The Day Christ Ascended

In my efforts to put the events of Christ’s life on their proper dates within the Jewish calendar, this year the ascension of Christ will happen on Sunday afternoon, June 2, 2024 (or Zif 25 on the Jewish calendar).

NOTE: If you are interested in the technical part of how to calculate this, I posted that information at the end of this post.

From Ascension to Return

The ascension is when Christ ascended up into the heavens while hundreds of disciples gazed on in wonder and consternation. Two angels told them:

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Christ is ruling us now from the heavens at the right hand of his father, but God revealed to the apostle John how his return would resemble his ascension:

Revelation 14:14-16 “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.

And in Revelation 19:11, we see Christ riding down on a white horse in final judgment:

“Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war.”

Therefore, the ascension and Christ’s return are bookends on either side of world events. At the ascension he went up in peace, but at his return he will come in final judgment. He went up in a cloud, and he will return on a cloud and bring judgment on the earth. I think the best way to understand this, is to realize that when Christ returns it will be obvious. It will be like lightning flashing from the east to the west (Matthew 24:27), and there won’t be any mystery as to the fact that he is returning, just as there was no mystery to the disciples that he was ascending.

And what this means to us is that we are right now in an “in-between time” which started at the ascension and will culminate when Christ returns. That will be when he makes everything right and restores justice, deals with the pedophiles, the human traffickers, the false shepherds, the abusers, the Beast (which is the world system that is opposed to him), and all those who know the Truth and yet ignore the Truth. 

And yet we must be patient. We have yet to see how his final plan will unfold, but let’s turn our focus back to what happened during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension. 

Forty Days of Proof

Acts 1:3 “He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God”
 
One of the most important things Christ needed to accomplish during his forty days on earth in his resurrected body, was to convince his disciples that he had really, truly, physically resurrected. It wasn’t a lie and he wasn’t a spirit. Here is a list of the post resurrection appearances of Christ:
 
◦ John 20:14-18 (To Mary Magdalene): “Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him, “Rabboni!” (which is to say, Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ”Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things to her.
 
◦ Luke 24:10 “It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. 
 
◦ John 20:19-23 (To the disciples): “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 
 

The Fearful Disciples

Let me pause here and make an observation. Fear defined the disciples after his resurrection. Understandably, they didn’t want to be arrested and potentially killed in the same manner as Jesus had been, and so they met in secret, and tried to stay away from drawing any attention to themselves. Which of us wouldn’t be terrified of the political and religious authorities doing to us what they had done to Jesus? We would all be terrified and on high alert.
 
But when Jesus showed up, their fear left them and they were at peace. They knew it was going to be alright as long as Jesus was with them. He proved to them that he had risen from the dead, and thereby comforted their souls with his presence.
 
To continue with other events during the forty days:
 
◦ John 20:28-29 (To Thomas): “And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
 
◦ Mark 16:12-13 (Road to Emmaus): He appears to two disciples, which is recorded in more detail in Luke 24:13-35.
 
◦ John 20:30 “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book”
 
◦ John 21 (Fishing): Some of the disciples went fishing on the Sea of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee), and “This is now the third time Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after He was raised from the dead” ( John 21:14).
‣ Restores Peter
‣ Destiny of John
 
Mark 16:14 “Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.”
 

The Doubting Disciples

Interestingly, the disciples were not only fearful, they were also doubtful. The story of Doubting Thomas gets all the attention because he is a good object lesson, but Mark tells us that all eleven of the disciples doubted before they saw him. They were the Doubting Disciples. They were skeptical and they didn’t believe the reports by the women that he had risen until they themselves saw him in bodily form. Sounds like what a lot of people say today: They want to see before they believe.
 
Sorry, but we cannot go back in time nor repeat the past. Instead we are stuck with facing the reality that we need to believe the testimony of those who were there. That is hard for all of us, but that is what Jesus rebuked his disciples for: “He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.”  He further explained to Thomas, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
 
Now, for his disciples he accommodated their disbelief and proved it to them just as we wish he would do for us. He gave them the empirical evidence they needed in order to believe and to be credible witnesses for the truth of what happened, and we are left to believe their testimony. He ate with them, talked with them, and he allowed them to touch his wounds, until at last he ascended to be with the Father after forty days. I believe these disciples further enhanced their credibility when most of them were executed for proclaiming his resurrection. They knew he had bodily resurrected and they weren’t going to be tortured into denying that which they knew to be true. However, the truth being told to corrupt liars who want to protect their political and religious power results in rage and animosity, and gives the liars the justification to do anything they want to stop people from telling the truth. The louder the disciples proclaimed the truth, the more fierce became the opposition, and the more courage it took to stay committed to the fact that Christ had risen.
 

Why Did They Doubt?

But to dig a little deeper, why did they doubt? It seems like they weren’t just doubting that he had bodily risen from the dead (John reveals in John 21 that the disciples thought that he might be a spirit), but they were also doubting that he was the promised Messiah even after his resurrection.
 
During his ministry they thought they were following a man who was going to deal with the injustices of the world system as represented in Rome and the religious elites. But that dream was shattered when he was crucified. How could he have been the Messiah if Rome could kill him so easily, and he wouldn’t even put up a fight! Remember when Peter cut off the ear of a Roman soldier and Jesus healed him?
 
That kind of disbelief lingered even after he resurrected. Isn’t that weird? Even after all they had witnessed and even after they believed he had bodily resurrected, they still weren’t certain who they were really dealing with. They wondered if he would conquer Rome now.
 

