Sermon: The Ascension Foreshadowed (Psalm 68:15-35; Ephesians 4:7-13)

 When we left Namibia in 2020, we left in a hurry: three days’ notice, one suitcase each, no farewells. It was the opposite of a Band-Aid: despite the fact we were removed quickly, it was more painful. 

 

We've just gotten back from three weeks in Namibia, going to collect some things, but mainly to say goodbye to all those friends we never got the chance with before. And at first, everyone was so glad to see us again! We could eat together, tell our stories, catch up on what has happened in our absence. But all too soon it became three weeks of goodbyes. Three weeks of "When will you be back?" Three weeks of "Can you stay just one more day with us?" Three weeks of "I don't want you to go." Leaving was hard, but at least this time we knew it's the right thing to do. Penny has her PhD; I have my ministry with Horizons. Those things can't happen till we're back in Australia.

 

Last week, Christians around the world remembered Jesus' death on Good Friday, and together we also celebrated his resurrection on Easter Sunday. But there's another important holiday which comes 40 days after Easter, and commemorates another important event in Christ's story. 40 days after his resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven. Ascension Day is a public holiday in Namibia; here we get no such luck.

 

Just imagine for a moment being one of the apostles on that day. Just over a month before, you witnessed Jesus killed on a cross, and you thought that everything was over: the person you thought was the messiah had been executed as a criminal, and while you mourned all the people around you rejoiced. But then, three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, and you had him back! He was with you again, walking and talking and teaching and being wonderful. "This is it!" you think. "Now that Jesus is risen, he will surely conquer our enemies, those enemies that crucified him. He will ascend to the throne of Israel, and restore the kingdom to its glory!" This is what you would have thought, because we're told in Acts chapter 1 that this is exactly what the disciples were thinking: verse 6, "Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

 

You see, even after Christ's shocking death and amazing resurrection, the apostles were still expecting a victorious ruler over Israel. Their minds were likely cast back to pictures of God's ascension in the Old Testament, pictures like we see in Psalm 68, which we've just heard read to us. In such pictures, Israel gets special pride of place. 

 

Our reading in Psalm 68 starts off talking about Mount Bashan - a big, tall mountain with snowy peaks that reach up into the heavens, a place known for warriors and creatures of great might. The bulls of Bashan are referred to elsewhere in scripture as symbols of strength. But we're told this great mountain is envious. Why? 

 

Because it's a place that seems suited for the throne of a God, but God doesn't choose it! God chooses instead Mount Zion - not even a mountain really, more of a hill. It doesn't reach up into the sky. It's pretty unimpressive. But it is in Jerusalem, the city of God's people, the city of his chosen and beloved king David. So that is where God chooses to build his temple; that is where God makes his throne. 

 

This is the picture the apostles have in their mind about what God's victory is going to look like: it involves God's messiah ascending to Mount Zion like a king who has been victorious in battle. He leads the people he defeated in battle as captives; there is a huge celebration with music and sacrifices to God; his people bring him many gifts to welcome their God, and even the kings of foreign nations, who have for so long been enemies on the doorstep of the kingdom, are humbled and must bring tribute to God as their rightful ruler; and those who continue to stand against him will be violently crushed - his chosen people will wade in the blood of God's defeated enemies.

 

That's how the apostles were feeling on Ascension Day. To this point they had not seen much evidence of this sort of thing happening. In fact, they'd seen the opposite: Jesus seems to constantly be getting humbled! Born in a manger, living on the edge of rural Judea as a carpenter, wandering from place to place with nowhere to sleep, supported by women because he has no money, dining with sinners, touching the sick and demon possessed, rejected by the Jewish leaders and the people, arrested and convicted as a criminal, killed on a cross like a thief.

 

But now he's resurrected. Now things are going to change! Now we'll see psalm 68 fulfilled! Now it's time to party, right? Right, Jesus?

 

But Jesus' response to the apostles is confusing. He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

 

And then in verse 9, something completely unexpected happens: "After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight." Rather than ascending to a throne in Jerusalem, Jesus ascended into heaven, leaving the disciples without him once again! 

 

How do you think it felt? Jesus had come back from the dead victorious over the grave, you got to hang out with him for a month, and then he just left again? And not just left, but floated up into heaven never to be seen again? Would you be shocked?

 

They were shocked. The apostles were so shocked that Acts says they just stood there staring into the sky until a couple of angels came and told them to stop standing around gawping.

