In this YouTube video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss the final verses of Luke 24:50-53. They explore the significance of Jesus’ ascension, the themes of worship and joy, and the disciples’ response. The video highlights the brevity of the account and the importance of the disciples’ role in carrying the gospel beyond the temple.
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Transcript
00:00:00:10 – 00:00:26:42
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. I appreciate you joining us on Monday. Our last day in the text of Luke, we will spend a couple of days reflect on Luke. But today we get to the end and we don’t have much. Honestly, just a couple of verses here as we close out the gospel. One of the things that is interesting about this text really, I would say maybe two things before we read it.
00:00:26:47 – 00:01:01:17
Clint Loveall
Hey, Luke is the only one that gives us this story. Luke is the only gospel that has an ascension story. In other words, what happens to Jesus in the transition from Earth to heaven? And secondly, Luke revisits this story as he begins the Book of Acts and expands it. And so here we get almost a kind of a bookmark, not really a full closure, because it is this very scene, an expanded version of this scene that he’s going to use to open the Book of Acts.
00:01:01:17 – 00:01:27:42
Clint Loveall
But let me read these couple verses, then we can see what’s in here. He led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up his hands. He blessed them while he was blessing them. He withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the temple blessing God.
00:01:27:46 – 00:01:55:08
Clint Loveall
An interesting thing that we’ve seen the last couple of weeks in Luke’s gospel, particularly after the resurrection story, this idea that Jesus just shows up and leaves randomly. And we have that idea here, He’s he withdrew from them and was carried into heaven and Luke says about four words about that. It does. You would think, yeah, that would be a thing to explain.
00:01:55:08 – 00:02:17:03
Clint Loveall
And we do get a little expanded version of it in the in the book of Acts. But in the same way we saw that Luke told us Jesus disappeared from the two disciples, that He just appears to the to the disciples back in Jerusalem. There’s just a there’s a strangeness to the way that Jesus feeds in and out of these stories.
00:02:17:07 – 00:02:42:21
Clint Loveall
And I suspect, you know, that’s Luke’s way of telling us that life on the other side of the resurrection is is interesting. As regards Jesus, that he shows up, that he then when things are okay, he does something else, not in the sense that he’s unavailable, but just in the time, in the sense that sometimes he’s very visible and other times he’s kind of not as visible.
00:02:42:21 – 00:02:59:40
Clint Loveall
And here we get that the disciples worshiped him. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy, obviously worship and joy. We’ve seen this, these themes woven throughout this gospel. And no surprise, Michael, that Luke kind of leaves them with this combination.
00:02:59:45 – 00:03:24:37
Michael Gewecke
So I think there’s a few things worth noting. The first that you’ve said, Clint, I think helpfully, is the brevity of this account. There’s a lot for us to learn from that, so maybe I’ll circle back around to that. But I think another thing that I want to name here very quickly is the fact that this is a actually included as part of our Apostle’s creed.
00:03:24:40 – 00:03:50:28
Michael Gewecke
If you recite that as part of the worship in accommodation, you affirm that Jesus ascended into heaven. And here this is Luke’s account of it. This is all that Luke thinks you need to know for a life of faith and discipleship is right here is that Jesus led them out. He blessed them. Then he ascended into heaven. He was carried up, and then they went back to Jerusalem.
00:03:50:33 – 00:04:11:33
Michael Gewecke
And of course, we have Clint, which you’ve named in previous conversations, the movement that immediately happens. You see Jesus ascend and then you are immediately sent back to Jerusalem. I think it needs reminded that this is part one of Luke acts his part to of Luke. And so we get this idea that when they go to Jerusalem, it’s not just a party.
00:04:11:45 – 00:04:35:38
Michael Gewecke
They’re praying there. They’re actively yearning and seeking for the promise that Jesus has offered. And and that’s going to come to pass. But we’re not there. What you need to know about Jesus’s life is that he ascended and there is a kind of good news in that it’s the gospel writers way of making sure that we know that Jesus died.
00:04:35:51 – 00:04:57:03
Michael Gewecke
Then he rose again from the dead. He was seen bodily. He did these bodily things. He walked with those on the road to a mass. He ate, he broke bread. Then he ate fish. He had these human encounters with the human disciples. And then the gospel writer Luke wants us to know. And then Jesus was carried up. He was taken away.
00:04:57:03 – 00:05:17:56
Michael Gewecke
And the idea is that he didn’t die somewhere on the earth. He didn’t go off and disappear. Now he he is now and presently we see that with God on high and that is the place then that Christians direct our attention. When we think of Jesus, we think of him as the living one, the one who is with God.
00:05:17:56 – 00:05:40:39
Michael Gewecke
And it’s that ascension which is important for us to understand the whole of the Christian story, where it’s important for us to understand our place in that story. But it’s interesting, Clint, how little Luke wants to tease out about that. There’s not a lot of theology. In fact, there’s no teaching in this text. Instead, it’s just simply the action of Jesus and the things that follow.
