He Ascended into Heaven

As Forerunner and Paraclete

“I Go to prepare a place for you,” Jesus said. Not otherwise could the Unseen have become real to those who loved Him. ‘‘ We know not whither Thou goest,” so had they spoken. But when He uttered those illuminating words, a shaft of golden light fell on all the future. He was going to the Father’s House; there were many mansions there; He was about to prepare a place for them; and where He was in the Unseen Holy, there also would they be. And it was enough.

How strange and wonderful the distant metropolis seems to the people of a remote and desolate coast, to which the postman comes but once a week, and in which the scream of the railway whistle never sounds. The mother of a fisherman’s orphaned children mentions its name with a strange awe, as she recounts on winter evenings what she has heard of its splendour, its wealth, its sin, its nameless perils. But presently one of her boys goes there in a coasting barque, and returns with stories of all he has seen, and the

distant becomes near, and the unfamiliar less 121 9 — (2516)

strange and terrible. Finally, if one of the boys settles there, and writes often of all that he is doing, and says that he is making money and getting on, that he is preparing a home for those he loves, and will never be content until they come to him, and goes on to describe the arrangements which he is making by which all the tastes and idiosyncrasies of his loved ones will be perfectly consulted and met, then for the whole family that distant city is almost as familiar and dear as their native cottage with its peat smoke and cow byre.

It is thus that Jesus has invested the Unseen World with the tenderest associations for those who believe in God, and believe also in Him. Somewhere, and not far away, He is. The blue curtains of the sky barely conceal Him. He is moving to and fro, engaged on our behalf in making our future home as fit as possible for the natures which He is training for their new environment. As the bird prepares the nest for her brood, as the wild beast of the forest prepares its lair for its young, as the human mother for months before the child is born prepares for its needs, so that nothing is required by the little helpless babe that tender foresight has not anticipated, so the Lord Jesus is preparing for us things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.

It may be asked, is there any proof that the Ascended Lord is thus engaged on our behalf? Surely there is, in the fact that His influence is continually making itself felt in the realms of human thought and action. By His Spirit Jesus is always influencing the course of events on the shifting scenes of earthly history. Every revival of religion that moves the heart of the Church, every advance in missionary enterprise, every fresh accession of light on the great problems of eternity, every new prophet or teacher which stirs the heart of the listening crowd, is the gift of the Ascended Christ, and the proof that He lives and cares. ‘He gave” (may we not add, He gives?)‘‘ some, Apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.”

There is a yet more personal proof that the Ascended Christ is deeply interested in the well-being of His Church. “‘ Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” He receives gifts for us, and bestows them on us — on every one of us.

When a desire awakens in the heart it is a proof that there is some good thing in store, which will make our nature fuller and richer than ever. Apart from the entrance of that desire, we might fail to look for or wish the perfecting of our character and the fulfilment of our destiny. But wherever there is such desire, it is the certain evidence that the supply of its craving awaits us in the Ascended Christ. The spirit of evil may offer some lower form of gratification, but if we dare to refuse it and wait only upon God, if we claim and appropriate the unseen but infinite supply from the Hands of our Lord, if we persist in affirming our possession and in thanking Him that we have received — we shall have ever new and repeated proofs that Jesus lives for us in God’s presence as the channel of the Divine

supply.