(Acts 1:1-11, Luke 24:44-end)
Last week, I had the privilege of leading a Bible study in the Taiwanese Fellowship, where we explored the Ascension of Christ. As we wrestled with the text, several theological questions emerged:
What is the Ascension of Christ for? Why do we need this day?
More provocatively, why did Jesus need to ascend into heaven at all? Wouldn’t it be better—more reassuring—if the resurrected Christ simply stayed with us here on earth?
We know from Scripture and Christian doctrine that the Holy Spirit has been active in the world—poured out on the disciples at Jesus’s command, empowering them for mission. So what, then, is the point of Jesus leaving? What does his going do that his staying wouldn’t?
It’s easy to treat the Ascension as a kind of divine epilogue. But if we take the text seriously, the Ascension is not merely an ending. It is a beginning.
Let’s consider the final question the disciples ask Jesus in Acts 1:6: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
This is the very last question the disciples ask their teacher before he departs. Even after the crucifixion, resurrection, and weeks of post-resurrection appearances, they still cling to the hope of national restoration—the return of the kingdom to Israel. (And we have no doubt this remains an issue in political reality, now in the Middle East.) It’s a question shaped by centuries of longing and suffering, but also by a narrowness of vision.
But Jesus doesn’t answer them directly. Instead, he redirects: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set… But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.”
This redirection is the heart of the Ascension. Jesus is not departing to abandon the disciples. He is ascending to reposition the story.
The disciples are hoping for a restored Israel, a revived kingdom. But Jesus, ascending in glory, signals a kingdom not limited to Israel, but extended to all nations. His going up is not a retreat from the world but an enthronement over it. It is the image foreseen in Daniel’s apocalyptic vision—of a Son of Man who ascends to the Ancient
One, receiving glory and dominion over every people, language, and culture (Daniel 7:9-14).
This is not a king returning to one land but reigning over the whole cosmos.
In this sense, the Ascension shatters the narrow frameworks we so often bring to faith. Jesus does not restore a national kingdom. He inaugurates a universal one. And in doing so, he calls his followers to open their eyes, to widen their vision, to think beyond local loyalties and spiritual comfort zones.
This theological tension is powerfully visualised in the 16th-century painting The Ascension of Christ by Hans Schäufelein. Unlike other more modern artists who sought to portray Christ in full bodily majesty, Schäufelein’s painting shows only the feet of Jesus as he disappears into the clouds above. It’s an almost humorous image at first glance—but deeply profound. It reminds us that there is mystery here. Christ’s body is not fully visible because God is not fully graspable. His departure resists our desire to keep him confined to what we can see, hold, or manage.
In that painting, we are the ones left below, craning our necks, staring at the sky—much like the disciples in Acts. The “two men in white robes” appear to ask: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” In other words: Why are you still staring? The work is here. The time is now.
This was not a moment for nostalgia. It was a holy time of communal waiting and preparation. Our waiting for God to act is a community project. The disciples did not scatter to pursue private revelations. They gathered, joined together, in a posture of expectancy and solidarity.
Acts 1:3 reminds us: “After his suffering, he presented himself alive to them.” Because he lives, we live. And because he has ascended, the Spirit descends—to guide, comfort, and empower us.
Still, we often come to God with the same mindset as those early disciples. “Is this the time, Lord?” We assume we already know what God will do next. But Acts is not a story of predictability. It is a story of surprises. It is a testimony to what happens when people—confused, grieving, unsure—stay open to God’s Spirit and step out in faith.
Christ’s Ascension is not about absence or the loss of Jesus. It is a creative and imaginative absence—when we can only see the feet of Jesus ascending into heaven. Jesus invites us to look beyond what is visible. Jesus calls us to journey beyond the limits of our understanding and naming. Jesus is enthroned not for a kingdom of Israel, but for the whole of creation and the cosmos.
As disciples of Christ, we follow a King whose might and glory go beyond what we have asked or imagined.
Jesus goes ahead of us not to abandon us, but to enthrone our humanity at the heart of God—and to ensure that his Spirit comes, giving us comfort, courage, power, and the capacity to imagine boldly and act faithfully. And in that sending, we are called not just to remember—but to move. To act. To widen the scope of our love and witness.
Jesus deconstructs our small visions—of church, of community, of mission—and calls us into a kingdom for all nations. It makes sense, then, that Jesus calls his disciples to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.
The Ascension leaves us with an absence that requires us to grow and take responsibility—an absence in which we are empowered to live Christlike lives, and invited to see God creatively and imaginatively.
The Ascension is necessary—not because Jesus needed to leave, but because we needed to grow. Because only when our eyes stop searching the skies, can we begin to see what God is doing here on earth—through us.
Amen.