00:05:40:44 – 00:06:05:57
Clint Loveall
Yeah, And I think if anything, Luke leaves us seeds, he leaves us these words here. So what is Jesus Last act is to bless them. And Luke has this even while he was blessing them, he was he was withdrawing that he was both blessing them and the sending that those two things are happening at once. Then there’s worship, there’s joy.
00:06:06:01 – 00:06:40:37
Clint Loveall
And then they were continually in the temple blessing God. And so you can already begin to feel Luke shifting toward what comes next now that Jesus is resurrected the living Christ, now he’s being taken up and to heaven. What is the aftermath of living with the knowledge that Jesus is the risen Son of God? IT Well, it’s worship and it’s joy, and it’s continually blessing God in this case in the temple.
00:06:40:37 – 00:07:05:11
Clint Loveall
But probably I think it would be fair to expand that to say in community even I think Luke might let us say in church, in in the body of Christ, which is going to be a compelling theme as we would move to the Book of Acts. And I think, you know, this a very interesting way to end this story.
00:07:05:11 – 00:07:38:36
Clint Loveall
And I think it it makes more sense when you realize Luke sees this connected to the story that he’s going to go on until next. Yes, it stands alone, but it’s written with the knowledge that volume two is on the way. And I think that in volume two, that idea, particularly the early part of acts, these concepts of worship and joy and blessing God, that’s going to be where he centers the story for the first several chapters.
00:07:38:45 – 00:08:02:34
Michael Gewecke
There’s also a specificity in this claim the fact that their worship being in the temple blessing God is a reflection of who they are. These are Jews, these are Jewish believers, these are Jesus’s followers. And Luke is not in including a detail about that on accident. These are the very people who are going to soon be messengers of the good news far beyond the walls of the temple.
00:08:02:34 – 00:08:34:42
Michael Gewecke
In fact, the first generation of Christians will see the gospel go far beyond the temple has all of these different courts, and there are some courts that the Gentiles can’t go beyond. And the first generation of Christians are going to carry the gospel far beyond those courts into every corner of the known earth. And it is, it seems to me, not accidental that Luke includes a detail like this, that they’re there in the temple, blessed God for now, that is the center of their worship.
00:08:34:42 – 00:08:54:23
Michael Gewecke
But we know if you continue on in the in the telling of this story, in the book of Acts that it’s going to quickly liken it like a fire. It’s going to burn outside the walls of that temple. It’s going to spread and it’s going to go from not only Jerusalem to Sumerian and to the ends of the earth.
00:08:54:23 – 00:09:22:30
Michael Gewecke
It’s an amazing sort of shorthand way of letting us into what part of the story it that Jesus’s ascension marks the bookend of. But at the same time that it’s bookending Jesus’s earthly ministry, it’s also the beginning of the disciples earthly ministry, the new sort of ordination that Jesus has made of these individuals, men and women, who are now going to go do the work of ministry.
00:09:22:35 – 00:09:48:37
Michael Gewecke
And it it’s an amazing short, just a few words, really in English, but an incredible meaning and incredible reminder to us that it’s not the specificity of the moment that Jesus leaves. It’s the specificity of the lives and the action that follows Jesus’s ascension. It has something to do with how we live, not just what Jesus did, because a celebrity.
00:09:48:37 – 00:10:13:15
Michael Gewecke
Klint, you could you could imagine if this was the telling of a celebrity’s life, they would want their last word to be a witty saying or a thoughtful, creative word. No, not not the Bible writers. They’re not interested in leaving Jesus as if that’s the end of his story. They’re interested in us seeing ourself included in the things that follow his story.
00:10:13:15 – 00:10:18:31
Michael Gewecke
And that’s what makes us a gospel telling and not just another sort of who’s who story.
00:10:18:36 – 00:10:45:32
Clint Loveall
It’s it’s pretty subtle. And I think it could easily maybe be missed. But the one thing that is conspicuously absent from these last verses is Jesus voice. Jesus doesn’t say anything. Luke doesn’t record Jesus final words in this part of the story. To find those, you have to go up just a couple of verses. It is written that the Messiah is to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.
00:10:45:32 – 00:11:15:13
Clint Loveall
Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all the nations. Beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things and I am sending upon you what my father promised. So stay here in the city until you’ve been clothed with power on high. Those are the last words that Jesus speaks. And in this blessing that is giving is is unnamed or unrecorded and doesn’t we don’t get that.
00:11:15:18 – 00:11:42:45
Clint Loveall
So to find the last thing Jesus says is a word to the disciples of explanation, of sending and of promise. And now we get in these last three verses, we get their response to that. And and I think it is kind of I think if you’ve been with us, if you if you’ve slog through this gospel with us, it’s first of all, thank you.