 

Have you ever felt the loss of Jesus to humanity? Have you ever wished that you could just head to Jerusalem and meet him face to face? Maybe you'd like to ask him some tough theological question, or to listen to him preach. Maybe you'd drag your friends and family there and say "See? I told you he exists!" Maybe you'd go to him and ask him to stop your enemies oppressing you. Maybe you'd bring him gifts because you love him so much; or go to celebrate his greatness with music and dancing and food and festivals. Maybe you'd take your kids to be blessed by him. Maybe you'd go just to touch the edge of his robe and be healed, or to ask him for some food. 

 

Wouldn't that be awesome? That's what we lost when Jesus ascended back to heaven. We lost psalm 68. We lost that opportunity for witness and celebration and justice and worship and healing and answers and and and. 

 

But we didn't. This is what Paul clarifies for us when he talks about Christ's ascension in Ephesians chapter 4. He wants to show us another side of the ascension; a different impact, how it affects us in ways perhaps we hadn't considered. Rather than us feeling like we have lost something, he wants us to hear psalm 68 in a different way, to view its importance differently to the narrative of God ascending to his temple, or a king to his earthly throne, so we can see what we've actually gained from Christ's ascension into heaven. Paul quotes just one verse from psalm 68, but it's enough to remind us of the whole psalm, to evoke all these pictures, all these thoughts that people were having and that we still have, so that he can give us a new perspective on those pictures. 

 

When Paul starts talking about the ascension to the Ephesians, the first point he wants to make is in verses 9 and 10. Let's start with verse 9: "(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 

 

When we read ascension psalms like psalm 68, to us it sounds like God is being lifted up, made more worthy, more glorified, becoming somehow greater than he already was, like he's attaining something he didn't already have.  But Paul is reminding us that in psalm 68, God is "ascending" to a mountain that isn't even the biggest mountain in the area. 

 

Psalm 68:33 describes God as "him who rides across the highest heavens." In order to ascend to mount Zion, which direction must God travel from the highest heavens? Downwards! In order to take his throne in the temple among his people, God must first descend to them.

 

And so it is with Jesus. Christ's ascension reminds us firstly that he is immanuel - God with us. Jesus came and lived among us as one of us. And that is certainly something we can celebrate, just as Israel celebrated God making his place in Jerusalem.

 

But we shouldn't be surprised that he would return to the heavens from which he came, just like our friends in Namibia weren't surprised that we would one day return to Australia. It is glorifying for Jesus to ascend to heaven once again. That is where his throne is. His ascension is one of those clear proofs to us that Jesus really is God, and not just a prophet or a miracle worker.

 

So when we now read verse 10, "He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)" we see that his ascension not only reminds us that Jesus truly is God, but also that it's his ascension that allows him to fill the whole universe - to live in the heart of every Christian in the world, to be with us all in a way that he simply couldn't be if he were enthroned in Jerusalem. 

 

Skip ahead to the end of Ephesians 4:13 - the goal is that "we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."

 

We don't have a God who is distant from us, like a king who we can see maybe once in our lives from a distance who hands down pronouncements but who has a tight inner circle we are not a part of. No, God's plan is that all of us, all Christians united, know Jesus more and more, till Christ fills us to the brim. 

 

It's this idea of Christ filling us that I want to explore in more detail, and is the focus of Paul's use of psalm 68. In Eph 4:8, Paul quotes verse 18 of the psalm: 'This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”'

 

"But wait," the eagle-eyed among you will be saying at this point, "Didn't verse 18 of Psalm 68 say, "When you ascended on high, you took many captives; you received gifts from people"? What's going on here? Paul seems to have changed the Psalm. For one, he's changed the person from referring to God in the second person "When you, you took, you received" to the third person "When he, he took, his people". That's not such a big deal though. But the more troubling change is that where the psalm says "you received gifts from people", Paul writes "gave gifts to his people". Giving and receiving are the opposite! What’s going on here?

 

I looked at what some different scholars said, and to me, it seems that Paul has made a decision to adapt the wording of his quote to fit the context of his message to the Ephesians and explain the reality of Christ's ascension with the picture from psalm 68. This is something we do when we read or preach from the Bible even today: sometimes we come across a passage where its immediate application to the lives of its hearers is one we would never do in the modern world and in the light of Jesus. 