Acts 1:4-11 “And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

They asked him if he were going to restore Israel and conquer Rome. They couldn’t let go of the idea that the Messiah was supposed to defeat the enemies of God, and therefore they couldn’t see that God was first going to extend his grace to the world through Christ. They couldn’t understand that they were supposed to be the ones who would preach forgiveness until he returned. They weren’t going to be conquering heroes or lords of the earth. They were going to be messengers of God’s grace until he returned.

To Conquer Rome?

I find it fascinating that the disciples fell into the same misunderstanding that they had fallen into before his crucifixion. During Jesus’ ministry, they thought it would end with him conquering Rome, not dying on a cross. They lost that hope when he was crucified, but then they regained that hope after his resurrection. They must have been thinking, “Okay. We didn’t get the whole ‘rise on the third day’ thing, but now he’s back and going to punch those unjust, immoral Romans in the teeth! Yay!!”

But they were wrong again. His plan was to ascend to be with the Father, and after that on the day of Pentecost, to send his Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts. He had explained all of this to them, but as always the disciples kind of stunk it up as far as processing what Jesus meant.

A conversation that happened during the Last Supper is as follows:

John 16:16-18 “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.” Then some of His disciples said among themselves, “What is this that He says to us, “A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I go to the Father’ ?” They said therefore, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is saying.”

They were confused, but Jesus was referring to his death (A little while you will not see me), and his resurrection (and again a little while and you will see me) which includes the forty days he was with them. But then he says,  “Because I go to the Father.” (In verse 10 he had told them that after he went to the Father they would see him no more.) That befuddled them, but it was Jesus’ way of referring to the ascension, and they couldn’t process what he was saying because they were still expecting him to conquer Rome. They probably expected him to say, “But now it’s time to go get ’em!” or something more inspiring than that.

But in spite of their inability to understand what Jesus was up to, Jesus knew that everything would go according to God’s plan. It’s a good thing God doesn’t rely on us to “get it” before he does his thing.

Forgiveness

As we have seen, during the forty days between his crucifixion and his ascension, he had to prove to his disciples that he had been resurrected and that he wasn’t going to conquer Rome, yet. He had to calm their fears, restore their faith, and remind them of what they were supposed to do once he was gone: Be his witnesses. That’s it. It was like one long pep talk before the big game, and he reminds them that they were not supposed to concern themselves with when he would return, and only concern themselves with going forth unto all the world with the good news. As Matthew so eloquently puts it:

Matthew 28:18-20 “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

And that is the work the Church is to be about. The disciples didn’t fully get it until Pentecost, but Christ taught them during those forty days before his ascension that they weren’t going to conquer anything, and that they were supposed to focus on going into the world, making disciples, and baptizing believers. They–and we–are to proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

But they also had to wait a few more days until they were to receive the Holy Spirit who would empower them to accomplish that goal. Jesus had taught them,

John 16:7-10 “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

There was going to be ten more days of confusion and fear after his ascension,  but he had prepared them for what was to come, and the best was yet to come!

Pentecost

In my next post, we will talk about Pentecost and consider how the coming of the Holy Spirit compares to the giving of God’s law on Mt. Sinai.

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God be with you.

Some technical stuff if you’re interested:

Christ’s Ascension was forty days after the Feast of Firstfruits, which is normally celebrated the day after the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, unless that day is a sabbath (Leviticus 23:11). It goes like this on a normal year:

  • Abib 14: Passover.
  • Abib 15-21: The Feast of Unleavened Bread. A seven day feast that begins and ends with a special sabbath.
  • Abib 16: The Feast of First Fruits.

This is based on Leviticus 23, but there has been a debate amongst Jews for millennia on the timing of these convocations. The above is pretty straightforward, but there is the practical reality that there was a weekly, standard sabbath day to celebrate, which started on Friday evening and ended on Saturday evening. This is confusing for us conceptually, because we perceive a day to be from midnight to midnight.

So, here’s a generic chart to help you see what’s happening:

Feast of Firstfruits – Normal Year

By the way, I chose the days Sunday Sunset to Monday Sunset to merely illustrate how it works.

The Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost (50 count), is then counted down to from the Feast of Firstfruits, which in a normal year falls on Sivan 6 on the Jewish calendar. The Feast of Firstfruits is counted as Day 1. Also, here are the first three months of the Jewish calendar, just so you know:

  • Abib is the first month (Exodus 12:2 and 13:4). 
  • Zif is the second month (I Kings 6:1).
  • Sivan is the third month (Esther 8:9).

However! The exception to the rule is if Abib 16 falls on a regular sabbath day. When that happens, it looks like this:

Feast of Firstfruits – After Sabbath Day

That would mean that there would be two sabbath days in a row, and I believe since Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday, this must be the way it was in the year he was crucified. In such a case, the Feast of Weeks would be on Abib 7 instead of Abib 6.

So, how does this play out in 2024? This year the Passover lamb would have been killed on the afternoon of Monday, April 22 (of course the Jews don’t do that anymore), and since the Feast of Firstfruits would NOT be on a regular sabbath this year, it would have to be on the normal Abib 16, which according to our calendar would be completed at sunset on April 24. The countdown begins on that date, and so Pentecost will be from Tuesday Sunset, June 11, to Wednesday Sunset, June 12. See the chart below.

Feast of Firstfruits 2024

And since the ascension happens forty days after the Feast of Firstfruits, that would mean the ascension began on Saturday Sunset, June 1, and would continue to Sunday Sunset, June 2, (Which is when I posted this essay). After he ascended, the disciples then walked from Mt. Olivet back to the upper room where they gathered together, prayed, and obediently waited in Jerusalem until whatever was going to happen, happened.

That would have been quite the prayer vigil, and in ten days when the Feast of Weeks was to be celebrated, they were ready to be filled with the Holy Spirit and given the power to fulfill the Great Commission.

Amen.

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