The Blessing That Never Ends

Lifting his hands to heaven, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up to heaven.   Luke 24:50-51

The last time the disciples saw Jesus, his hands were raised, not in anger, but to bless them. Imagine what that must have been like. Try to imagine yourself kneeling down as Christ lifts his hands and speaks words of God’s blessing into your life.

In the Old Testament, we saw that the blessing was more than just kind words expressing best wishes for the future. Jacob was prepared to deceive in order to get his father’s blessing, because the blessing was a prophetic statement of what God would do through a person’s life. When Isaac’s blessing was given to Jacob, it was irreversible. God’s hand would be on Jacob and on his children, and this man would be used to fulfill the purposes of God. That’s what Jacob wanted.

Now Christ raises his hands over the disciples and imparts his blessing to them. God’s anointing would be on them, and they would be used to fulfill his purposes.

The Ascension speaks to both the completed work and the continuing work of Christ. His completed work is the work of offering a sacrifice for sin. Jesus ascended to the Father, and the Bible says that “when he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven” (Hebrews 1:3).

The priests in the Old Testament never sat down. There was a table and a lamp in the Tabernacle, but there was no chair. This was a visual reminder that the priest’s work was never done. But Christ’s sacrificial work is finished. There is nothing more that needs to be done to satisfy the wrath of God and release his forgiveness. That work is complete, and that is why Christ sat down.

But there is also work that continues: Christ will go on blessing his people until he returns. “He lives forever to intercede” for us (Hebrews 7:25). If you belong to him today, you can be sure that Christ is sitting at the right hand of the Father with his hands raised, not in anger, but to bless you.

For further reading, see Hebrews 1