 

A classic example is our sermon series last year on Leviticus. We looked at verses that told us how to ritually bathe, avoid unclean foods, even how to buy slaves. But in none of those cases did we ever apply the lesson directly from Leviticus. Reading them in the light of Jesus, we actually end up doing the opposite! We preachers didn't change the words of Leviticus to fit our message, but we certainly updated the application for 21st century Christians.

 

I think Paul is doing the same thing, but by adjusting the words of the psalm itself to make the point. This was an understood and acceptable practice at the time, and makes a lot more sense when you have a biblically literate audience who know the passage so well that they can appreciate the purpose of the change without feeling it threatens the reliability or inspiration of scripture.

 

So now that we understand what's going on, what is Paul saying about the impact of Christ's ascension on our relationship with him by using psalm 68?

 

Well, it starts at Ephesians 4:7 "But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it."

 

First of all, Paul makes clear that God is in the business of giving people grace. He uses the word "apportioned" which might make it sound like he's being stingy, like there's only so much grace going around and we are lucky to get just enough to get by. But we know that's not true. God is overflowing with overabundant grace. Yes, some people need to be forgiven much - and God forgives them much! This grace of God is a big theme for Paul in Ephesians. And the psalm describes God as “God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens", "a God who saves; from him comes "escape from death".

 

But Paul doesn't just talk about the saving grace that God has given us; he also talks about the grace that God gives us in providing good works for us to do in his name. He talks about God's grace in making Paul a servant of the gospel, and God's grace in giving Paul the job of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. Directly after saying in Ephesians 2:8 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast" he immediately follows in verse 10 with "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works"! In Paul's mind, God's grace - his undeserved favour to us - is not only seen in the fact that he saves us, but also in the fact that he allows us to participate in his work of showing grace to all people. This is why grace is “apportioned” – because even though we all get this grace of doing good works, not all of us do the same works. We’re given different jobs, different portions.

 

So when Paul then quotes psalm 68 and evokes the picture of the victorious king taking many captives and giving gifts to his people, we see how he is using this to describe what is happening at Christ's ascension. Who is it that Christ takes captive? Us! Some of the language that the psalm uses to talk about God's enemies is quite confronting, but all the more so when you realise that we all were God's enemies before we were saved. 

 

What are the gifts that God is giving to his people? According to Paul in Ephesians 4:11 "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service". 

 

Not only is God's grace shown to us in the gifts he equips us with and the works he provides for us to do... but we ourselves are actually the gift to one another, to equip each other to do the good works! 

 

The original verse in the psalm talks about gifts coming to God "even from the rebellious", referring to how God is worthy of praise and honour even from those who stand against him - another picture of God's victory. But now with Paul's focus it becomes "gave gifts to his people, even from the rebellious". That's us: enemies of God now captured by his love and transformed into gifts for one another. 

 

When we as Christians are united in seeking to grow into the fullness of Christ, we are all both the recipient of God's grace, and the giver of it, and the  actual gift! How much more involved in God's plan could we be? When Jesus ascended into heaven, he started a work of filling the whole universe with himself, and made us a part of that. That's what the ascension means for us.

 

Now I don't want to talk too much about spiritual gifts in detail, because next week we'll be looking at the foreshadowing of Pentecost. So instead let me leave you with this question: do you feel like you're a gift to God's people, given to help unite us in being filled with Jesus? Because that's what you are. You are a gift to me, just as I am to you, and we are all gifts to one another. 

 

These last few weeks, Penny and I have been inundated with stories from our friends in Namibia about how we've been a gift from God to them, and not just in Penny's lecturing or our preaching. It was how we were role models of being married; of being friends and work colleagues who were there when they needed help or advice or just a listening ear; it was giving loans, offering lifts, hospital visits,  sharing life, sharpening one another. And that means everyone who helped financially support us or who prayed for us to get there was also a gift to those people. 

 

We don't often go around talking to each other another about how big an impact we are in each other's Christian life. It's easy when you have an upfront role like preaching to see how you're a gift. Sometimes it's more difficult to see how you might be a gift to others. But it's easier to focus on how other Christians are a gift from God that helps you mature in Christ. Every person who has inspired you in your Christian life; who helped you navigate a difficult time; who had been a spiritual role model; who has served you as part of the body of Christ - they were gifts to you. And in those same ways, you are a gift to others. 

 

So next time you think about how you wish that Jesus was here, instead of staring up into the sky waiting for him to come back, remember you’re part of his ascension, and think about how you are contributing to filling up someone else with Christ.