The world has not seen the last of Jesus Christ. Such an Ascension, after such a life, cannot be the end of Him. " As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judg- ment, 80 Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear the second time, without sin unto salvation." As inevitably as for sinful human nature follows death, so in- evitably for the sinless Man, who is the sacrifice for the world's sins, will His judicial return follow His atoning work ; He will come again, having received the Kingdom, to take account of His servants, and to perfect their possession of the salvation which by His Incarnation, Passion, Eesurrection, and Ascension, He wrought for the world. Therefore, one sweet face, and one great fact — the face of the Christ, the fact of the Cross — should fill the past. One sweet face, one great fact — the face of the Christ, the fact of His presence with us all the days — should fill the present. One regal face, one great hope, should fill the future ; the face of the King that sitteth upon the throne, the hope that He will come again, and " so shall we ever be with the Lord."
•[[ The Apostles were bidden by angels to turn their gaze from heaven to earth, — and wait. " And they returned to Jerusalem
* W. L. Mackenzie.
ST. MARK 503
with great joy." Yes, Jesus will come again, there is joy in that thought. He hath passed from us into that invisible world, and left an ever-widening circle on the surface of the deep, which extends ever more and more around where He has passed, till it hath filled all time and space, and hath come even to us, and taken us into its hallowed circumference.^
But, Lord, to-morrow, What of to-morrow. Lord ? Shall there be rest from toil, be truce from sorrow.
Be living green upon the sward, Now but a barren grave to me. Be joy for sorrow ? —
" Did I not die for thee ? Do I not live for thee ? — leave Me to-morrow." ^
IL
His Ascension,
1. The Ascension was a natural sequence of the Incarnation and Resurrection.
The Ascension of Jesus of Nazareth was the final crisis in His great work. To omit it would be to omit that which is a necessary link between His resurrection from among the dead and reappearance amid His disciples, and the coming of God, the Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost. It is not easy to follow Him as He passes out of human sight. This difficulty is recognised inferentially in the very brevity of the Gospel narrative. Very little is said, because little can be said which could be understood by those dwelling still within the limitations of the material, and having consciousness of the spiritual world only by faith. Still the positive fact is definitely stated ; and, following closely the lines laid down, we may reverently attempt their projection beyond the veil of time and sense. It is almost pathetic that it is necessary to pause one moment to insist upon the actual historic fact of the ascension into the heavenly places of the Man of Nazareth. If the resurrection be denied, then of course there is no room for the ascension. If on the other hand it be established that Jesus of Nazareth did indeed rise from the
* laaar "Williams. * Christina G. Rossetti.
504 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
dead, then it is equally certain that He ascended into heaven. No time need be taken in argument with such as believe in the authenticity of the New Testament story, and with those who question this, argument is useless. That there is an unconscious questioning of the fact of the ascension is evident from the way in which reference is sometimes made to the Lord Jesus. It is by no means uncommon to hear persons speak of what He did or said " in the days of His Incarnation." Such a phrase, even when not used with such intention, does infer that the days of His Incarnation are over. This, however, is not so. Jesus, through whom, and through whom alone eventually, men as such will be found in the heavens, ascended in bodily form to those heavens, being Himself as to actual victory First-born from the dead. The stoop of God to human form was not for a period merely. That humiliation was a process in the pathway by which God would lift into eternal union with Himself all such as should be redeemed by the victory won through suffering. For evermore in the Person of the Man of Nazareth God is one with men. At this moment the Man of Nazareth, the Son of God, is at the right hand of the Father. Difficulties arising concerning these clear declarations as to the ascension of the Man of Nazareth must not be allowed to create disbelief in them. Any such process of discrediting what is hard to understand issues finally in the abandonment of the whole Christian position and history.
^ The Ascension of Christ ensues just as necessarily and naturally as the development of the flower when plant, stalk, leaf, and bud are already in existence. Look at the connection of His whole career, how He was sent down from His Father, in order, as God-man, to fulfil His work of mediation and redemption ; how He, obeying, suffering, and dying, really did fulfil it, thus perfectly discharging the commission intrusted to Him; and then judge whether it may not be confidently expected that the holy, righteous Father in heaven would set His seal to the finished work of His only-begotten Son, not only by raising Him again from the dead, but by causing Him also to return in visible triumph to heaven, whence He had descended to us. One step in the life of Jesus demanded and required the next. Without the Ascension His life were a torso, a fragment, an inexplicable enigma. For where could the risen Saviour have remained if He had not returned to His Father ? He must necessarily have tarried