00:11:42:45 – 00:12:11:51
Clint Loveall
And second of all, I think it’s a fitting end worship and joy and blessing. God, this is a these are remarkably important themes to Luke. And we’ll we’ll all reflect on that further, maybe tomorrow or the day after. But an interesting way for Luke to wrap up the story and I think as we’ve seen so many times of a very well done piece of writing.
00:12:11:56 – 00:12:35:22
Michael Gewecke
I would have to consult the commentaries to make sure that there’s textual reason for this claim. But I can’t help but think of Jesus’s first sermon in his home synagogue. And I remember that conversation which we talked about how the beginning of Jesus’s ministry ended in him being led out of the church so that he could be thrown off a cliff.
00:12:35:22 – 00:12:59:51
Michael Gewecke
And here Jesus is leading the disciples out. And it is as he blesses them that he ascends in front of them. It it strikes me that there is a kind of beautiful simplicity throughout the entire book of Luke. You can see how Luke doesn’t give us Matthew 28 with the go into all the world baptizing and making disciples.
00:13:00:01 – 00:13:28:35
Michael Gewecke
This is a an understated and and that does not mean not elegant or not beautiful. I think this what this text does is it says with an incredible economy of words, what you need to know for the substance of faith. And then also with that, the implication of what that might mean as we as Christians seek to live out that faith, that the thing that the disciples do is an invitation for us also.
00:13:28:49 – 00:13:58:33
Michael Gewecke
So when Jesus blesses his disciples, then we are reminded that we too should live lives of great joy, that we should constantly and continually, as you’ve already said, can’t live inside a community of blessing to be in the midst of Christian worship and celebration there. There’s both history being told in the sense of what happened. There also is instruction being given here, so therefore he is ascended.
00:13:58:48 – 00:14:21:12
Michael Gewecke
This is what we are to do. And by the way, Joy is an interesting thing to follow. We just literally words previous had fear and had confusion and had all of these things. So it’s amazing how we can even see this art that has happened so quickly for these disciples. They’ve now come to be as full witnesses to the truth.
00:14:21:12 – 00:14:37:12
Michael Gewecke
He is resurrected, He’s now ascended, and all that’s left is joy. That’s an amazing place to leave a story and a kind of an open ended, almost a what will you do with this kind of question mark that hangs over it?
00:14:37:17 – 00:15:02:27
Clint Loveall
I think so. And I last thing I would say is that I think Luke, even down to the language, helps us get there first. 53 He was blessing them. He withdrew from them, was carried up into heaven. And this isn’t quite as maybe in the Greek. This isn’t quite as noticeable as it is in English, where we try to be careful with our conjunctions.
00:15:02:27 – 00:15:43:33
Clint Loveall
But read this verse 52 carefully and they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the temple blessing God. So in in three separate instances, including starting a sentence with and Luke is trying to connect what happens next with the disciples, with the fact that Jesus has blessed them and been ascended. And again, not to overstate this, but if you know anything about the Book of Acts, it is the perfect bridge.
00:15:43:33 – 00:15:48:40
Clint Loveall
And so again, as always, we see Luke as a very thoughtful writer.
00:15:48:45 – 00:16:20:38
Michael Gewecke
I want to just add voice to the gratitude that some of you we know have been with us for this entire journey. You’ve made it through more than 100 separate studies of Luke. We’re grateful that you would have spent this time with us. That’s a significant investment and we certainly hope that it’s been time that’s been generative for you and that you have felt both engaged by this incredible text and that it has been a witness to you, to the faith of Jesus Christ, that you might be a witness to that faith of friends.
00:16:20:38 – 00:16:54:03
Michael Gewecke
We will. In the next couple of days, we will circle back around for a few more conversations, looking at some of the overarching themes of Luke. If you just found this video, those might be good videos to look at to help you find an orientation to this huge gospel with a lot of amazing aspects. Certainly subscribe to the channel so you can get those videos as well as the study that is going to follow our study of Luke and do give this video like if you’ve made it this far, hit the light button and certainly celebrate the journey we’ve had together thus far.
00:16:54:05 – 00:16:55:35
Michael Gewecke
Hope you’re blessed. We’ll see you soon.
00:16:55:35 – 00:17:12:30
Clint Loveall
I would also just add to that if I could, Michael, that as you think about the Gospel of Luke and however many of the studies you’ve been through, if you have a question, if there’s a theme that stands out or if there’s something that remains unclear at this point, shoot us an email, drop a comment, and we’ll do our best to see it.
00:17:12:30 – 00:17:21:12
Clint Loveall
We would love to try and speak specifically to anything that may still be unclear as we kind of give our own thoughts and wrap up on Luke the next couple days.
00:17:21:16 – 00:17:23:11
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, that’s helpful. That’s good work. We’ll see you tomorrow.