50-51, NIV
The End. This is how Luke leaves us in his Gospel. The disciples watch Jesus go up into heaven. They return to Jerusalem and wait. That’s the end of the story.
When we think about Jesus going up into heaven, it’s hard to imagine exactly what that would look like. Luke writes that He went up into the sky so we know that He didn’t disappear as if it were an old episode of Star Trek where He just gets beamed out. But it’s not simply that He goes up and keeps going up. Nikita Khrushchev, the atheist premier of the Soviet Union said, “[Cosmonaut Yuri] Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any god there.”[1]
Christians have never believed that if you just go up high enough, you’ll encounter God. Heaven is on another plane. That’s why we can pray that God’s Kingdom come to Earth as it is in heaven — heaven invading Earth. It is the perfect coming in and changing our imperfect world.
Jesus goes up, and Luke tells us in Acts, He rises and is then hidden by the clouds. Even now, Jesus is continuing to show His command over nature — it’s a clear day with just enough clouds to do what He would want. I like to think that He’s hidden by the clouds because this was the only way the disciples could avoid having their eyes burned as He shone in glory like the Sun.
In Luke’s account in Acts, two men tell the disciples, “Go! What are you standing around here for looking up into the sky? He gave you a job to do until he comes back.” What was the job? To be His witnesses. Of all the things that the disciples witnessed, the last thing they saw of Jesus was Him leaving them to take His throne. They not only witnessed Him as Sacrifice and Savior but also King.
Luke ends his Gospel with this story and he begins the book of Acts with the same story. He says, “My dear Theophilus, in my previous letter, I wrote to you about all that Jesus began to do and teach until he was taken up into heaven.” There was more for Jesus to do, only now He was going to do it through His disciples – His witnesses – through the power of the Spirit. And that part of the story continues now to us. We are those who are to witness His grace, His mercy, His justice, and His victory. The Ascension may have been the end of one chapter of the story but, really, it’s just the beginning.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1119414-author-gagarin-690500-flew-into-space-but-didn-t-see-any-god-there#:~:text=Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev — ’Gagarin flew into space%2C but didn’t see any god there.’
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