A Word in Season: When He Returns (Acts 1:11)

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After our Lord Jesus had risen from the dead, he appeared to his disciples over a span of forty days on various occasions.

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At the end of that period he was with them on the Mount of Olives. They were still concerned about the coming of the kingdom, and yet on that occasion he was telling them that they needed to wait in Jerusalem until the promise of the

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Father was granted to them, that he would give them the Holy Spirit and with him power and they would be witnesses to him in Jerusalem and in all

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Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And having given them those last assurances and promises, the

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Lord Jesus Christ was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.

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It must have been an absolutely stunning occasion. So often in scripture the glory cloud is the point of meeting between heaven and earth, and the

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Lord Jesus in his glorified body ascends bodily into the heavens and is swallowed up by this bright glory cloud.

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It's no wonder that the disciples remained gazing up into heaven. It's no wonder that they weren't sure what was going to happen next.

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They had no doubt that these things were real, they were happening before their very eyes. These are not fairy stories, this is not the equivalent of the

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Greek or Roman or any more modern myths from any part of the world.

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They were looking at their saviour who had risen from the dead and he disappeared from their sight.

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And then those two angels, men in bright clothing, they were speaking to them as the men of Galilee and they asked why do you stand gazing up into heaven?

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Perhaps they're asking in effect, didn't you hear what he just said? You know what you need to do, you know where you need to go, you know what's going to happen next, you need to go back to Jerusalem and you need to wait for the promise of the

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Father, you need to wait and then you need to work. But they gave them this assurance, this

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Jesus, this very Jesus, the man that you have known over these years, the man that you saw die, the man that you have seen raised from the dead, the one who has just gone into heaven to sit at the right hand of his

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Father, this very Jesus, this man, he who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven.

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Now I don't know if you have seen what are called God rays sometimes,

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I think the language is a little bit casual but there's something in it that captures something of this, the light shining from behind the clouds, usually those great rolling grey clouds but through the gaps up there in the atmosphere the sun is penetrating and you get these shafts, these beams of light that split the darkness.

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Well it's a far cry from the glory cloud but it might give us some sense of what will happen at the last day, because as Christ was ascending into heaven so then he will descend from heaven, in the glory with which he was received with that same glory and we might say and then some he will come again, we will see him as he is, he will come in his glory with his angel hosts with him to sit on the throne of his glory and a

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Christian is persuaded that these things are so, though the world may despise and mock even when they hear of the resurrection of the dead let alone the return of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, though they may say where is the promise of his coming after all things go on as they always have done yet the believer knows, believes and therefore expects that at some point

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Jesus Christ the same one who was taken from his disciples into heaven will come in the same manner as they saw him go.

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That is the day that we are looking for, it's why we say come Lord Jesus, it's why we live the way we do in that expectant hope and longing.

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We don't know when it will happen but we do know that it will, that it must because God has promised it so let us not lose sight of that hope, it doesn't mean we are always walking around looking up but one day we will and we shall see him returning for his people.