Introduction
Every year, the church prayerfully participates in the 10 days following Jesus’ ascension. During that time, the disciples awaited the promised gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now, we learn to wait with them, longing for the Spirit’s renewing work and tracing a pattern in Scripture: God ascends to reign and fills people with the Holy Spirit so they can rule with him.
We have seen this pattern in Genesis—God forms humans from the dust and fills them with the Spirit of God, then ascends to his royal rest on the seventh day of creation. But dark spiritual forces mimic and distort this pattern to create a counterfeit kingdom: a rival filling in the rebellion of the sons of God and a rival enthronement in the Tower of Babel. Now, the story finds its true fulfillment in Jesus, who ascends above every god and promises to fill his people with God’s Spirit.
God-Man on the Throne
In the beginning, God created humans to rule with him over creation and fill the world with his image. But instead, humanity gave its allegiance to a rival kingdom, to rebellious spirits who drew the world toward death and destruction. In mercy, God promised to rescue and restore his image. Humans had become enslaved to spiritual powers, corrupted away from their calling to fill the earth with God’s flourishing life and likeness. So God came as a human to free them from rebellious powers and restore them to their intended role as co-rulers with God. For humans to become fully divine, God became fully human.
Jesus, the Son of God, came as a Son of Man and conquered the rival sons of God who had enslaved his people. He broke the grip of evil and conquered death itself by dying and rising from the grave. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and told them that all the Scriptures had pointed to this fulfillment (Luke 24:44-47). From the first pages of the Bible, God has desired to rule with his people and fill them with his life. Now, in Jesus, he has conquered the powers of evil and death. Jesus’ risen body stands as proof of victory. In his resurrection, humanity is set free. In his ascension, rival powers are dethroned. Jesus has risen to repossess the nations for God.
Now, through the ascended and ruling Christ, humanity can co-rule creation with God as it was created to do. Because God has been made like us through Jesus, we can be made like him in Christ (Hebrews 2:10-18). Because the God-Man Jesus has ascended to his throne, humans are restored to their created purpose—ruling with God.
Wait to be Filled
The disciples understood that Jesus’ ascension to heaven meant that they would rule God’s Kingdom with him. But Jesus told them to wait to be filled with the Spirit (Acts 1:5-7). They would join his Kingdom by sharing his own life and power, and then spread that Kingdom through their witness from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Their witness would be that a Son of Man ascended to the right hand of God and that, in Jesus, God is restoring Spirit-filled humans as his co-rulers and images. But they needed to wait for God’s Spirit.
As humanity ascended to heaven’s throne in Jesus, heaven will descend to earth in the Spirit, filling the King’s people. God took on human flesh in Jesus. Now, human flesh will house God through the Spirit.
Guided Prayer
We respond in prayer as Jesus, the Holy Son of God and truly ascended man, taught us:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven those indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.